As discussed before Empire often goes mainly into short-term contracts with other businesses. Referred to as Strategic Alliances: ""A cooperative agreement between business firms, it can take the form of licensing or distribution agreements, joint ventures, research and development consortia, and partnerships." I apologize for the copy and paste, I know it's not my usual style but I wanted to make sure everyone understands exactly what type of "contracting" Empire gets into.
The 2 main types of Business customers Empire mainly deals with are Producers and Re-sellers.
Producers: They buy goods to help their daily operations. An example of this would be the jersey's or sticks Empire owns for it's players. To further explain, the jersey's are brought by a clothes printing company who purchases the jersey's, shirt's, pants etc blank. This would be the same way a construction worker purchases steel in order to create beams or other material needed for them to build. Re-sellers: Well its pretty simple! They buy goods that are already made to be distributed, so they resell them for profit. Of course I can't make my previous statement without giving an example Empire related! Companies like Gamestop who purchase games, systems and other gaming equipment wholesale and then resale it at their locations are some of the main types businesses Empire seeks to go into contracts with.
Why is it even necessary for Empire to do business with these 2 types of companies?
Empire has its own online store but it is not enough to facilitate the amount of traffic needed for even a decent amount of sales. Most contract Empire falls into with either type of company generally results in Empire advertising for the company while the company also receives a percentage off of the sales made after and only after the sales have reached a certain agreed amount.
This is the last blog about Empire I will be making, it was a fun ride and alot pain that came along every time I wrote. If I did not reveal it before, I am also a member of Empire Arcadia and used to be a processional gamer myself! I dedicate this and my other blog post to my friend Nelson Reyes (3rd going from right to left), he put his heat and soul into this company not to mention about 50k worth of his own personal money. R.I.P my friend. You often here companies saying we are like family...But in Empire you might as well say we were biologically related.
Although gamer's come in all shapes, sizes and ages it does not change the fact that there is one particular group that latches themselves to games, as if games were a surrogate mother or father to them. This Generation is Y!
If gaming followed a hierarchy format it would look like this!
1. Generation Y: Born between 1979 & 1994. This era is subsequently the most important target market because they were born in heart of the big gaming boom! Gaming, Arcades and all that jazz in this era between these dates. Regardless of when games where actually created this is the era where it made its mark! Games to generation Y is like air to humans, they simply cannot live without it.
Generation X and Z: Gen X born between 1964 & 1979. This era watched and nurtured Generation Y. Although you would assume they would have a heavy interest in gaming as well, they do not. Why? Because it was not integrated into their lives as heavy as it was in Generation Y. Generation Z, born between 1994 & 2001, why do they have same priority as Generation X? This is because this era grew up around gaming but did not experience the era of being a gamer. What I mean by this is, they never played games in the era where there where arcades and games where used as a social outlet, they never played games and it was considered a rebellious action if you caught playing video games past your bedtime. They will never experience this feeling games give you when your friend owned a game and would invite everyone over to play, and you would appreciate the experience because it was genuinely one of a kind. Generation Z era of gaming is saturated with games to such a high degree its just like walking outside and seeing a car go down the street. How can they be rebellious with their gaming? Cell phones have games now! they can play it anywhere, back then most of us had to travel, wait or only play a game at the arcade! Oh boy! writing about this is starting to make me feel old.... Needless to say at least both of these generations still have some interest in gaming Gen X having a lower interest then Z but to Empire they fall in the same target market when it comes to who they specifically target.
Baby boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964. This era is far to busy running the country to have anytime at all to play video games. They have no connection to video games what so ever! But there are always some exceptions to the rules.
Oh man I am really squeezing here! we have almost talked about everything Empire could offer, but something just feels kind of feels out of place. What could that be? Well so far, I previously discussed that Empire's main source of revenue heavily relied on the "service" its players provided for other companies who are willing to pay. One thing I never discussed in regards to this is the players direct role of how it aids Empire. Now briefly revisiting what I stated in previous blogs.
