Download - Living On Virtual Fish
Image: /\ltus @ Flickr.
Living On Virtual FishLiving On Virtual Fish
Tim HowgegoTim HowgegoKeywords: Affiliate advertising, website monetarization, virtual worlds, gaming, wow.
Source: WoW, Blizzard Entertainment.
The “Learn2Play” Market
Publishing with Affiliate Advertising
Monetarization Based on Nothing?
“The game [book] publishing biz might just be the biggest industry you’ve never heard of. Publishers rake in about $100 million a year. … The Halo 2 guide sold nearly as
many copies in its first week as Bill Clinton’s autobiography did.”
Source: Marketplace, publicradio.org.
Virtual fishing guides… WTF?
• 70,000+ unique visitors each month, majority from North America.
• 400,000+ views of content pages each month.• Free traffic from viral and search referral.• Web 1.0.• No effective competition… nobody gets it?
$1.5+ mil sales revenue/year
Estimated total for commercial online guides. Spugnort network $1+mil alone.
Watch Some Metrics
Revenue/Mile - Could an ad network make more money than me?
Clicks/Page View – Optimise ad position.Conversion Rate - How good is the
product’s website?Revenue/Click - The absolute value of
those conversions.
But in the future…
More variedadvertising
Aiming for more repeat visits
Guides not selling as well as they
used to
More competition to sell + game
changesThis isn’t
sustainable?MMOGs don’t
last forever
Referred from a Website
Buys Access to Paid Online Guide
Uses that Knowledge in a Virtual Environment
Player Seeks Knowledge of Game
• No physical product anywhere in the chain
• Everything useful only within a virtual environment
• Only physical output is real money!
What’s so special?
“5 years from now [2006], I think the impact of their work will be widespread and
deeply meaningful in ways we can't even comprehend yet.”
James Hong on Hot-or-Not's Virtual Flowers.