Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

You mentioned that you were in the green light phase? it suggests to me that its been designed, debugged and ready to be distributed? If so, then what age group have you targeted? I hope you are not trying to market a christian game for all ages cuz obviously different people realize their faiths at different stages in their lives.

On the otherhand i beleive that there is a reason why this market is untapped. somehow this endeavour reminds me of the company which invented a soap that doesnt froth.

Anyways, its help that you want here, not criticism so here is the little help that i can offer.

You could try and secure sponsorships from various Christian organisations (Christianity is the worlds richest religious organisation). It goes all the way up to the vatican city and down to your local parishes. Any sponsors along these lines could help reduce your costs and perhaps your selling price, it could also serve as few extra channels of distribution depending on how you negotiate with them.

If you are doing it for god, why not distribute it for free? to make any money you can use product placement in the game itself, eg drink a can of coca cola to regain health etc. but the amount you recieve would depend on the penetration of this game.


hope this helps a little.

it seems to me that correlations could be made with the Christian music and book publishing industry. The left behind servies indicates there is a market. perhaps a run through the christian book sellers association would give you some interesting data.

I concur with Frank's advice.

As you conduct research on the gaming market, don't forget the Christian music/publishing worlds too for several reasons.

Your product life cycle stages may be similar to theirs. They might be potential distribution channels. There's no need to reinvent the wheel when you need a high level assessment. Any new research you conduct would have a short shelf life, and would be limited in providing you with relevant data since the gaming market is in constant flux. This is true with all bleeding edge and controversial subjects -- limited external validity -- and is one reason why political polls have short shelf lives.

I personally wish you and your company great success and happy marketing.

Hello Pamela,

I wish you the best of luck in your venture and wanted to offer you more insight into the market potential from my preliminarily research.

Approximately 20,000 potential customers a month are searching on the Internet for "Christian games." When a number of that size is searching for a product on the Internet monthly, it is because there is a need to buy and they can not find what they are looking for and/or what to buy on the Internet.

Of this 20,000 potential customers a month, around 50% are just looking for a "Christian game" where as the other 50% are more specific as a certain type, as an online or an age appropriate game.

With just the number of customers searching for the type of product on the Internet, your product if designed and market appropriately can become a marketing opportunity based on an appropriate pricing strategy.

A preliminarily profit/break even analysis can be derived from these customers (currently actively searching for the product) and other distribution and marketing channels can grow from there.


Wonderful idea, untapped market! Hope my stats helped and if you need more information, please contact me.

Best,

Sandy

Dear Pamela

I’d like to take a different perspective on this project without seeking to rubbish your desire to determine the market size as according to the criteria you have set out.

Outwith the church community, no one has said “Let’s have a Christian Computer Game” In fact if you look at the current surveys on spiritual awareness, you will find that there is a surprisingly high level of belief in God or a Higher Power or in the divinity of Jesus. The same surveys indicate a strong reluctance to do anything about it, to spend money on spiritual books or in the Christian context, to attend church, give to the churches or to buy religious books.

Again, outwith the Christian community, few express an interest in overtly Christian music, though in latter months, Gospel and Christian Rock has seen a move towards the more mainstream markets, though that has been attributed more to the quality of the music than to the religious message.

I think that you will need to be brave about your game’s prospects and expect it to cover its costs through the identifiable and therefore approachable existing Christian outlets, but you will have to let it stand on its own merits in the wider secular and non-practicing or nominal Christian market sector, which is the majority of the market.

And there’s nothing wrong with this. 2000 years ago, a bunch of seekers of truth didn’t get together in a focus group to thrash out the potential market for the teachings of Christ and then fine-tune them in order to make them as attractive as possible to the widest market. They got what they were given and because it was what it was, it’s stood the test of time and prospers still, 2000 years later. In fact, attempts to codify, explain and to segment the Christian message have had the opposite effect to ensuring wide acceptance. They have resulted in Christians slaughtering each other by the million in the name of God and under the conviction that their version of the truth is right and everyone else is damned.

So produce your game and let it loose on the public. It will be taken up or not on various different levels – those who appreciate the Christian Theme, Those who don’t but like the format or the schema and those who just try out very new game which comes onto the market. If you have managed to get over a message for good in the process then that would be wonderful and I wish you well. If it fails, maybe the format was wrong, or maybe we were not meant to exploit the Christian ethos in this way.

I hope that you manage to avoid the areas of schism and division which so permeate sectors of the Christian church. When early gaming computers were becoming popular, there were “Christian” games doing the rounds in Northern Ireland which were very popular with children. They consisted of trying to kill as many Catholics as possible before they could build bombs to blow up the protestant community.

I have seen that there is a growth in Christian Fundamental Thriller Books, which might well give you an impetus to tap into this wealthy market. Apart from propounding a strong evangelical message which implies that everyone who agrees with the author will shortly be whisked up to heaven whilst the rest of us (Including the wrong type of Christians) sweat it out in hell, the main selling point appears to be an action packed dialogue where a super-hero Christ figure pops back to earth to do a spot of smiting and blasting of millions of sinners. many of whom appear to have dark skins and wear turbans.

I sincerely hope that your game avoids this kind of poison – Its popularity is an appalling and successful attempt to play on post 9/11 feelings and whilst I firmly believe in the Christian Message, I can’t support anything which promotes it at the expense of engendering hatred in those with other creeds.

Deus vobiscum

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions