Tuesday 22 November 2016

Marketing Mix: EA GAMES (ELECTRONIC ARTS)


EA GAMES (ELECTRONIC ARTS)

Introduction into the world of EA GAMES
You can not talk about the gaming industry without talking about EA Games. EA  are one of the biggest gaming companies in the world producing over thousands of games since its inception in 1982. According to statista (2015), EA is the 6th largest gaming company with a revenue of $3.25 Billion. EA  were one of the first gaming companies to start producing games in the early years of computers. They make tons of games which are released on a yearly basis. EA was established in 1982 by  Trip Hawkins, formally an employee of Apple Inc. who was the  Director of marketing. Since then they have been making games and never looked back.


EA began to really make it big during the 1990s with games like Fifa,NHL Hockey and Madden NFL. These games are what really put EA on the map. With the acquisition of small key gaming companies such Dreamworks, Mythic, Westwood and Maxis during the late 1990s, pushed EA to the top. EA had various brands baring the EA logo.


EA Big was created in 2000 for extreme sport games and was discontinued in 2008, after 8 years of extreme games, such as, Fifa street, SSX, NBA streets and NFL streets. EA today are one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. Everyone knows who EA games are now and they aren't stopping just there. EA have now tapped into the E-sport market, a market that is half a billion dollars and with different branches all over the globe all producing various games to satisfy every kind of customer, from family games to sports, EA will continue to grow bigger for years to come.



PRODUCT
According to google (2016) “a product is an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale”. It can also be said in marketing terms that, products are “everything, both favorable and unfavorable, tangible and intangible, received in an exchange of an idea, service or good”’ (S. Dibb, L. Simkin, W. M. Pride and O.C. Ferrell: Marketing concepts and strategies 6th edition 2012). In the case of EA, their products are mainly the games they produce, below are some example of EA products:    
      

  


TYPES OF PRODUCTS
Products can be grouped into two types: Consumer products and Business or Industrial Products. Basically consumer products are products that are purchased by the consumer and business products are purchased by a company or an organization in bulk.

CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Consumer products are widely accepted approach to classifying products (S. Dibb, L. Simkin, W. M. Pride and O.C. Ferrell 2012). It usually relies on the consumer buying behavior. Consumer product are divided into four categories, 1) Convenience products, 2) Shopping products 3) Specialty products and 4) Unsought Products. In some cases one product can fit into more than one category.

Convenience Products: These kinds of products are inexpensive and are bought everyday. These sorts of product range from Magazines, Newspapers, chocolate chewing gum, petrol etc. Usually the consumer uses less effort to purchase this or doesn’t think too hard before purchasing these kinds of products. Even buyers who want a specific brand are ready to choose a different type if theirs isn’t around.

Shopping products: These products are carefully chosen than convenience products, buyers spend lots of effort looking for specific brands, shops, quality, services, prices and sometimes guarantees. For example people prefer EAs FIFA games to Konamis Pro Evolution soccer because to most FIFA games are more realistic than Pro Evolution Soccer. If FIFA is out of stock from their various retail shops, they would not go in for any substitute but go to another shop and look for where FIFA is sold at.
Pes stands for PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER.

People lining up for the  new Playstation.

Specialty Products: These products have something different or a unique characteristic which buyers will go extreme lengths sometimes to obtain that product. Buyers carefully plan; they know exactly what they want and will get it at any cost (S. Dibb, L. Simkin, W. M. Pride and O.C. Ferrell 2012). A typical example was when Playstation decided to release their latest tech, the Playstation VR. 


Unsought products:  Shawn Grimsley of study.com (2015) said “An unsought product is a product of which consumers are unaware or are not that interested in actively pursuing for purchase. A high degree of marketing, including heavy advertising and aggressive sales techniques, is often necessary due to consumer unawareness of the product or no real desire to purchase it”. Example of unsought products are life insurance, Accident Insurance, prepaid funeral plans.