1. We know the player has a fan base and can attract a crowd 2. We know the player can be individually contracted by companies to fulfill any specific marketing task. 3. We know that Empire also lease their players out to other companies. Just in case number 3 was not clear. If you look below you will notice CTRL / EMP.
Perfect example of another company utilizing the prestige of EMP and attaching their name so that it will be headlined in results. Needless to say the players make this possible, by winning. If I may humbly brag for a moment, the personalities and play style's of Empires players create experience quality to heavy degrees for the returning consumer. Crazy thing is as far as winning goes, Empire does not even have to win, it has enough franchise players in it's grasp that the reliability of the service is there. The service while not always accurate as far as to what other companies or consumers are looking for from the player, but one thing can always be said about Empire is that they are consistent. Any company pairing up with Empire has always seen an increase in traffic for their business and an increase in products sold.
The advantage of the Empire brand and the brand of the franchise players who work for it.
Although product concepts are the main theme of this chapter, we are going to focus more on the power of branding and how Empire utilizes it. Please remember, when it comes to Empire the product is technically the player! I say this because in my previous blogs we discussed this quite a number of times.
Empire utilizes it's brand to establish a legacy, this legacy creates "repeat customers" who either return to Empire whether or not the same players or products are still available. Allow me to further explain, Empire has been around for more then a decade and just like any other competitive genre every person has his or her "life span". Empire the brand has ways around this! Empire is a brand name and the players affiliated with it gain power by being under it's brand name. The easiest thing for a player to do is immortalize themselves, this means accomplish something under the Empire brand name that is unique and cannot be replicated. A method Empire uses to help establish their players in the books forever, is setting world records in games they excel at. Although these world records can be broken be anyone else the rule of thumb will always stand that if you are the first and (or) in the books then you shall never be forgotten.
To the right is Tri-force Game master at the premiere of his movie King of Kong at this time he was also inducted into the video game hall of fame, he is also the founder and CEO of Empire Arcadia. Companies and other brands usually seek to co-brand with Empire do to its high amount of prestigious accomplishments. This is how Empire truly builds it's mass network of "repeat costumers", as one might think this could be risky if Empire affiliated themselves with a brand that has or gains a bad rep. While this might effect Empire, it has minimal effects on their future reputation because it is just as I said before you immortalize yourself on paper and you shall never be forgotten. Co-branding has been the key to Empire's success, affiliating themselves with companies who place their brand names on Empire's products which are used by the players and Empire as a whole at live events, in media or online. And just to remind you, the consumer for Empire is not only the individual consumer who seeks to buy their shirt or hardware, it also the companies that seek advertisement through use of Empire's strong brand name in order to increase traffic in their own companies.
Taking Risk 101: relationship selling & Generating leads Every single inherent move Empire makes is devoted to selling its brand as a whole, this is always first priority: The image of the company. The brand and the players have a symbiotic relationship, even if a players value may not be high, being affiliated with the brand itself raises his or her worth. If this sounds weird, then again you have to look at this as a sport! Would you rather have the number one player on one team or the 2nd, 3rd, 4th best players all on one team? Empire trades the idea of having an all-star team rather then just having one dominant player. This works in their favor because anytime Empire is in the lime-light everyone gets their shine. Enough rambling! So where am I going with this? Empire Arcadia is not a sponsorship, although contrary to my statement they will sponsor players to events at times. This means Empire, must seek outside sponsors. The hardcore and casual gamers as I said before are not the only ones consider consumers to Empire, other businesses are consider consumers as well. This is where Empire utilizes its players to develop both interpersonal and business relationships with sponsors and players with "pull". I say "pull" as the definition of someone who has power in the world of gaming. Often if not the sponsor or consumer becomes very passionate about helping Empire even sharing in their views, which is the process where they empathize with Empire and become trusting of their work ethic, goals, image and marketing capabilities. Networking is by far the biggest form of generating leads Empire uses to find potential buyers. As I said before, Empire heavily relies on social media sites and public relation tactics in order to put word out of upcoming events, company updates and even logs of championships they may have obtained recently. For example, I am a member of Empire ( yeah no surprise right) and I have been inactive as a player for the last 3 years, but I still maintain a mass following on social media websites due to the amount "shine" being passed around through Empire every single week. So lets say I have 4000 people added on Facebook and another player apart of Empire has 5000 added, anytime something is posted to our wall on average I would say about 6000 people are seeing this across their news feed give or take we have some of the same people added. It's like advertisement and generating leads all at once, its genius!
