Have seen ‘social gamification‘ of ideas, concepts and thoughts. Social gaming coupled with mobile is more or less the future. But consumerification of gaming – well, really didn’t hear of it since Angry Birds burst on to the scene of things. Well, some may call it a disruptive idea. I call it a fad.
Read ‘10 tech trends you can ignore in 2012‘ by Eric Anderson the other day, and as he has mentioned in the ‘Trendsplosion 4: Angry Birds merchandising‘ – well, its a phenomenon which we see – happening around us every day – whether you live in the US or in India or elsewhere. Jabong.com in India is selling Angry Birds tees… quite a nice collection it seems. Am tempted to get 2 soon.
URL: http://bit.ly/Kg7sj1
Items: tees
Price: Rs. 599/- (approx $11.5)
But the question that arises here – is consumerification of gaming a viable business model? Well, we don’t have the sales statistics from Jabong.com to prove the point or otherwise, but, any investment in terms of apparel – tees, hats, caps, baseball caps, polos wherein the core concept is derived from a game and driven by the passion its players have for it – is the ROI worth the investment in the first place? Angry Birds – without doubt has revolutionized the mobile gaming industry as a whole – but does it have enough power to drive sales offline – is the million dollar question.
In India, as it often happens – fake merchandize soon floods the market once the dealers understand the value of a ‘brand’. Same happened with Angry Birds. In Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar market , one can find fake Angry Birds tees selling for INR 200/-. I shall probably get 2/3 Angry Birds tees from Jabong.com soon since I personally love Angry Birds… would be nice to see how others react when wearing these tees.
