OK, our company is involved with a UK online game retailer - well, we designed their site! Now, they've just launched a new service that's aimed at hardcore gamers - the type of people who get a new game on the day of launch and have completed it in a matter of days or weeks. I'm not going to post the link here, just so I'm not accused of spamming (but if anyone's interested, just PM me).

Basically, I'm just after a bit of market research really - if you're a hardcore gamer, I'd welcome your opinions on whether you think the following is something you'd be interested in. It goes like this...

1. Register for a one-off price of £9.99
2. Pick any brand new PS3 or XBOX 360 game on the scheme for just £12.99, and add them to your wish list.
3. Games are delivered on the day of release, all retail packaging (no cheap cardboard inserts like some companies)
4. Keep it for up to a month, then send it back with nothing else to pay - you can send it back sooner if you complete it.
5. You can have up to 2 games out at any time, if you have 2 out already just send one back to get the next one on your wish-list.
6. No subscriptions or obligations to buy any amount of games per month. The only cost will be the joining price of £9.99.
7. Freepost envelopes supplied, so no postage costs.

Where this differs from the various rental schemes out there is you can have as many titles out per month, the only limitation is you can have no more than two titles out at the same time. This is obviously just to protect themselves from any problems with card payments - they may increase the amount later.

The guys behind this have done their research and think this is something that no one else is offering out there at that price, they believe it's a completely new concept (unless you know different). Their thinking is why pay £30-45 for a game only to have it sitting on a shelf after you've completed it - or have the hassle of selling it for a fraction of the price on eBay or high-street resellers. They realise it's probably not for everyone, but for the type of gamers they're hoping to attract, they believe it's something new and might even change the way hardcore gamers' play games. For the launch, they're concentrating on the XBOX 360 and PS3 platforms, but it might be expanded later on if it's successful.

Anyway, enough of this waffle, I don't want this to become an advertisement, but it's important that the details are clear to get a good indication of the results. If you consider yourself a hardcore gamer, I'd welcome your thoughts as to if this will interest you.

Cheers,
Steve.

It seems like a good idea for a lot of people. Personally I tend to keep a game for...well..ever.

All it needs is solid marketing but I imaging the profit per account is relatively low so they couldn't afford the marketing?

I buy all my games as I'm not a hardcore gamer and it could take me ages to complete just one as I'm so easily distracted

I understand:



and



But could you clarify:

Once registered, you get access to the available games on the scheme. You add ones you want into the reserved list and once it's released the next one on your list is shipped to you. You can edit the list at any time - add or delete them if you change your mind. Your credit card is only charged if they ship a game to you. All games are £12.99, regardless of platform or RRP.

Keep the game for up to 4 weeks, and then send it back with nothing else to pay - you can choose to keep the game if you wish, then you just pay the RRP (minus the £12.99 you've already paid). Although they don't really want you to keep them, the benefit of this scheme is you save money, and most hardcore gamers are only interested in completing the game once - in as little time as possible! It's kind of the kudos of completing it first among these people and their friends.

Most of these gamers will currently probably buy the game then after completing it will either stick it on a shelf gathering dust, or sell it at a lost on eBay or take it into Game - probably losing them more than the £12.99 they'd pay with this scheme. In time, they may drop the price to, say, £9.99 per game. But as this is a completely different model, they're just testing the waters with this launch to see if it'll catch on.

It's been an interesting job to work on, and I hope they've got their sums right and it's a success. Although gamers are very fickle people, so who knows...

Ah! After the clarification I kind of understand it more now.

I actually like the idea.

I once bought PoP on the PS2 and completed it in about 2 weeks. I then exchanged it for another game and (like you said) I made a loss on it.

There are obviously some games to which this model doesn't fit very well (FFXIII, GT5, etc...) but the fact that you can almost use it as a try before you buy is very nice.

i.e. pay £12.99 for the game to try it out then pay the remainder if you decide you want to spend time 100%-ing the game.

Hmmm ok

Right....
Still with you here
That isn't practical for some games and a month rental for £13 is VERY high

So it's £10 + £13 PER game I want to rent?
Expected for a rental service

This is not different, Lovefilm + franchises and swapgame operate this as an option

This works out VERY expensive compared to the other options

Lovefilm £18 a month unlimited games 3 at a time

Swapgame.com http://www.swapgame.com/video-game-rental-guide/ Works out a LOT cheaper, first month is half price, so you would have to rent practically nothing negating the use of it

TBH it sounds like the researchers didn't do much research. For sake of argument you rent 2 games in the first month, swapgame would cost £7.50 (and no time restriction) if returned in 1 month and £22.50 if 2 months, your site would be over £30

If you want to keep the game swapgame.com also offer the chance to buy the game at the pre-owned price (including if you got it on the day of release) if you do they send out a brand new box + manual to you. The game is then removed from the list so you can get another game. this is a much better option as you don't pay the RRP either, you pay the pre-owned price which for older titles means you save more. swapgame also lets you get 4 discs at a time after a period of time and also priority service to guarantee a game on the release date

You should ask to see the research, I know a lot of hardcore gamers who complete a game multiple times, for achievements, different endings etc, I think they need to look at what they are trying to do, as this is a very expensive way to deliver content and in all honesty a franchised option would be much more economical, less hassle and fewer overheads

One difference is all games are sent out in their retail packaging with manual with their site, whereas with pretty much all the other rental sites they've researched they only send the disc out in a cardboard sleeve with no manual (unless, as with swapgame, you choose to keep it). Their research suggests that gamers want the full retail packaging and the manual, even if they decide not to keep the game.