Advertisement, Public relations and sales promotion, You must be joking!? These ideas, tools concepts or however you choose to identify them are the foundation in which Empire is built on. In fact any other company similar to Empire in the gaming industry tends to work the same way. So let's just walk through these 3 concepts and some specific aspects about them that apply to Empire just like we always do!
Empire the corporation / brand is a walking, living marketing tool as far as gaming is concerned. All advertisement done by Empire Arcadia is mainly focused help to promote the company, companies products and its players simultaneously. So what I am saying, Empire never truly segregates its advertising targets. There are many objectives when advertising comes into play and there are different types of advertisement. Sadly the "scientific" names for the 3 categories of advertisement that I named above which Empire focuses on is pretty obsolete to them, but if I had to narrow it down to one they could all fit in, it would probably be:
1. Institutional advertisement ( Trying to increase and maintain companies image) a. Advocacy advertisement ( This would be the main type of Institutional advertisement used). To the left is the CEO of Empire Arcadia, standing next to one of the most prestigious and honored men in gaming Walter Day.
Through what medium do they use? Well haven't I explained this before! Empire heavily uses various social media websites and the players who make live appearances to help promote the company, the companies products and (or) sponsors products. Just by a popular gamer wearing an Empire shirt with a logo on it using an Empire stick, indirectly promotes all three in which I named above. ( company, product's, player's).
All this talk about gamer's making live appearances, sure does sound allot like public relations. That's because it is, but its a devious ploy. Just think about it like this, the Yankee's exist as a team and then there is Derek Jeter, just by Derek Jeter being a member of the Yankee's their team gets added value. So wherever Derek Jeter may happen to be one thing is for sure. That's Derek Jeter who play for the Yankee's (get it!?) It works the same way in Empire only difference is we are all Derek Jeters here! hint hint.
Empire Arcadia is not a retailer, therefore this week we can finally take a break from this company! My apologies, I have been apart of this company for over a decade, the last thing I ever wanted find myself doing is writing about them. I mean, I am a player after all, I would rather be pushing button's or in gamer slang "A button monkey". So am I a genius or what!? Empire Arcadia is about gaming, so I went to a specific retailer who's specialty is selling games, systems and gaming accessories. Game stop!
Look at this logo, "power to the players". Oh yeah after reading this you would swear they were not making a profit off of you purchasing from them. If only life was that easy.
See what I did there? Oh boy, do I have to do all the work here. Well if you read above I just revealed to you that GameStop is a specialty discount store. I would have thought given the name, you might have figured that out yourself. GameStop is also corporately owned, but for any of you looking to buy stock that is very much an option.
Like the quote says "power to the player". Promotion strategy at its finest. Now just in case you aren't familiar as to what a Promotion strategy is as far as retailing is concerned, I will define it for you. It is the type of promotion involving advertising, public relations, sales and publicity. For Gamestop, they have all these areas covered to the nail! Gamestop has advertisements its sales can be found in flyers on your doorstep, the news paper, and the easiest but largest outlet of them all, online as ads on media sites such as Youtube and Facebook.Need I remind these sites are visit by millions of users everyday. You may not acknowledge the ad but there will always be a subconscious suggestion for those who are even slightly interested or an unconscious suggestion for those who are not.If you thought their out reach was not large enough, then take a deep breath, because they also have an online store. Can we say overkill? No! but we can say category killer, which is exactly what GameStop is. Is this a bad thing, yeah, for the competition. You see a category killer heavily dominates its field of merchandise. In more simpler terms, majority of games, systems and gaming accessories are brought from Gamestop rather than its competition like "Best buy". The reason for this, is because GameStop is quite literally a library for games. Their product offering can hardly be matched by any other because their franchise focuses directly on gaming period. Meaning, they have wide variety of products with different brands spanning from the top brands such as Sony to 3rd party brands. So lesson learned today! If you are looking to get into the business of retailing and it involves gaming, it simply not be a wise choice in this current era unless you are willing to bring something to the table that can reprogram consumers to choose your option instead of what they are used to.
