So I can only speak for myself, but back in the day I used to be quite good at video games – you know, the big stand alone game units that you could only find in arcades. Since then, I’ve tried to keep up with the home game consoles, but I must confess to having lost my skills.
These days I have to confine myself to an occasional run at Half-Life just to reassure myself that I still have it. Which brings up an interesting point, wouldn’t be be great to be a product manger at a video game company?
The Video Game Industry
If you are the type of person who is easily impressed by big numbers, then try this one out for size. The video game Grand Theft Auto IV brought in over $300M in a single day when it was released. That was double what the most recent Batman movie brought in the day that it opened.
The industry and its product managers do have their challenges – things are getting tougher. The cost and complexity of developing games are rising with every new release. Oh, and you can imagine just how fickle video game customers are – one bad release and your product line could be done for.
What Does It Take To Have A Successful Video Game Product?
Success in the video game industry depends on a combination of solid risk management and savvy research and development. This part of the business will never change. However, the way that video games are sold and how they are being distributed is undergoing a fundamental change that is affecting all product managers.
One new model for video game ทางเข้า ufabet ภาษาไทย manufacturers involves subscription online offerings. In this product offering, users can download the game code for free and then they pay a monthly charge to be allowed to connect to servers that generate the game playing environment where all subscribers can play at the same time.
One of the largest video game manufactures, Activision Blizzard, already generates more than $1B in revenue and more than $500M in profit from its World of Warcraft subscription business. Clearly this is the wave of the future.
Another new focus is what gaming experts are calling the “casual” market. This is how video game product managers are trying to expand their potential customer base – they are trying to create products that appeal to game players who don’t have a lot of time to learn complicated rules. One of the better examples of a popular casual game is Guitar Hero.