|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Advertising
- Banner |
Customer
plays for free. Banner ads are displayed in some part of the game
|
- Customers
like getting content for free
- Banner ads relatively non-intrusive to gameplay |
Difficulty
in making profits with ad only |
- Ad agencies
- Online advertisers |
Fees from
advertisers |
Free
|
| Advertising
- In-product advertising |
Customer
plays for free. Products placements are built into game
|
- Customers
like getting content for free
- Ads are non-intrusive |
- Can
effect "suspension of disbelief"
- No "click-through" to capture customer interest
- Potential legal problems internationally |
- Ad agencies
- Online advertisers |
Fees from
advertisers |
Free
|
| Advertising
- Interstitial |
Customer
plays for free. Full screen ads run at various points in the game.
Banner ads run at end of game |
- Customers
like getting content for free
- Ads are high impact |
- Difficulty
in selling ads
- Ad revenue does not cover expenses
- Does not work for twitch games |
- Ad agencies
- Online advertisers |
Fees from
advertisers |
Free
|
| Advertising
- Sponsorship |
Game site
is tied to a sponsor that wants to collect information (demographics,
e-mail addresses, etc.) or access to the game's customers
|
- Advertising
is non intrusive
- Value of having direct customer contact is exploited
- The original TV "soap opera" model (soap companies sponsoring
day time TV shows)
|
- Difficulty
in finding and signing sponsor
- Reliance on one company
|
Large
consumer product or service organizations |
Upfront
fee plus monthly maintenance fee from sponsor |
Free
|
|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Advertising
/ Subscription hybrid |
Customers
that do not want to see advertising pay a monthly fee, others
see ads |
- Revenue
from ads and subscription
- Different models for different customers
|
Cost of
running both models |
- Ad agencies
- Online advertisers |
Fees from
advertising |
Free or
monthly subscription charge |
| Bounty
|
Fee is
paid to publisher for delivering a customer |
- Addition
of ISP sign-up software can be seen as benefit to consumer
- Very little cost to publisher |
- Difficult
to project revenue
- No annuity revenue stream |
- ISPs-
OSP |
Per Unit
Bounty once customer meets minimum set by company paying bounty
|
Free
|
| Cable
TV model - Pay per View |
Customer
pays for content on an as-purchased basis. |
Cable
company has on-going billing relationship with customer.
|
- ISPs/OSPs
currently not profitable.
- ISPs/OSPs not interested in model. |
- ISPs/OSPs
- In future, cable companies, satellite TV, phone companies
|
Percentage
of additional charge billed to customer |
Additional
charge for content consumed |
| Cable
TV model - Premium |
Customers
pay for monthly access to cable. ISP charges additional amount
for "premium" content. Additional fee back to premium content
providers. |
ISP company
has on-going billing relationship and revenue stream with customer.
|
- ISPs/OSPs
currently not profitable.
- ISPs/OSPs not interested in model |
- ISPs/OSPs
In future, cable companies, satellite TV, phone companies
|
Higher
monthly fee from ISP/OSP to publisher |
Additional
charge in addition to base monthly charge |
|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Cable
TV model - Regular |
Customers
pay for monthly access to cable. ISP companies pay monthly fee
to content providers |
ISP company
has on-going billing relationship with customer |
- ISPs/OSPs
currently not profitable
- ISPs/OSPs not interested in model |
- ISPs/OSPs
- In future, cable companies, satellite TV, phone companies
|
Small
monthly fee from ISP/OSP to publisher |
Monthly
connect charge |
| Free Gaming
- Sell products |
Customer
can play limited game for free. Publisher sells products to earn
revenue |
- Draw
in customers by not charging fees
- Try before you buy |
Perceived
value of gaming that is given away |
Fulfillment
house |
Revenue
from sale of products |
Price
of products purchased |
| Hybrid
CD-ROM with disk given away |
CD-ROM
is delivered to potential customer through some type partner.