Short but quite sweet Consumer Behavior-describes how consumers make purchase decisions and how they use and dispose of the purchased goods or services. So here we are again with another concept that involves understanding the gaming sub culture. What I would like you to focus on is not how consumers think in the world of gaming, but I would prefer if you thought about this as a sport as I described once before. I am going to list some items for you and bring this story to closure. I.Merchandise a. hardware (systems, headphones, etc.) b. Clothing c. Player (personality or someone who can win) II. Talent a. Broadcaster (hosting shows, events, commentating) b. Tutorial making
Ok, so why did I make this list? The world of gaming targets everyone! So all consumers within reach of its products given that they are even initially interested can easily become consumers to any of things I listed above. Although there is a definitive percentage of which type of consumer being hardcore or casual, would be purchasing your clothing or your variation of a product that is already out. One thing we must keep in mind is that the gamer is not the only consumer. The gaming community like sports attracts outside big businesses like redbull, Monster, E-cig and the list would go on if I could only remember. I am sorry too many companies and to little time.
What does this have to do with Empire? So I can explain this by using the first 3 things on our list. I. Merchandise A. Hardware can be licensed to Empire Arcadia, so that replica's of original products can be branded with their logo on it and sold. B. The company can either go directly to a manufacturer and have their brand printed on the clothing or have the clothes branded by a company that does that for them. C. This again!? READ MY LAST BLOGS AND YOU WILL FIND OUT! A saying they have in underground gaming is E-sports and it would make things more clear if you saw it as just that, a sport.
As far as Global marketing is concerned, licensingand franchising are the primary tools used by Empire to conduct international business.
Licensing: where licencors give legal right to other firms to use its trademarks, patent (s), or in this case, Empire's players. If you look at the picture below, you will see a direct example of what I am speaking about. Qanba is a Chinese company that makes this particular brand of sticks. Qanba and another third party company paid Empire in order to have the right to use Empires name on their sticks.
Again always referring back to my previous post as they all tie into one another, you should have read that Empire is a development organization. As players in Empire rise in value, they are often approached by sponsors.
Sponsors: A person or group (company) that provides funds for an activity. In many cases we see sponsors paying for all or part of a concert, sporting event etc. In order for you to fully grasp where I am going with this, you need to think of gaming as a sport, with no differences but the sport itself.
The sponsor then has to negotiate with Empire. In a sense now you can say the players are being leased to the whatever company by chance needs them. The services normally performed by the players and Empire as whole usually range anywhere from marketing the sponsors products or their brand-name. As of recent more and more players are being sponsored to simply show up at events, and commentate entire tournaments.
As there is much to touch on about Empire Arcadia, because of it's diverse business ventures I would like to take the time and focus on how Empire environmentally manages the market it's in. The answer to how Empire Arcadia as a business shapes the environment around them with little to no worry about the social, demographic, economic, and technological factors is simple. Note, I purposely left out the political and legal factors but this effects everyone and everything in any business. The 4 factors mentioned above do as well, but I will explain why they have very little to no effect on whether Empire Arcadia will be able to shape their market.
As stated before in Empire's mission statement, their goal is to "expand the gaming community and develop players". Every market you aim for has a reputation that proceeds it, in gaming, gamer's are seen as overweight, lazy, immature and unproductive. Now, with stereotypes like that, it would seem hard to help an entity like this one expand. Luckily enough for Empire, we have social media websites, you tube and "personalities". Empire was one of the first brands to ever begin show casing its gamer's lives and personalities on camera. How is this important? The fans..............Is it not obvious? You give the fans a persona or someone to be in touch with, when they are not actually around. So how does this expand the world of gaming? The same way ESPN and sports individually has expanded into the massive million- billion dollar industry that it is today. Through use of streaming most importantly, casual, hardcore and non-gamer's alike have access to high level gaming and the players.
There is still something missing though.....Ahhhhh, yes! What does Empire continue to do to expand the market? Nothing, nothing at all. This is a competitive market where you are only as good as your last win! Empire has already planted their seed from the beginning as one of the original pioneers of what goes on today in competitive gaming. The accomplishments that Empire Arcadia have achieved are more intangible then one might think, their influence and continuity are unprecedented as far as innovation is concerned.
The idea of morals and social responsibility hardly ever use to apply to the world of professional gaming. This leaves gaming's vast communities without their own ethical standards. Gaming culture since the 80's has now evolved into a very real sub-culture, as stated in my previous blog there are 2 types of gamers in the eyes of "business", but the spoken and unspoken codes of conduct apply to the entire community in the eyes of "business". How does this relate to Empire Arcadia and being a professional gamer? Let me start by giving you 2 very watered down examples of the of responsibilities of a professional gamer.
1. First and foremost you are a competitor, a sportsman and you are expected to conduct yourself as any other competitor would in any other sports.
2. You are the product that your sponsor (s) funds.
Now, as I stated before Empire Arcadia helps develop players and they expand the gaming community, it is not a sponsorship.One of the ways Empire employs their methods is by channeling information about their brand and events through their players, use of social media sites, and most importantly live appearances at major events. Just as there are 2 types of "gamers", there are also two competitive communities, the underground and the leagues. The underground communities are more no holds bar then the leagues, the atmosphere is much less professional and you will often hear heavy use of profanity in this section of the community and less sponsors. The leagues have a completely professional atmosphere, you generally wont find any rowdy hype behavior here or any heavy use of profanity. Sponsors and other brand name companies are always present at these events. So now the burning question. Why am I mentioning the 2 different types of communities? Because as it stands now regardless of the community that you frequent, if you are a sponsored player or apart of a brand, you must conduct yourself as a professional at all events and even in your social media life regardless of the community that you are present in. Notice in this blog I do not mention Empire Arcadia often, the reason for this is because it is unnecessary, Empire itself actually has no control over their ethnic standards and codes of conduct, they have to conform to whatever the communities desires are. Now that I discussed and gave you a brief idea of how Empire is forced to operate in an ethnic sense, allow me to fill in the gaps by giving you some examples of consequences of failing to abide by just the 2 rules above.
1. In gaming the way people compete is in tournaments and sometimes 2 competitors are good friends and they make it to grand finals. So let's say they decide they will split the first and second place prize amongst themselves and not try as hard to play out their final matches. Splitting pots or intentionally throwing a match each have different but very similar consequences in each community. In the underground community, you will be immediately disqualified from the tournament and of course there are long term hindrances to your credibility as a competitor and your sponsors would also have to deal with you as well. If this was done in the leagues, you would be expelled from ever competing again in the league, which would ensure the loss of your sponsorship. At the very minimum you just might be suspended. The links I provided below will provide you with more details as to what I am referring to.
2. Your image means everything to the sponsor or brand you work for. Again, you are a walking advertisement, what you do and say will can effect their sales and future partnerships. Streaming is now a natural process of the gaming world in both communities! You are always in the spot light and depending on your immediate audience you could accidentally offend someone, through use of profanity, how you conduct yourself before, during and after a match. This generally is not good for your image, your sponsors and always, always somehow hinders future prospects for the accused. Word gets around very fast in both communities! After you view the video below, I would like you to see how you would as a sponsor who had money invested into these players.
There are many other gaming companies that supersede Empire Arcadia's financial abilities in terms of sponsoring players, but the true power of Empire Arcadia does not lie within in its ability to financially support players.
Sustainable competitive advantage: Simply an advantage one competitor has over another that cannot be simulated.
