Paper Abstract - Hardy Dreier

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ABSTRACT

Windowing and Versioning: The Power of Combination

Hardy Dreier

The market for computer- and video-games adopts marketing strategies used by traditional media companies. Digital production brings new dynamic in the market for media products, as a result of this there is a big need for co-ordination of many different streams in the publishing process. A traditional media-product like a movie goes through the windowing-strategy on the movie-market, from the cinema to the Free-TV-market, but there is also the chance to build up a revenue-stream by versioning. The movie will be published in different versions on video, DVD and so on, but the characters and the story of the movie will be found in combination with digital pictures from the movies in many variations. So there is a change from a product- to a branding-strategy. Licensing and merchandising will produce an additional important revenue stream, e.g. the license for the computer game to the movie Lord of the Rings, the movies will come on Christmas 2001 to 2003 to the cinemas, was sold for the price the producers paid for the rights on the story.

Online-Platforms in combination with these products will become more important not only as a marketing-tool, but also as an e-Commerce-platform. A good scheduling of publishing dates by the marketing is an important factor for success of the strategy. Something new at any time will be the chance to create continuos presence on the market for the brand. In this climate it is easy to get interest for "new" variations of the product on the market in combination with events like a presentation of a new trailer for the next movie. When the movie is in the cinema, it is a good time to publish the first game, when the second movie comes to the cinema, the second game or a TV-serial can follow, strong marketing for the movie can change to strong marketing for the PC-game to strong marketing for a TV-series to strong marketing for the next format. During this time, the Online-platform changes from a marketing channel to a combined channel for marketing and e-commerce where you can buy the license- and merchandising articles. During the whole time of media presence of different media formats the market for merchandising will be attractive and the licenses will be interesting with an interest in the target group of these formats.

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