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The Gift of Games
November 05, 2007
Seventy percent of American households play video games, and they all want the newest and the best.
By Sean Portnoy
The latest video game systems will be on the wish lists of many people this holiday season—including many of your employees. While gaming products haven't always been the easiest things to obtain through corporate incentive programs, their growing popularity is making them a greater priority for incentive firms.
"[People are] no longer sitting in a dark back closet playing video games," says Carter Lipscomb, senior special markets manager for the strategic business development group of Sony Computer Entertainment America, in Foster City, Calif. "It's what's in the living room, it's what people are taking with them on flights."
While consoles like the Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) and PlayStation Portable (PSP) have obvious allure to young employees who have grown up playing video games, their appeal has become more widespread among older generations as well, though perhaps for different reasons.
"We've put product in multiple programs, and the redemption is very interesting, because it isn't just young male participants who are redeeming," says Bill Termini, vice president, domestic and global sales for Hinda Incentives, in Chicago, which offers video game systems from the three major manufacturers: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. "We've seen that there's a fairly broad spectrum of participants who are redeeming. In many cases, they may be redeeming because they have younger family members that they want to provide product for."
Chris Zane, owner of Zane's Cycles, in Branford, Conn., which has expanded its corporate incentives offerings to include Xbox 360 products as well as the Microsoft Zune portable multimedia player, says, "We're finding it's everyone from guys who have a ton of points that are buying it for their kids to ... young executives who want the new piece of equipment that they don't want to pay out-of-pocket for."
If you're thinking about adding video game systems to your rewards lineup, but don't know your way around a joystick, here's a handy guide to the most popular consoles and the hottest new games as well as some tips on the best ways to offer them to your employees.
Know the Systems
Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PS3 are the reigning processor powerhouses of the gaming world, pumping out high-definition graphics thanks to cutting-edge computing components. Both come with built-in hard drives, but the PS3 goes a step further and includes a DVD player that uses the Blu-ray high-definition video format. Not surprisingly, it costs more than any other console ($599 for a unit with an 80-gigabyte hard drive), though Sony just cut the price by $100 on the 60-gigabyte PS3 to $499.
Microsoft also cut prices: $50 off the Xbox 360 ($279.99 without a hard drive, $349.99 with a 20-gigabyte hard drive) and $30 off the Xbox 360 Elite ($449.99) it introduced last spring. The Elite boosts hard-drive storage to 120 gigabytes. The company also offers a DVD player using the HD DVD high-definition video format as a $179.99 option.
Sony's decision to include a next-generation DVD player with the PS3 provides some flexibility as to how to promote the device, says Lipscomb. "With the PlayStation 3, you've got a video game system, but it's also a Blu-ray player," he says. "So if you're a fan of movies, it will play your DVD movies, it will play the new Blu-ray movies, and it will play your PlayStation 2 games as well as your PlayStation 3 games." Sony's PlayStation offerings are not available through Sony Electronics Premium Incentive Sales Group.
Still, the high prices for the Xbox 360 and PS3 have blunted the systems' popular appeal, though Termini says the recent price drops have stimulated renewed interest in the consoles.
Another reason that sales for these cutting-edge systems haven't exploded is due to the phenomenal—and somewhat unexpected—success of the $249 Nintendo Wii. Released around the same time as the PS3 last year, the Wii doesn't offer the same high-level graphics that its pricier rivals do, but its innovative motion-sensitive controllers provide an immersive experience unlike any video game system before it. For instance, when playing a bowling game on the Wii, players hold the controller and swing their arm in order to send the ball down the virtual lane. It's a far less intimidating experience than the complex controllers used with the Xbox 360 and the PS3, giving it greater appeal with casual gamers as well as younger children.
The runaway popularity of the Wii has made the system difficult to find in major retail outlets, which means it's even harder for niche resellers like corporate incentive firms to get large numbers of units. So while Termini of Hinda Incentives believes the Wii will continue to be a high-demand incentive, he says that "Our industry will be [on the] outside looking in a lot of the time, because it's going to be the Best Buys of the world getting whatever is available."
Sony's $169.99 PSP is the latest on-the-go system available, with the just-released second version of the device slimmed down from the original. The system also offers a video-out port, so you can display what's on the PSP on a TV. Since the PSP comes with a flash memory card slot and can play back movies using Sony's Universal Media Disc (UMD) format, that output can include video as well as your digital photos.
At the low end of the pricing spectrum, Sony's venerable PlayStation 2 is still a popular option. "Once they introduced the PS3, we thought PS2 sales would drop off," says Jon Abt, co-president of Abt Electronics, in Glenview, Ill., which offers Sony PlayStation systems as part of its corporate sales lineup. "But if you look at the national numbers for the piece, it's selling quite well, and I think that has a lot to do with the price point [$129.99] and the widespread acceptance of that system for so long."
The Halo Effect
Despite their multimedia bells and whistles, gaming consoles drive most of their sales from the quality of the games they can play. A hot game that's exclusive to one system can drive a lot of demand. In other words, you can add to the excitement of a video game reward by working with an incentive firm to bundle the latest and greatest gaming title with a console.
"If we're going to an end user with a sales contest for guys that are all young pharmaceutical reps, they're looking for the coolest, newest games, so the Halo [3] is going to be in there, the Call of Duty is going to be in there, the Madden [NFL 08]," says Zane.
The third installment of the Halo franchise Zane refers to was released to much fanfare in late September, and Microsoft's futuristic action title is expected to attract a lot of gamers to the Xbox 360 platform. For the PS3, the hottest exclusive title this holiday season is expected to be Heavenly Sword, a medieval combat game with lush graphics, while Nintendo's sci-fi shooter, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, should be a popular Wii-only game.
Cross-platform sports titles like Madden NFL 08, NBA Live 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 are perennially popular, especially as family-friendly alternatives to more violent first-person shooter games.
"Some of the more popular bundling concepts are the ones based around the sports games, because they tend to be consumable for every audience, and they're E-rated [suitable for everyone] titles mostly," says Lipscomb.
Offering video game incentives as a bundle—whether adding extra controllers, software titles or other accessories to the console—is viewed as effective for a couple of reasons. Convenience is one factor. "You're not really requiring a person that wins a product to buy stuff immediately," says Abt. "They can open it up and start enjoying."
Another advantage to bundles is that they can be tailored to specific audiences. "Depending on the partner, sometimes they'll request something that is more of a gamer bundle," says Lipscomb. "We have other partners who are more entertainment-focused, so they'll say, 'What we'd like in the mix would be a PSP with a UMD movie and a game offering, and perhaps a hard case to go with the PSP just in case somebody's transporting it.'"
But Zane has found that game-focused bundles are far more popular than other alternative bundles his company has offered. "The stuff that's on the fringe, as cool as it may be, it's not necessarily where the bundles have such high demand," he says. "We find that when we offer a one-game bundle with the HD DVD player and the console versus the [console] and four-game bundle that might be the same price, the four-game bundle is going to get chosen hands-down."
Whether your staff includes a Halo-obsessed hardcore gamer, a high-definition movie fanatic or a parent hoping to score some points with his or her children by bringing home a Wii, video game products can take your rewards program to the next level. "It's the perfect kind of product for the incentive channel, because it creates the 'sizzle' that you want to have in a program," says Termini.
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