What makes Empire Arcadia so much more unique than any other professional gaming organization that exists is there intimidating amount of accolades they have buried under one roof. As mentioned in the previous blog before, Empire Arcadia is the only gaming team in the world with Guinness world record for the most wins in tournament! To make it simple for you, they win, they have an elite set of winners, and they win when it matters the most. This inherently forces companies who are seeking to sponsor players in return to have their products or brands marketed to seek out the "best" of the "best" and because Empire is so condensed with both Pro & franchised players companies tend to flock to Empire as their first option. Empires weakness is the very market they and other companies seek to target. Gamers!
Now granted, gamer's come in all shapes, sizes and different ages, but generally speaking, most hardcore gamer's are between the ages of 14 & 24 and most casual gamer's fall within the ages of 5 and on. You might be thinking this is a large target market! How could anybody go wrong with these type of odds. Well first, lets be clear on what a hardcore gamer is and what a casual gamer is in "Industry lingo". The hardcore gamer's are the ones you see above and to the right, they are the die hard fans/players willing to dish out large percentages of their money and time in order to support and expand the communities which harbor their games. Unfortunately, most hardcore gamer's are broke and have or will reach the age in which their lives or interest might turn them into either "part-time" gamer's or they just do not compete or play anymore. The casual gamer can be anyone who owns a system and has no interest in competing and would simply like to enjoy his or her game in peace at home, spending about only a maximum of about 8 hrs a week playing games. Now lets get back to our question of how this hinders Empire, well for one as I mentioned before the life span of hardcore gamer can be a short one and even though they are willing to dish out money, as I mentioned before, it does not mean that they have it. The casual gamer is a tricky entity, as her or she can be quite fickle with how he our she wants to spend his or her money and they tend to be very black and white about their feelings towards the community. Although I said the casual gamer wants to be left alone, it does not mean they are to be ruled out. Casual gamer's will either support the community from a distance or become more intimately involved without becoming a hardcore gamer. Timing is everything! If a game is no longer popular or is "dying" due to lack of community support, well guess what? That Market is gone! Any amount of effort and time that was put in to targeting that market, gone!
Strength in diversity
Empire is highly diverse, maintaining and achieving championships / world records in multiple platforms of games. As stated before, do to the the dense population of gamer's it has under its label, Empire is able to adapt and quickly change suit to whatever the gaming community and Industry demands. Remember a companies success can also be determined by how many doors are open to them. If you view the link I provided here and you take a look at the tournament results under Super street fighter IV arcade edition 2012, you should see Emp Sanford Kelly as the winner. http://shoryuken.com/2014/01/19/apex-2014-streaming-live/ Shortly after his victory here at Apex 2014 in New Jersey, Sanford Kelly was offered the opportunity to fly out to Germany at ESGN's fight night. He trip was an all paid expense and he was paid for his appearance in Germany and the event was televised. One door can only lead to another. His interview starts at around 8:50 http://esgntv.com/tv/video/video_view.php?no=311
The birth of Empire Arcadia has been around far longer then its official founding date in 2002 by Isaiah "Tri Force Johnson. For a little over a decade Empire Arcadia set out to turn an individual with a passion for gaming into a professional. When I say professional I am referring to an individual who has an elite set of skills in and outside of gaming that can be marketed and outsourced to bring further growth to Empire Arcadia as a company and the gaming industry as a whole. After the gamer is turned into a" professional" he or she is utilized as a product of Empire Arcadia in order to market clothing, equipment, events and most importantly to help further expand the Empire.
In August 2012 Empire Arcadia had become the gaming team with the most documented tournament wins for gaming with 1,111 wins, with members who have competed in live gaming, online tournaments and world record attempts from 2004-2012.
"Empire Arcadia, mission is to utilize the professional talents and experience of its World Class Championship brand for the benefit of developing new markets in the growing video game industry, community and culture. The organization looks to developed these new markets in gaming through various diverse elements such as Fashion, Art, Music, Media, Health, Education, Community Network, Technology, Competition and Entertainment in gaming."
