Next-Level Gaming: A portfolio Case Study
This article showcases my inaugural case study for a fictional gaming company named GameCo. The data analysis is conducted as a student of a Data Analytics Career Program.
Foreword
My very first project in data analysis turned out to leverage my past work experience and business-oriented mindset. Diving into the data for a fictional gaming company was appealing to me as a classic arcade and console gamer. The assignment initially seemed broad and unfocused, but I managed to set myself parameters to work within and found a strong angle to approach the challenge. Thanks to my natural tendency to seek explanations from multiple perspectives and dig deep into the numbers, I was able to uncover two specific, impactful findings.
The situation
The assignment is set in 2016 and laying out the scenario as follows:
The executive board of the fictional company GameCo is meeting at the beginning of Q4 to plan the marketing budget for the upcoming year. They’re assuming that sales for the various geographic regions have stayed the same over time, and they’ve asked you to look into the data to see if this is still true.
Drawing from my recent work experience at Spotify, I know how to navigate projects involving multiple stakeholders with distinct interests. To ensure I deliver actionable work that is meeting the needs of my audience, I start by identifying and prioritizing my primary stakeholders:
- The VP of Marketing aims to maximize ROI. They are focused on efficiently allocating the marketing budget and express a keen interest in identifying which game genres are performing best.
- The CFO seeks to identify growth opportunities. Monitoring competitors and the market share dynamics is crucial for identifying expansion avenues for GameCo. Additionally, these opportunities are vital metrics for investor communications.
- The Senior VP of Sales is intent on driving revenue at market level. Assessing market dominance is crucial for planning the appropriate ratio of sales representatives across the markets.
I plan to allocate one hour of face-time to present my findings, insights, and recommendations, assessing the sustainability of our current budgeting approach. Therefore, my presentation will be focused, concise, and specific. Results will be showcased in a deck that also serves as a handout, featuring data plots each contextualized by a slide title and supported by interpretative statements. I’ve planned for 40 minutes to present and 20 minutes for a Q&A session to address any follow-up questions and provide additional details as needed.
The Approach
Upon reviewing the briefing, I was struck by the executives’ perception of the gaming industry’s landscape. It seemed somewhat myopic to presume that market conditions would remain unchanged, given the dynamic nature of the gaming industry. My strategy, therefore, revolves around challenging these preconceptions. I derived the following problem definition from the briefing:
Is 2017 going to be like 2016? How do we allocate our budgets for growth?
This line of questioning not only sets the stage for a thorough analysis but also prompts a reevaluation of GameCo’s strategic planning processes. The bold phrasing is essence of what we’ll be looking for and easy to keep back of our minds as we go. The sub question underscores the need for agility in decision-making and budget allocation to capitalize on emergent opportunities and navigate potential challenges in the rapidly evolving gaming sector.
The Analysis
I begin testing the most apparent assumption: have the sales stayed the same among the top tier markets? What I uncovered was a significant shift — a change that hadn’t been observed in two decades. For the first time in 20 years, North America lost top position in global sales to newcomer Europe.
This revelation certainly shakes things up. The global leading market is overhauled not to its traditional rival Japan, but to the underdog market. This calls for a deeper dive into the specifics of these markets and a critical examination of our assumptions about their trajectories.
I. Platform Power
Delving deeper into the analysis, I observed that each market exhibited a clear preference for certain video game genres, effectively shaping a distinct market identity: Combat for North America, Role-Playing for Japan and Sport in Europe.
A standout finding was Electronic Arts (EA)’s significant influence in Europe, where it accounted for a quarter of all sales, with a staggering 85% of these sales attributed to the Sports genre. Remarkably, 88% of this genre’s success was driven by the video game FIFA17 alone.
Achieving such dominance involves more than the game’s inherent popularity. I drew from my experience at Spotify in how to look further. I discovered that FIFA17’s availability across five platforms — triple the average for video games — played a crucial role in its success. Testing the hypothesis I built from this information, that a higher number of platforms correlates with increased sales, I found a positive relationship, leading to a significant insight I called Platform Power.
Platform Power underscores the importance of maximizing a video game’s accessibility across multiple platforms to boost sales figures. This approach not only broadens the potential audience, but also reinforces the game’s presence in the competitive landscape, proving to be a key driver in achieving market dominance.
II. A new player is entering the game
At this stage, my primary stakeholders can be considered equipped: they know where sales representatives need to be, which gaming genres are excelling in particular markets, and where growth opportunities lie.
Going back to my starting point, I have one insight developed from the new order in markets. But I want to look further and see what another angle can provide us for a successful 2017. I want more than the status quo to justify a 6% leap in Japans global market share.
Diving deeper into Japan — market ripe with potential for GameCo where Role-Playing reigns supreme — I take a platform-centric perspective, then moving to publishers and individual video games. I adopted a systematic approach, categorizing the data between handheld and home consoles and discovered a notable rise in sales for games designed for handheld devices. The reason behind this surge wasn’t immediately clear from the data alone, so I turned to the internet for clues. In 2016, Nintendo released a limited edition Pokémon bundle, featuring a revamped Nintendo 3DS console and game Pokémon style.
Given bundling’s effectiveness as a strategy, a spike in sales for the bundled Pokémon game was anticipated. However, what caught my attention was the stark decline in overall sales per publisher in 2016, plummeting by an average of 70% compared to 2015 — a surprising twist.
Reflecting on these findings, it was evident that the relative data highlighted significant market shifts and openings, yet the hard sales data painted a different picture: a substantial drop in video game purchases over the past year. How does GameCo need to approach and adapt next year and beyond, to stay relevant?
This challenge reminded me of my time crafting creative strategies in digital communication agencies, where trends often served as a conduit between a problem and its creative solution. To identify these trends, adopting the mindset of your target audience was key, striving to understand what captivates them. Embarking on a digital trend hunt as if it were October 2016, I stumbled upon widespread excitement among game journalists over yet another Pokémon release, however it being Pokémon GO. This augmented reality game catapulted mobile gaming into the mainstream, leading to a second key revelation:
Mobile gaming draws gamers away from their home video game consoles, capturing their interest with the allure of a new kind of gaming reality and the convenience of gaming on the go.
Conclusion
We’re entering the next level of the gaming industry, where markets power up, niche themes gain strength and mobile gaming emerges as a new player. Drawing from the key findings in this analysis, these are my recommendations for the board:
- Maximize ROI by focussing on Sports and Role-Playing genres, which are spearheading growth across various markets. Also, consider the genre Action as a consistently reliable choice across all markets. A holistic approach that integrates platform strategies with genre and game-specific tactics is advised.
- Generate revenue by enhancing GameCo’s presence in key European markets, as well as identifying and capitalizing on opportunities in emerging ones.
- Seize growth opportunities by targeting gaps left by Nintendo and Activision, who have not fully capitalized on popular genres. However, it’s important to note that EA currently dominates the genre, market, and platform availability, leaving limited space for competitors.
Closing remarks
This presentation has distilled the essence of my analysis, shared through the lens of my thought processes and investigative journey. I shared key slides of the deck, and my full presentation is available on GitHub.
As a final note, I would like to mention that GameCo is a fictional company, and the analysis was conducted using a dataset provided by the educational institute. This dataset is designed for educational purposes and may not accurately represent real sales figures for the companies and video games mentioned. ~
