Twitch TV
In response to Nunu’s blog “Video Games, The New Frontier,” I strongly agree with Nunu’s statements about the important business strategies associated with acquiring gaming companies, such as Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch.Tv, however, I would also like to emphasize the significance of these purchases. An article titled “Charting the Rise of Twitch,” shows that Twitch.tv was originally an non-existent website that has grown to become a dominant video game streaming website. Twitch channels are able to acquire over 300,000 viewers, numbers that Twitch.tv never anticipated, while streamers are able to amass millions of viewers over the course of years. While the article states that Twitch.tv has yet to surpass sites such as Youtube, the growth of Twitch.tv throughout the years signals the growing popularity of video games. Nunu further outlines Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang, the creator of the popular game Minecraft. While simple in play, Minecraft has become one of the most played games in the world. The number of Minecraft players surpassed a shocking number of 300 million since 2012 and is the most purchased game in App stores due to the simple yet diverse game play; Mojang successfully used the strategy of differentiation to provide an appealing and different experience for customers. In the video game industry, the idea of differentiation is very important since most games similar in price. Video games with original concepts, such as Minecraft, are able to rise in popularity. Games that are not able to differentiate themselves from existing video games will not be successful. Companies such as Microsoft and Amazon see the rapid growth of the video game industry and are taking initiatives to acquire these companies in order to, themselves, differentiate from competitors with a wider customer base. I believe that the battle of video games has only begun and with the evolving nature of technology, the variety of video games will only keep growing.
Sites:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/26/technology/charting-the-rise-of-twitch.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/07/11/riot-games-league-of-legends-officially-becomes-most-played-pc-game-in-the-world/
http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/ries-trout/positioning/
http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml