Based on this story answer the three Questions below
You used to be a team leader at a video game company. That company had created dozens of games over the last number of years. But suddenly they had a huge success, creating a game that was downloaded, for free, by millions of people – it was an instant sensation. People were clamoring to buy commercial products (toys, plushies, calendars, and others) based on the characters in the game, but the company had no plan for such an event, and as such lost millions of dollars in potential commercial sales.

Now, you’ve been hired on at a different video game development company. Based on these facts, craft a story to convince your new employer that your company must invest in a new type of team in order to make the most of any sudden success.
Facts:
1. You previously worked at Acme Smart Phone Games (ASPG). They created Wittle Pig, a tremendously successful video game. You were part of that team. The popularity of the game soared, and people were asking to buy commercial products based on the characters. No one at the company had any idea how to get products developed and available for customers. By the time they got some products out for sale, the popularity of the game had faded, and they didn’t sell very much.
2. Your new employer has a team of 50 app developers, and a small marketing department that is located in a different building. Their job is mostly to get the finished games available on Android and IOS, and buy advertisements to solicit downloads.
3. Your company has not yet sold any commercial products for any games, though they have some nice company T-shirts with your own fun cartoon character logo.
Now, think about how you could use these facts to inform, educate and inspire your leadership. How can you convince them to restructure your current team in a way that anticipates success and prepares to commercialize your first, and subsequent, successful gaming apps?
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Resources
• Gallo, C. (2014). The unbreakable laws of storytelling. Khosla Ventures. [Transcript]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUsib8wsKdM
• Gallo, C. (2014). TED Talks are Wildly Addictive for Three Powerful Scientific Reasons. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2014/02/25/ted-talks-are-wildly-addictive-for-three-powerful-scientific-reasons/#7375e6776b6a

Fill in the boxes below, telling your story in three parts: A part that is emotional, a part that is novel, and a part that is memorable. Feel free to embellish or add new facts that ASPG might reasonably know.
Emotional
Write a part of the story that you feel would have an emotional hook for your leadership:

Novel
Write the part of the story that is novel; that tells your leaders something new or puts a new spin on it:

Memorable
Write a part of the story that is memorable and will generate continued enthusiasm about your plan:

Video Game Development Company: Story Telling

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Video Game Development Company: Story Telling

Sales and marketing can be perceived as two different activities but they exist hand in hand. A marketing department is essential in an organization because, once the products are ready; customers must know and be accessible to them (Zhu & Gao, 2019). The marketing department also plays a significant role in gathering customer opinions to understand their tests of the available products and additional products they may need. In the scenario, the company did not understand the client’s needs in time, making them lose millions of dollars in potential commercial sales. Below is the story that is based on the scenario.

Emotional

The current generation has tremendous love for games, especially kids and youths. They love to identify themselves with the best characters in the game, especially when the game is so exciting (Bopp et al., 2019). You never know when we are going to develop a successful one and kids are going to love to identify themselves with the characters. When you walk to kids’ shops selling everything from clothes, hoodies, and shoes, to school bags, would realize certain characters conspicuously pathed on these items. One day at a kids’ shop, I went to see my friend who is the owner of the store, a woman walked in with a little kid and I just realized the unbelievable emotional attachment the kid had with Little Pig. The baby began crying the mother was near tears when they realized that none of the t-shirts had Wittle Pig patches on them. Everyone including the merchandiser looked disappointed. The mother said the baby would not eat for two days, just as he did the last time he experienced the same thing. I felt heartbroken when I realized that our company could not meet the needs of its clients. The shop owner stated that it is not the first time as hundreds of customers have been disappointed by the lack of Wittle Pig t-shirts.

Novel

I saw an opportunity from the encounter, went back to our company and it managed to print some Wittle Pig t-shirts and got them to the market. I walked back to the store with the hope that the t-shirts were selling only to realize that the shelves were stiff and full as the clothes were not selling off.  I sat for several hours without seeing anyone buying the T-shirts, except just one young man. The shop attendants said to me that Wittle Pig is considered old and that there was a new trend in the market.  I could see how dynamic the field of fashion is. People want to buy new fashion fast and then dump it for a new one.

Memorable

From my experience at Acme Smart Phone Games (ASPG), I was able to learn a few things that should be memorable to help the company meet the exact needs of its customers. The first thing is to keep in touch with customers on the ground (Zhu & Gao, 2019). If I did so, I would have understood their needs, opinions, and innovations based on the products. The second issue is knowing the target market for a particular product. At Acme Smart Phone Games (ASPG), the target market for Wittle Pig was younger kids and a majority of them loved it. The third issue is timing (Zhu & Gao, 2019). Had the ASPG company had good timing, it would have sold the commercial products related to the Wittle Pig game, which could have helped it make extra millions of dollars.

In summary, the Acme Smart Phone Games (ASPG) Company lost millions of dollars because of a lack of keenness on customers. The story above is inspiring and educative. Timing is an essential element in running a successful business. Being unique, keeping in touch with customers, and knowing your target market are essential business issues.

References

Bopp, J. A., Müller, L. J., Aeschbach, L. F., Opwis, K., & Mekler, E. D. (2019). Exploring emotional attachment to game characters. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 313-324). https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347169

Zhu, G., & Gao, X. (2019). Precision retail marketing strategy based on digital marketing model. Science Journal of Business and Management, 7(1), 33-37. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjbm.20190701.14