Market Analysis - Assignment Example

Market Research and Analysis on the of the Online Shopping and Gaming Market The exponential growth of internet use across the world has brought with it the advent of online shopping and similarly disrupted the gaming market as more gamers opt to indulge in their passion over an internet connection. Just like in gaming, online shoppers can be categorized as either hardcore, moderate or the mass market segment. The first two categorizations are the key drivers of the online shopping and gaming market.

The later will only undertake online shopping to catch up with the times and similarly opt for games that are short in duration and easy to learn. Also worth to note is the eventual interaction between online shopping and the gaming market. Gamers continue to purchase their preferred games online as opposed to the traditional approach where games were mostly purchased over the counter. This will obviously affect such outcomes as packaging. Marketers will be forced to shift from their current packaging models that mostly involve compact disks and memory sticks to other packaging models that are friendlier to online shoppers.

Already, gamers are flooding social media sites to enable them to find fellow gamers and to indeed play a video game over the internet. Gaming coders are also ensuring that their games contain the requisite social media links so as gamers can share their progress and achievements over the social media sites and in the process contribute to marketing of the game. Mobile phones and tablets are the other market disruptors in the gaming market (Kammerlander, 2013). The current gaming sensation, Candy Crush, that boasts of over 45 million monthly users mainly derived from social media platforms.

The game is not available through traditional consoles but through mobile phones and tablets. Candy Crush has since been declared as the most addictive and popular social media games of all time. The Candy Crush statistics has since dwarfed those of the former contenders Angry Birds and Farm Ville. Since its launch in April 2012, the game has attracted over 550 million installations across Apple’s ios, Google’s Android and Facebook. Also notable is the fact that the game’s revenue model is mainly driven by an integrated online shopping platform where gamers can purchase extra lives and functions or even purchase more time in between the allowable lockout period that is applied after one fails to complete a particular level even after numerous repetitions.

King, the company that manufacturers Candy Crush receives $875,000 in revenues in a single business day by integrating the online shopping model in the game. Such is the marketing and business potential that integration between gaming and online shopping portends for any business. Repackaged games within the gaming consoles are also becoming popular as console manufacturers and game coders get into marketing and distribution partnerships (Jessica & Patrovsky, 2013). The launch of the Play Station 4 for example came with a number of repackaged games as game coding companies sought to take advantage of the publicity that the launch attracted to market some of their games.

As internet penetration rates continue to rise across the world, online shopping is also likely to increase as more and more shoppers opt to undertake their shopping at the comfort of their offices or living rooms. A similar scenario is applicable in the gaming market as more gamers and game manufacturers continue to abandon the traditional marketing approaches and embrace new strategies that entail collaboration with console manufacturers, extensive deployment of social media platforms, mobile devices and a more convenient packaging.

ReferencesInformation Resources Management Association., & Khosrow-Pour, M. (2006). Emerging trends and challenges in information technology management. Hershey, Penn: Idea Group.Jessica, Mulligan. & Patrovsky, Bridgette. 2013.”The Market for Online Games”. Peachpit.com. Retrieved from http://www.peachpit.com/articles Kammerlander, N. (2013). Organizational Adaptation to Discontinuous Technological Change.