Monday, July 27, 2009
Comic Con ‘09: Bayonetta GPV [PS3/360]
Looking good. Import this October or wait for January…
How to make money selling new games [Commentary]
In response to the news that Best Buy is going to enter into the used game business because they are trying to make their video game retail business more profitable I have a simple 5 step plan that could increase their game revenue without having to enter the short sighted practice of selling used games (thus robbing the developer and the poor user who sold you the game but lining the retailers pocket with much gold. In the short term making a ton of money but ultimately forcing the publishers into digital distribution and voila: no more EBgameStop!).
How to sell more than 5 titles a year:
1. Knowledgeable Staff - your employees should know more than the average customer not less. How many times has a video game store employer stared blankly or asked “what system is that for?” when you requested any game but the latest blockbuster. Sales will increase when an employee can link a person’s request with other games - if you liked that, you’ll probably love this (people were doing this in real life way before amazon.com did it! Dumb employee’s don’t help!)
2. Organize Your Stock - it’s pretty obvious that a wall full of playstation games organized by alphabet (if that) is not going to help the browsing walk-in consumer. Try organizing your stock by genre: FPS section, Action Games section, Racing section, Madden section, Super Hero section etc… this actually works for other mediums like dvd’s and music - its really not as revolutionary as it sounds and you can still have your strictly alphabetized new releases section! Ironically enough, EBgameStop do it on their website.
3. Open up store copies to demo - who wants to plop down 60 bucks for something they haven’t even tried out. Have demo copies of everything (not just demoes of stuff people will buy anyway), you can even sell them - just remember to tell the consumer that it is a demo copy, if the game is good they won’t care.
4. Staff Picks - have your employees post what their favorite game of the week/month is, or a better yet post a list. This goes hand in hand with the 1st point - your workers have to know their games for this to work - heaven forbid your people will actually play games!
5. Sponsor contests - not only will this get people in the store, it gets people to buy the game. Give a way a gift certificate or something totally cheap for you but gold to your target market and see your in-store traffic balloon along with your sales.
Follow those 5 easy steps and you will see a sales increase and you’ll be selling games other than Halo, GTA, Madden - and brand new ones at that! Good for the industry, good for the consumer and in the long term good for you. There are more points, I’m sure, but those 5 are off the top of my head.