Customer pays for full product through unlocking mechanism
|
- High
quality gameplay using CD-ROM assets
- High % of dollars back to developers |
- Distribution
is deal based
- Encryption can sometimes be broken |
OEMs,
magazines, game services, Direct mail |
Customer
pays direct to content provider |
Price
of full product set by publisher |
| Joint
Venture with company in need of content |
Set up
a business venture with a company that wants to get into online
gaming |
Diversify
risk, build on strengths, capacity |
Length
of contract negotiations |
- Developers
- ISPs/OSPs
Publisher |
Whatever
is negotiated |
N/A
|
|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Micro
transactions using digital cash |
Customer
is charged a small amount on a per usage basis |
- Customer
only pays for what they use
- If product is highly valuable to customer, revenues can be quite
high (rotisserie sports leagues) |
- Expensive
to track
- Quite a bit of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in market now
-Reaching customers can be difficult |
Providers
of digital cash products |
Amount
spent by customers minus transactions cost |
Cost of
games |
| On-Line
Service Provider exclusive |
Provide
content exclusively to large OSPs (AOL, CompuServe) |
- OSPs
have billing relationship with customers
- Access to a large number of on-line gamers |
- Flat-pricing
makes this model less lucrative than in past
- Only few companies are making large amounts. |
OSPs
|
Percentage
of fees collected by OSP |
Regular
monthly charges plus premium charges if applicable |
On-line/Retail
Hybrid
(Berkeley System 's You Don't Know Jack and Bezerk) |
CD-ROM
sold at retail. On-line advertised supported. Both cross-sell
each other |
- Customers
like it
- Seamless
- Retail synergy
- Fixed and on-line media meet different needs |
- Sales
process
- Product development
- Not for twitch
- Developer return on investment |
- Ad agencies
- Commercial buyers |
- Advertising
revenue for on-line
Wholesale price of CD-ROM |
- Free
for on-line
- Retail price of CD-ROM. |
| Pay For
Features |
Customers
that have "more money than time" can purchase bullets, weapons,
currency, lives etc. |
- Meets
needs of customers that do not have time to accumulate all of
the items they desire
- Gives customers additional options
- Earn revenue in small incremental amounts |
- Mixed
response from the customers with "More time than money"
|
Digital
cash providers |
Fees from
customer for things they buy |
Fee to
developer / publisher |
|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Prizes,
promotions give aways |
Play for
free. Drive visits by giving away prizes |
Strong
consumer interest can drive high viewership |
Constantly
searching for prizes |
- Ad agencies
- Companies that can provide promotions |
Advertising
revenue |
Free
|
| Retail
only |
Generate
revenue by selling product at retail. Offer on-line gameplay or
network play as value add to customer |
- Retail
is proven way to generate revenue
- No problems with download times |
- No ongoing
revenue stream after retail sale, plus on-going cost of maintaining
servers
- Difficulty of retail sales |
Publisher
of retail products |
Percentage
of wholesale price of product |
- Cost
of retail product.
- No on-going fees |
| Retail
plus connect charges |
CD-ROM
is sold at retail. Ongoing charge for connect time |
- Retail
is proven revenue generator
- On-going revenue stream from connect fees |
- Out
of the box experience
- Customer feels they are getting hit twice |
Retailer,
publishers, ISP |
- Wholesale
cost of retail product
- Sale of merchandise |
- Retail
price of box
- Connect charges |
| Sell game
at retail and outsource on-line |
Sell CD-ROM
with network gameplay but then outsource the network maintenance
to avoid costs of maintaining game servers. |
Provide
on-line opportunities for customers without the cost |
No back-end
revenue from on-line usage |
- On-line
game companies
- Companies with expertise managing game servers |
Wholesale
price of retail product |
Retail
price of product |
|
Business Model
|
Description
|
Strengths
|
Weaknesses
|
Possible Partners
|
Revenue to Developer / Publisher
|
Cost to Customer
|
| Subscription
|
Customer
pays a hourly, monthly or annual subscription to have access to
games |
- On-going
revenue stream to customer
- Greater commitment and buy-in as customer is paying for product
|
- Initial
downloads of game files are barrier to customers
- Customer unwillingness to pay for that which they may be able
to get for free |
- On-line
gaming companies that pay royalties back to developers
- Companies offering micro tranactions |
Monthly
or annual subscription from customer |
Hourly,
Monthly or annual subscription |
| Subscription
Fee - Pay in Advance |
Customer
pays some type of subscription or usage fee. Funds are collected
in advance and customer is notified when funds are used up
|
- More
commitment
- No billing surprises
- Customer can control expenditures
- No problems in collecting from customers |
- Initial
downloads of game files are barrier to customers
- Customer unwillingness to pay for that which they may be able
to get for free |
On-line
gaming companies that pay royalties back to developers
|
Pre-Paid
fees from customer to developer / publisher |
Pre-paid
fees |
