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Last week I posted an article titled Too Much of a Good Thing: Explaining the Decline of Guitar Hero and Rock Band which stimulated discussion on Gamasutra and various blogs that linked to the article.
Some of the issues raised related to complexity, usability, product life cycle issues, etc. But a comment on Plastic Axe was about something completely different:
Right now you can walk into any given Best Buy and there are probably at least three aisles worth of peripheral packages. This week they’re adding DJ Hero and next week will see the Band Hero set. This has to be overwhelming for the common consumer. Now most of those aren’t adding ‘new’ peripherals to the mix, but I’d imagine what is essentially the same thing in 10 different styles can be just as confusing and detrimental. At some point the regular shopper is going to think “Enough already!”.
When product choice becomes overwhelming to customers, they become subject to the "paradox of choice." In the book, we discuss the phenomenon as it relates to game consoles, but it applies equally to peripherals, software, and other products.
Research has shown that even when faced with two choices, customers are often less willing to buy a product than if they only have one product available to them. Common wisdom holds that consumers are better off when they have more product choices to cater to their individual tastes and needs.
In reality, offering more choices could cause you to lose customers, resulting in declining sales for each product offered, and possibly for the product category as a whole.
The flipside to the paradox of choice is "scarcity marketing." Marketers are familiar with the concept of creating scarcity as a way of driving sales. In the late 1990s, I had a discussion with a marketing agency that was responsible for the launch of a major game console.
To create buzz, they advertised to a select audience that the console would be for sale one day earlier than the rest of the world, but only in one store in a small rural town. That morning, the agency sent a film crew to the store to document the long line that had formed to get the console a day early.
Very early the next morning, they broadcast the film via satellite to major news studios that then rebroadcast the footage on morning news programs. That sent customers scrambling to the nearest store before the consoles sold out. People did not realize that the footage was from the day before and the news studios were too understaffed to verify the accuracy of the footage (that it was not taken the same day).
Personally, I felt the agency had acted unethically and I was shocked by how willing they were to boast of their "success." Regardless, the agency understood that a perception of scarcity can create demand, just as too much choice can suppress it.
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When you have the opportunity to seek the scenary for every little item you can pick up, and you just pass throught them to the end of the stage, it's a choice, you can choose if you want to lose or get something. When you're "given" a choice of doing good or bad, you're choosing what to lose, but you're going to lose something one way or another...
Choice is good. Consumers are not necessarily overwhelmed or harmed by choice, though it's possible that our industry is harmed because products lose visibility and market share in a crowded market. More choices means more competition and better products and unfortunately bigger investments and greater risk.
In the case of of the music games you don't have any anything to differentiate this year's version against last year's let alone the 4 new releases from this year. Worse with little advertising push the easily manipulated masses don't know the choice is available (no offense). Meanwhile the educated / discerning customer knows that they can rock out just as hard on last year's edition plus DLC if they are getting bored. More so if they can afford to wait 6 months the game will reduce to 1/3 of it's original cost when stores have to make room for the next SKU.
Guitar Hero World Tour went to an instant purchase for me when the PS3 version dropped from the original $150+ price tag to $55 at Sam's Club this summer. Of course the decision would have been quite a bit tougher for me had I not already owned the original Rock Band, which I did buy on release.
But what if the choice comes not from your own product line, but from the fact that you have competitors?
Activision clearly has no control over the fact that Rock Band exists.
I actually think consumer perception of products like Rock Band, DJ hero and Band Hero would be different enough that you wouldn't have that paradox of choice. Band Hero customers aren't going to consider buying Guitar Hero, so there's no real conflict between the two offerings.
The same game offered on different consoles? Maybe it could create the problem. But if consumers are savvy enough to know what system they're buying it for, and know what the other systems are, then you should be fine.
Maybe offering Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Metallica and Guitar Hero Aerosmith could create problems. But even then, people recognize those bands, so they can see the difference and they will likely know which one they want.