The latest comscore media metrix for May 2009 is out and we got a mail from Alok Kejriwal claiming that Games2win.com has broken into the top 20 gaming sites in the world (if the numbers from the game embeds offsite are added to the on website traffic). Based on just the onsite traffic games2win figures in the Top 50 gaming websites in the world. Well if you guys are wondering where zapak figures? Well zapak no more features in the gaming category at comscore but features in the entertainment category.
Here are the comscore numbers for Games2win.com
- On site Unique Visitors – 4.71 million
- Off site unique visitors (embeds) – 13.5 million
As you can see from the statistics above Games2win has 3 times the traffic (in terms of unique visitors) from games that are played on webpages not owned by Games2win. What needs to be noted here is a lot of games2win games are embedded on Addictinggames.com which is the no.10 most popular gaming site in the world with more than 18 million unique visitors of its own.
How does games2win monetize off site inventory?
Well we had covered inviziads not to long ago which is an ingame advertising network launched by Games2win. The ingame ads are within the games (pre and post game play) and hence are carried wherever the games are embeded. So the 13 million off site visitors are actual monetizable inventory as far as games2win is concerned. The problem for games2win isn’t how to monetize but is more about which target audience to monetize? Check our analysis below on where is the traffic coming from
Where is this traffic coming from?
Check the screenshot below (Traffic distribution as per alexa)
As one can see from the stats above Games2win suffers from a highly fragmented distribution of traffic on its website. Which means that there no single largest market for games2win as far as targeting advertisers is concerned. When you apply these traffic distribution numbers to the above monthly unique visitors one realizes that the traffic per market i.e. US only traffic or India only traffic or China only traffic isn’t a sizeable sum for advertisers to fall head over heals over games2win as an advertising platform.
So Games2win by virtue of onsite and offsite (embeds) traffic might be one of the top 20 gaming sites in the world but its doesn’t become a strong enough player for any one particular market. A big problem if you are an advertiser.
Stickiness Vs One time play
Another insight that comes across from the comscore statistics is the lack of stickiness as far as Games2win is concerned as a platform. The average time spent is just 3.6 minutes and if you compare that to the average for all gaming sites in the list its 12.5 minutes. Also visits per visitor is a dismal 1.6 when compared to the average for all gaming sites which is 8.5 per visitors.
One look at Games2wins games and you know why the above numbers are like that. We had blogged about this in our earlier analysis of both games2win and zapak and their international strategies. To summarize Games2win builds a lot of games and many of them aren’t the best quality (in terms of gameplay/level of difficulty). Also there are so call naughty games on Games2win which also attract a lot of first time play from users. But as the above statistics reveal the visitors dont seem to be returning.
Challenges for Games2win
The challenges lie in scaling one market. From what we know here Games2win is trying to position itself for the US markets. Given that advertiser maturity and marketing dollars availability if any market is worth it then it is the US market. The other alternative market Games2win could look at is the Chinese market and give Alok’s experience in the Chinese markets with Mobile2win in China this could be the next plausible option. Problem with both these options is the high cost of building a brand in these markets. Organic growth which Games2win has enjoyed now wont last forever and will plateau sooner rather than later.
All in all its one of those cases of so near yet so far as far as Games2win is concerned because though technically it may have broken into the top 20 it still has a long way to go as far as scaling the ‘business’ of gaming is concerned.
PS: We must appreciate the effort though and what has been achieved till now though. Without any visible advertising spend to reach among the top global gaming sites is a feat and should be celebrated. Our best wishes are with Games2win and Alok.
Rajiv, thanks for a well thought of piece. Yes, some of the challenges you mention are genuine and that’s the fun of building a business.
Just a couple of pointers:
If our games play on sites like AG where our ads don’t show – they are NOT counted by comScore- hence its important to note that our reach is only measured in terms of the audiences we can influence (by ads)
The twist to the tale is that we all assume advertising is the revenue source for online games… if one can aggregate 13+ million uniques across the world, a lot more can be done with them other than showing them dumb ads… stay tuned
Thanks for your comment Alok. Glad you liked the piece. Yes your point about more than ads advertising makes sense though both avatar sales/ item sales (something we had discussed) and branding/ engagement oriented ads (branded games/in game placements etc) would need a higher engagement oriented platform. And currently atleast what the comscore numbers show is that Games2win isn’t a highly engagement oriented platform. Hence thats another challenge as well.
If the monetization plans is on lines different from the above then would love to know more about it. Will stay tuned
Rajiv – an important clarification:
comScore engagement is an average of our traffic across 210 countries. Key markets like the USA/Canada and EU actually engage very well with our games and our site – the PV’s per visit exceed 12 and time spent is over 10 minutes. Large audiences from China etc dilute the overall numbers.
Thanks Alok – I guess then it makes sense for you to go after the markets that offer engaged audiences. The problem will be cost of scaling, access to advertisers and user trust in International markets given you are an India based company.
Congratulations to Games2win. Indeed a remarkable feat achieved.
However I want to bring to notice a fact that comScore excludes cyber cafe traffic and also net users below 15 years of age. As it is in India, there are several cyber cafes which double up as gaming zones, and comScore is missing this traffic. Also I guess a lot of school students below 15 years would be trying out Games2win.com and comScore does not count it. So the actual number might in fact be more than what is listed right now. Would be interesting to know if Games2win does some tracking and analytics on their server side and can share these numbers.
Thanks for asking that question Vibhushan. Our internal logs from India and more importantly China (where there is massive cyber traffic) shows approx 2 million under reported uniques. But we understand that comScore has a hybrid solution they are implementing that will address this.
Online gaming is not as popular in India as it is in Western Countries.
Young crowd seems more fun in playing games on PS2, PS3 or Nintendo.
The bandwidth raises another question on what kind of games be played in India.
For Games2win, I think they should start holding gaming completion in schools and colleges during college fest to attract more visitors.
Apart from that they can try selling PSP, Nintendo games at marginal discounts from their site to the customers.
Apart from this , let users be aware of new launches in these gaming.
For a an avid gamer , you cannot substitute the passion of playing games with PSP and Nintendo games with Games2Win.
But a tie can be helpful.
Rajiv,
Great analysis. We need more of these in depth and well thought articles on the industry.
Alok,
Amazing job! Congratulations. It is great to see your leadership and passion for the business through highs and lows. Keep bringing us good news.
Quentin
Contratulation, Mister Alok.
I Am happy to see an Indian Site in top 20.
And Will Happy to see Games2Win in top 1