BUSINESS PRODUCTS
Business products are sold to other companies or to other businesses as opposed to consumer products (boundless.com 2016). Business products contain the raw material, the major equipment, the accessory equipment, the component parts, process materials, consumable supplies and the industrial or business service

          Raw Materials: Raw materials are the basic materials that are used in making the products. These may include wood, chemicals, agricultural products etc. In the case of EA, the raw materials in making their games may vary since their games are both on CDs and digital (downloaded). EAs raw material could be the artists imagination, since they will draw the characters that are needed for the game. 

          Major Equipment: These are large tools or equipment that are used in the production process such as computers and software that are made for specific functions or tuned to make specific things. For instance, EA uses the “Frostbite” game engine to design FIFA for all platforms (Playstation, Xbox, Nitendo and PC), this engine basically provides all the physique, player visuals and the actions needed in the game.

                 Accessory Equipment: According to Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2012 p.303 ), these are equipment that do not become part of the final physical product, but it is used in production or office activities. These can be the telephone systems, the internet service, stationary supplies, etc.

                Component Parts: These are parts that become part of the physical products, that are finished or need little processing before assembly. Although they DO become part of the finished products, they are often easily identified. For instance what is used to make game cases  polypropylene plastic
        
      Process Materials: They are materials that are directly used in production of other products. Unlike how component parts are physical, these products are products that are not really identified in the finished  product, but they form part of the finished product.

  Consumable Supplies: These are supplies that facilitate production and operations but do not become part of the finished product (Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell 2012 p.303). Some examples are pencils, paints in some cases papers that are use to draw the characters and story-line.

Industrial/business services: “Business services is a general term that describes work that supports a business but does not produce a tangible commodity. Information technology (IT) is an important business service that supports many other business services such as procurement, shipping and finance” (Margaret Rouse, 2015).


         This how EA make their FIFA  games.


THE LEVELS OF PRODUCTS
Gamers or just people who love games know what kind of benefits and services to expect when they buy EA product. The EA network or as it’s called “EA Access” brings people together from all around the world, to communicate and play against each other. With every game they produce EA always have the customer in mind, how to make the game better, and every year this CORE part of the level of product, is always improved and makes people want to purchase their products. “Core products are a company's products or services which are most directly related to their core competencies. They refer to the use, benefit or problem-solving service that the consumer is really buying when purchasing the product”(Wikipedia 2016).
The EA brand has gone through some changes over its inception in 1982. From its logo to its motto. The name Electronic Arts is a recognized brand name around the world. Its famous motto that appears when the player is about to play a sport game “EA Sports, it’s in the game” has become somewhat like a brand name in some sense that EA customers identify themselves with. Their game packaging for some notable games such as FIFA and Madden are always anticipated every single year because every one wants to see who graces the cover of their beloved game. The packaging is designed to protect the CDs , a manual on how the game works and the  different  platforms that it’s going to be played on.  An ACTUAL product is said to be Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2012 p.304) that “A composite of the features and capabilities offered in a product, quality and durability, design and product, styling, packaging and brand name”.









One of the best things about games in general is that, you do not need to necessarily go to a retailer, because it can be bought online and that means it is accessible, can be carried  everywhere or played anywhere at any time as long as you have internet connection. But people still go to retailers or go directly to EA to purchase their products. The AUGMENTED part of EA product do all they can to satisfy the customer, especially as I mentioned earlier, EAs network for gaming, EA Access. EA Access, just doesn’t help connect gamers and people but it helps when the customer has a problem with the game and it delivers 24/7 help online, it is fast and can also be accessed everywhere no matter where you are. Some game prices differ sometimes, for instance for a product like FIFA 17, there are different versions; there’s the standard edition which costs less, there is the deluxe edition and super deluxe edition. All bring different things together. i.e. the super deluxe edition is the most expensive one. According to Investopedia.com (2016) “An augmented product is a commodity that has both the primary physical attributes and the non-physical attributes that are added to increase the product's value
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/augmented-product.asp#ixzz4QXtoJNxo 


