Course Project Netw583

Keller School of Management

Strategic Management of Technological Innovation

NETW583

GamingSoft's Free to Play Strategic Plan

Strategy

GamingSoft Inc., began with the dreams and hard work of two people Bill Bradly and Diane Downs, is a premier designer, developer and publisher and recognized leader in the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. The GamingSoft (GS) label launched in 1996 with the first title Dragon Spires and the company became one of the most prevalent and well-respected producers of MMO computer games to date. The company’s title lineup includes the blockbuster hits World of Clans, Super Hero’s, Star Battles and Western Wars encompassing the Sci-fi, Fantasy, Comic and western genres.

For years, the success of GamingSoft relied and succeeded using the market norm, subscription based/pay to play (P2P) model. This model has served MMO’s well for a long time but since introduction of Free to Play (F2P) MMO’s to the market monthly subscribers have steady decreased since late 2012 (Geel, 2013, p. 1). The peak of GamingSoft’s monthly subscriptions of over 12 million has declined by 38% from late 2010 to present. The company must develop a free to play model to work in tandem with the subscription-based model. Presently the gaming company’s revenue declined over the last year from 1.3 billion the 1st quarter to 691 million the 3rd quarter of 2013. As expected the growth rate has followed suit (Financial Intelligence Company [FIC], 2013, p. 1).

The company has many stable titles still played by consumers but it is largely dependent on its flagship title World of Clan. Being overly reliant on one title and one subscription style in such a volatile industry is a business hazard (Lee, 2013, p. 38). The MMO market has many titles similar to each other making it is difficult to have one stand out. With the move to F2P gaining ground it is time to implement a new strategic direction for the company. GamingSoft INC.’s wants to design an industry...