• Double turnover: Clever cross-selling connects gaming and eCommerce
• deal united presents monetization concept at the GamesCom 2010 hall 4.2, booth A-013

How can online retail marketing be successfully combined with online gaming? At this year’s GamesCom in Cologne, deal united will present new marketing approaches for increasing profits in both business areas.

According to the study by greentube and gamematrix published in July, casual gamers don’t just congregate on the net to play games, but also to shop. deal united’s business model makes use of this fact — to the advantage of the eCommerce and gaming industries. PAY.BY.SHOPPING, the reward shopping platform for monetization of digital and virtual goods, develops cross-selling campaigns for games publishers in cooperation with renowned advertising partners such as buecher.de, OTTO and myToys. Gamers receive a fixed amount in virtual currency as a bonus for their respective online game when they shop with one of our partners. The virtual currency then allows them to buy additional functions for their characters.

Online Retailers Gain Customers

Dr. Jarg Temme CEO deal united

“Our advertising partners pr0vide the shopping deals. Every gamer who finds their way to the shops via an online game and makes a purchase and receives a bonus,” says Jarg Temme, CEO of deal united. The so-called PAY.BY.SHOPPING campaigns are intended to strengthen the bond between gamers and games while increasing profits in gaming and online retail. “Games offer great potential for growth in sales that has not yet been fully exploited by any means. Through the cooperation with well-known online shops, it is easier to get gamers interested in fee-based features in a game. At the same time, online retail acquires more new customers.”

In-game messages, pop-unders, banners and buttons grab gamers’ attention and notify them of the deals . PAY.BY.SHOPPING campaigns are an ideal long-term conversion solution and are particularly effective for garnering revenue during seasonal events like Mother’s Day and Christmas, allowing games publishers to profit from popular yet unrelated events.  “Special offers, for example for Mother’s Day or the summer sales season, are very popular. The games provider decides how long the cooperation with the advertising partners will last,” Temme explains further.

Conversations at GamesCom

deal united is presenting our marketing concepts for games publishers and online retailers from the August 18-22 at the GamesCom in Cologne (hall 4.2, stand A-013). Conversations and interviews are possible at any time upon agreement.

Company contact:
deal united
Daniela Reichert
daniela.reichert@dealunited.com
t: +49 (0) 89 381 535 868

PR agency contact:
Agentur Frische Fische
Anja Gorille
anja.gorille@frische-fische.com

An example for a possible gamecard campaign

A wide range of different online games are flourishing on the market right now, but among the most popular are the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Not all MMORPGs are created alike, however, as some are free to play while others cost a monthy subscription fee. In this article, we’ll talk mostly about the subscription-only games.

Subsciption MMORPGs

The most famous representatives of this genre are titles like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Eve Online, Aion or Dark Age of Camelot. For all of these games, the player has to pay a monthly fee in order to play the game. If they don’t pay, the account is frozen. The player doesn’t play and the game provider loses that revenue. Of course if enough accounts are frozen, the game provider could take a hard hit, and after a certain point, the game might have to be shut down. From a business and survival standpoint, it’s vital to keep players loyal, reactivate frozen players and prevent future freezes.

deal united can help you there. The following options show how deal united’s marketing solution Pay4you can be integrated into your game or payment area, helping you increase revenue by reactivating former players gaining new players and keeping current players in the game. The principle is always the same: Offer the player free bonus for shopping online with deal united’s well-known advertising partners. Don’t worry, you’re not giving anything away. Whatever you offer, whether it’s virtual currency or special game features, will be paid for by a portion of the purchase that the customer makes.

A possible banner advertisment for free playtime

Option 1: Offer a Free Game Card

Most MMORPGs offer a game card that allows customers to play for two or three months until the card expires. With deal united, game developers can offer a game card for free and motivate players to stick to the game. Players can be addressed by ­­in-game messages, with banners on the game home page, via emails or in the game card payment area. Admit it: the idea of getting free game time by buying something you’d buy anyway is pretty tempting, huh?

Option 2: Reactivate Former Customers with Email Campaigns

Former customers are players who stopped paying the monthly fee and froze their account. To motivate these players to return to the game, they can be addressed with a free game card or email campaigns offering free play time. Some players will return to the MMORPG because of a deal and stay because they remember how great it is.

Option 3: Offer the Full Version of Your Game for Free

Most MMORPGs offer a free trial for players to test the game, usually for ten days. After that, players can upgrade to the full version. With deal united, you can give users the opportunity to receive this upgrade for free if they purchase from one of our advertisers. This keeps new players in the game and means you still get paid for their uprgrade, even though they get it free.

Benefits of deal united’s marketing solutions:

• Reactivate former players with free play time
• Motivate players to play your game by offering bonuses
• Gain new players with special offers that other games don’t have
• No cost to merchants — integration and deals don’t cost you a thing

>>>> Read more in Part 2: Free to Play MMOGs