PRODUCT LINE/PRODUCT MIX
To talk about PRODUCT MIX we first have to know what PRODUCT LINES are. Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2012 p.305) said  "A product line is a group of closely related product  items that are considered a unit because of marketing  technical or end-use consideration". For example Fifa 15, Madden 16, Battlefield 1, NBA 16, are all product lines of EA. “A company/organization creates a group of products, which has in common most of their main characteristics”( Senthilnathan Srinivasan, Linkedin.com, 2016). In other words the total range of products offered by a company is the product mix. Below is the various depth and width  of EAs Product Line and Mix
The Product Line depth are the different games that EA make, and the Product Mix width are the different genre of games EA have 

PROMOTION
Investopia.com (2016) says, “promotion refers to a different sort of advancement”. The economic times (2016) also says “Promotions refers to the entire set of activities, which communicate the product, brand or service to the user. The idea is to make people aware, attract and induce to buy the product, in preference over others”. From time to time EA reduces the prices of their game as a  promotion. The most notable ones are the demos. When there’s a new game about to be released, EA give out free demos, for customers to try the new game and to have a feel of the game before they buy it.  
SALES PROMOTION
One way which EA games  do their sales promo
From the picture at the top this shows some kinds of  sale promo EA have incorporated, by price reductions on their hottest games. Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2012 p.563) said that “Sales promotion is an activity or material that acts as a direct inducement and offers added value to incentive to buy the product”.

 They also have these kinds of promotions, where they place a free game in the box of the platform the customer is going to buy and play on. Usually the price of the console isn’t affected by the free game.
An example of  EAs  sale promotion

SALES PROMOTION METHODS
There are various methods of promotion, and EA adopts a few in their organisation. We shall take a look at some of the various methods EA uses.

Coupons: EA uses the coupon methods, it is used by mostly one of their online resources called Origin, which is owned and developed by EA. They usually give coupons to purchase in-game stuff or reduction on latest games. Coupons are made to reduce the purchase price of an item in order to make the buyer try new stuff and that’s what origin does for EA.

How EA uses Coupons in their sale promo

EA Origin 

Demonstration event of Star Wars: Battlefront, An EA game 
Demonstration: Usually demonstration for any game or EA products are really big events because they just don’t give a demonstration about the new game that's about to be launched, they are fully loaded with lots of things to explore at the events. Demonstrations show how the game looks like, how it feels like and when it will be out in some cases.  Basically demonstrations “shows the performance of a product in actual use conditions, or encourages trial purchase and use of the product for evaluation by the customer” (Businessdictionary.com 2015).
 
Free Samples: Free samples are like free trials for a product to increase its sales in the early stages of a product. Free trials are always seen when there are new games. This can be seen when EA was releasing their latest installment for Sims. There was a duration for which the buyer had to play and it’s called “Game time”. If the time runs out and the buyer feels like it’s a good game, he or she either goes on to EAs Origin and buys it or goes to a retail shop to get the game.


SPONSORSHIP
“Sponsorship is a form of marketing in which a corporation pays for all or some of the costs associated with a project or program in exchange for recognition” (Investopia.com 2016).
One of EAs brands (EA Sports) are proud sponsors of the Barclays premier league. Just this year they renewed their contracts to go for another 2 years with the Barclays Premier League. https://www.easports.com/fifa/news/2016/premier-league-partner . They just don’t sponsor the premier league, they also sponsor the Spanish Premier League: La Liga.























PLACE
The distribution channels of EA is quiet a large one, since it is a very big organisation with different companies doing their own thing. According to Wikipedia (2016) “ a distribution channel or marketing channel  is a set of practices or activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It is the way products and services get to the end-user, the consumer”. As said before, EAs distribution channel is really  big and since it’s a big organisation with companies situated in different parts of the world, each company does its own thing and has its own way of distribution.
EA is located in 30 countries across the world, each of them do different things. Usually the distribution is done from the producer (EA), to the wholesaler, retailer and then to the buyer, which Dibb, Smkin, Pride and Ferrell (2012 p.422) labelled it as channel ‘C’.  
One of the many various stores where games are sold




EA are trying to refer from this kind of distribution and go into the e-commerce.  “E-commerce refers to the purchase and sale of goods and/or services via electronic channels such as the Internet” (Businessnewsdaily.com 2015). More and more games are being sold online on Origin (EAs digital distribution network) and other gaming companies  sell their games on EAs Origin.  http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/ea-promises-to-go-totally-digital-for-game-distribution-in-the-future-1087894 .
 
