Second thoughts on Massive
Just as I close my window to my last post I thought about a few things which make Massive pretty interesting.
1. Audience - As widely reported earlier this year, television viewership is on the decline among young men, while the number of hours young men spend online has increased dramatically.
2. Incremental Revenue Stream - Most game developers are focusing on story line and (re)playability in order to maximize the interest in their title. Linking up with advertisers through Massive can be a low intrusion/medium revenue opportunity for these developers that can help boost bottom lines.
3. Trackability - Presumably Massive can track many different aspects of advertisements, ranging from minutes viewed, to number of players seeing an advertisement, to number of people clicking to learn more about that company (?). That last comment I put a question mark next to because a game doesn't seem like the natural place to have click throughs. But nonetheless, the advertising can be optimized to the particular title demographic. In addition, in a land of increasing transparency, the advertisers are able to more easily see the impact of their investment. Granted, none of this is new in an online environment, it's just a slightly different application.
4. First mover advantage - Who knows how this space will turn out... even if there are competitors and others who do very similar things, I think the fact that these guys are the first in this space with a considerable investment and presence will bode well for them. They seem to be led by some well qualified management and have some notable investors.
5. Lowered costs - spreading the advertising acquisition costs, the data storage costs, the development costs, and other associated costs helps all parties invovled.
6. New models - perhaps it's not so new, but many game developers are not able to charge for their games. If you look at Yahoo, MSN, or any of a dozen other major game sites, they are driving their revenue from advertising and low cost games. Massive could allow for a move robust game given the additional revenue dollars that could be generated and applied to game development.
Just a few thoughts. Please let me know if you agree or disagree.
1. Audience - As widely reported earlier this year, television viewership is on the decline among young men, while the number of hours young men spend online has increased dramatically.
2. Incremental Revenue Stream - Most game developers are focusing on story line and (re)playability in order to maximize the interest in their title. Linking up with advertisers through Massive can be a low intrusion/medium revenue opportunity for these developers that can help boost bottom lines.
3. Trackability - Presumably Massive can track many different aspects of advertisements, ranging from minutes viewed, to number of players seeing an advertisement, to number of people clicking to learn more about that company (?). That last comment I put a question mark next to because a game doesn't seem like the natural place to have click throughs. But nonetheless, the advertising can be optimized to the particular title demographic. In addition, in a land of increasing transparency, the advertisers are able to more easily see the impact of their investment. Granted, none of this is new in an online environment, it's just a slightly different application.
4. First mover advantage - Who knows how this space will turn out... even if there are competitors and others who do very similar things, I think the fact that these guys are the first in this space with a considerable investment and presence will bode well for them. They seem to be led by some well qualified management and have some notable investors.
5. Lowered costs - spreading the advertising acquisition costs, the data storage costs, the development costs, and other associated costs helps all parties invovled.
6. New models - perhaps it's not so new, but many game developers are not able to charge for their games. If you look at Yahoo, MSN, or any of a dozen other major game sites, they are driving their revenue from advertising and low cost games. Massive could allow for a move robust game given the additional revenue dollars that could be generated and applied to game development.
Just a few thoughts. Please let me know if you agree or disagree.
posted by Nathaniel McNamara | 5:39 PM
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