Most other schemes are subscription based too, I know ours has an up-front price of £9.99 to join, but after that you can choose to use it as much or as little as suits you. Think of the £9.99 as dead money, pay it once and forget about it. Some months you maybe won't want to get a game, there's no ongoing subscription price, no hassle with canceling your subscription etc. Just carry on the next month as before. Realistically, I think most gamers will struggle to complete more than 2 or 3 games per month - unless they're playing them 24/7.

The games in this scheme are carefully chosen titles - ones that usually have a definite start and ending point. It wouldn't really work for driving games, for example, or ones that don't have an end point.

I can see the benefits and downsides for both sale models, and it's interesting to hear people's views, it's all good stuff. That's what this thread is for, to see if they're pitching this right. They just launched this latest brand last week so it's all new, although they also have a well established parent site which sells games and accessories. You will likely have heard of the parent company, maybe even used them.

I really don't think the packaging is that important, they could instead save on postage costs (considering the difference in a letter and large letter is significant) by offering an online manual/cover service instead

I was looking at the upper end of subscription prices, swapgame starts at about £4 for one game per month, all it means is for each service that the research suggests there is a more economical method

say you complete 2 games per month:
Swapgame is £10 ish
your service is £26

say you complete 1 game every 2 months
Swap game is £8
your service is £26

Say you complete 4 games a month, 2 at a time (or just have a high turnover)
Swapgame is £15
Your service is £52

There is quite a difference there

What is their targeted customer? I can see it being a customer who signs up but never uses the service tbh

I'm not denying that swapgame's prices are good, but being subscription-based, you have to decide on a package upfront (can you change this from one month to the next?). Let's say you're on the cheapest level (£3.99 per month for one game) and then you want an extra game that month. Is there a penalty for that? Or, let's say you're paying £14.99 a month and you only get time to play one game that month - or worse still there's nothing new that you fancy that month. That's the downside with a subscription service I guess.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that their model is better than swapgame's (or others subscription models), if you choose a level and stick with your allocated amount of games per month then it works out cheap, there's no denying that. Thing is, life's not like that sometimes. Some months, you might want more than your allowed amount, sometimes other stuff gets in the way and you don't get your allocation. What if you go on holiday that month for example? Without reading swapgame's T's & C's I can't say if they're flexible enough to swap and change levels on a monthly basis, or if there are penalties if you want to move up or down a subscription level mid-month. The prices do seem very good, I just wonder how flexible they are in practice, that's all.

I suppose time will tell whether they've gone down the right route. They say they've done their sums and I have to respect that and trust their judgement - they've been in the game (no pun intended) long enough to know their customers. In fact, there's probably a large proportion of their existing customers who'll be sold on this new service - I guess that's who they're targeting initially, they also have a deal with GameSpot where they have reduced rates for banner ads on their site along with legitimate access to their email lists. If the deal's good enough, I guess they'll be successful. Maybe they'll decide in a few months that subscription model is the way ahead, who knows. We just designed the site, so have no influence over their decisions. I'll certainly be passing on the comments here and see if they were aware of swapgame's prices, maybe that will influence how their site evolves.

Thanks for your thoughts.

You can change it month to month just like lovefilm, you can AFAIK upgrade/downgrade at any time (presumably only so many times in a set period of time


Based on using lovefilm they were very flexible, they also allow holiday periods where you can return what you have then put the account on hold for a number of weeks so you aren't charged or receiving excess disks you can't use

If you want more than your allotted amount you go for the unlimited option, or reduce down to the single game per month choice


If they are only aiming at their customers it seems very short sighted, as there may be other potential customers they could easily target

There are also other companies who IIRC charge per game but don't have the upfront cost of £10 just to register, the paying to register to me reeks of the sites where you pay a fee then get a load of discount codes you could get elsewhere for free

I have a mixture of games. I have ones I tend to keep for a long time (e.g. Forza 3, Bad Company 2), games I pick up cheap to play casually when I can be bothered (e.g. Prince of Persia) and games I play to death on the day of release until completion then sell on/trade (e.g. Assassins Creed 2).

I paid full price for Assassins Creed (well the missus did for a birthday present) and traded it for £25 against another game a few weeks later. I guess with this example playing the £12.99 for a month would have worked out cheaper.

I'm still not sure though. I think my gaming varies too much to tie myself to any kind or rental (or other) service. It might be more expensive to buy games (in some instances) but then it offers me greater flexibility.

How long did Assassins creed take to finish though?

The real problem is the UK games market is very volatile, games drop in value very quickly. This kind of model would be better applied to the US market where they hold their value for longer