Also, EA distributes to other online shopping platforms such as Amazon,  Playstation network, Googles playstore, Apples Itunes, Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, etc.

Majority of people still prefer to buy games on discs, in fact an overwhelming number. “Of EA's $4.3 billion in sales last year, a record $2.2 billion came from Internet sales of both full games and add-ons. Sales from EA's growing library of titles for smartphones and tablets also hit a new record, ringing up $524 million for the year” (Cnet.com 2016). What does this mean? It means EA has the digital market aspect down and very soon games would just be bought online. Which will not make retailers really happy at that point.



PRICE
As we know about price, price is basically the value placed on what is exchanged. This is the famous Billionaire Warren Buffet and he said something about price and value, he said “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get”.  EA games over the years have gone through some scrutiny over their games being over-priced. But people still end up buying their games because customers know they are getting great value for their money.



SETTING PRICES
Before EA games set a price for a particular game, first of all we have to look at the stages of how the games prices are set.

The first part is DEVELOPMENT. This part is the first stage of any game, where the game is developed and it isn’t the most costly step. Although some games which are developed now are estimated to be from $50 million to $500 million. That’s blockbuster movie budget right there. EAs FIFA 16 was estimated to cost about $350 million. Just for a game that will cost roughly about £60.

The next stage is LICENSING. At this stage, money is spent  on licensing the  games intellectual properties  and also licensing the platforms in which it will be played on. Before any game is published by EA, they'd first have to pay some money to the platforms that they are going to produce the games on. The other part is paying for the rights to be able to use characters logos and names  in the game such as FIFA, NBA, NFL, 007 JAMES BOND etc.

  
The next part is MARKETING. This aspect is the most expensive part in publishing a game. It usually starts from when the game is developed till it is shipped. According to gameindustry.biz (2012), “EA spent $2.75m on Facebook ads for Battlefield 3.” And that’s only on Facebook not on all the other social media platforms. This aspect involves advertisement, publicity and sometimes direct marketing.


The last part is DISTRIBUTION. At this stage the game is then sold to a wholesaler. EA gives the price to the wholesaler who then would buy for roughly £30-£40 per unit (ign.com 2014), who then sells it to the retailer. EA set the prices for the games, and then a little bit extra is added to the price by the retailers. https://gamerant.com/video-game-prices-breakdown-514/  
A retail shop

PRICE COMPETITION
Price competition and competition itself is quiet a huge deal in the gaming industry. Its either the other is trying to outsell each other or it's who has the best quality in terms of graphics and game play. Dibb, Simkin, Pride, Ferrell (2012 p.596) defined price competition as; “A policy whereby a marketer emphasizes price as an issue and matches or beats the prices of competitors”. EA is a big organisation, and they have lots of other big organisations that they are in competition with in terms of price and quality. One which is notable to every gamer are the first-person shooter games of Activision and EA. Activision is also another big gaming company and they are the makers of the famous: Call Of Duty franchise and EA is also known for the making of Battlefield. Call Of Duty has been at the top of First-Person Shooter (FPS) games for some time now, but EAs Battlefield games are giving them a run for their money. This year, EA and Activision both released their latest installment of their various FPS games which are Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Call Of duty sold more copies but Battlefront had a lot of good reviews.   

Both games are competing hard, especially in quality wise and price http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/battlfield-1-vs-infinite-warfare





CONCLUSION
Electronic Arts have come a long way from their humble beginnings, they have blended into a market where it continues to grow. Technology is the new way to marketing and EA being one of technologies masterpieces are ahead of the game.

EAs marketing mix is one that should be studied closely. The use of people in the work place(developers and employees)  and in their distribution is really essential to the organizations' progress. The process which new games come every single year and delivered to the customer over the years have been improving because of technology. EAs marketing mix heavily involves the use of social media and that is why Electronic arts will remain one of biggest organisations in the technological market for sometime to come.

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