Video Game supplement testing muse

[prizman]

Hello everyone! I just registered after being a guest on this site for a month. I'd like to get people's input on what steps to take next.

Here is my current situation: I have an idea to create a supplement which will enhance focus, reaction time and responsiveness. I have registered the domain name and have a logo for it designed. However, I need to confirm that there is indeed a market for it. I'm not too well versed on keywords but I've come up with nothing for "video game supplements" or the like. Is there another way to verify that there is a demand via online?

There is one company that does exactly what I'm doing http://www.fpsbrain.com/?switchLanguage=english&language=en, of course I will market and position myself as the superior product and sell it for ~$60 a bottle, but does this one plain fact that there is another company doing the same thing confirm that there is a market without need for additional testing?

Lastly, I was thinking about purchasing an advertisement in PC Gamer 4k for 1/4 page ad but I could negotiate down to ~1k just to confirm that there is a demand for this.

Any help on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Ryan P

[Bradinator]

This should be interesting.
I think someone here has some inside info on this.

[prizman]

Bradinator,

Why don't you go and give that 'insider' a nudge in my direction? :)

[kamakiri]

Not a bad idea. I have been working on the same thing for over a year now. You can check out the progress at gamebrain.us (http://gamebrain.us). There are a few other companies out there targeting the same market as direct competitors, and then you have the indirect competitors, like WOW Mountain Dew. That does prove a market, but it needs to be done well. What market are you in? Do you actually play the games who's customers you are looking to market market to?

Here are a few of the competitors:
fps Brain - The original. Just expanded the product line to a drink
Mana Potions (http://www.manapotions.com/)- The #1 gaming 'supplement' in the US
fps Brain NL (http://fpsbrain.nl/) - Much cooler site
Game Supli (http://www.4gamer.net/games/027/G002744/20080410001/)- A Japanese company. More designed for eye strain though.

Finally, there is a gaurana candy bar marketed as a game supplement that apparently didn't go anywhere, but might still be made somewhere. The fpsbrain guys seem to have a really half assed organization. Mana Potions is hitting home runs. They have a team of models they bring to conventions, a popular blog, and are well into social media (Facebook). They also expanded their product line earlier this year to include red health potions.

Do you have your business plan finished?

Do you have a specific game you want to market to?

Where did you get $60 from? That price point is way out of the ball park.

What country will you market your products to?

How far along are you in your planning stage?

[prizman]

@kamakiri

In order of appearance:

I am in the FPS market on any console, yet easily expandable to MMORPGs with labeling modifications.

Yes I play video games all the time (I'm cutting back devoting a lot more time on my muses) and love FPSs.

I do not have my business plan even started. It was going to consist of me trying to find out if people would actually buy this thing but now that you have confirmed my suspicions, I will move along and draft one up.

Not a specific game, a specific genre: FPSs.

I got $60 because of the information in 4HWW: set it at a premium and charge $50-200 for it. Why not $59.99?

I will be marketing in the US.

Again, the planning stage was to test if there was a market, but I do have an advertisement developed that includes my logo and typefaces. http://imgur.com/zjS2u.jpg ('http://imgur.com/zjS2u.jpg').

Thanks for the informative reply; let me know what you think!

P.S. Is it frowned upon for providing images directly in the post or should I just link to them instead?

[Marcie]

It's OK to post images. The "clean" kind anyway ;-)

Wow, that's quite a claim - God-like. Interesting...

[kamakiri]

You ask about the price? Gamers will not spend $60 on pills. $60 is almost a decent upgrade part. It is also more than the cost of most games, and for your product it is pretty unreasonable. The COGS will be about $5 a bottle + shipping, so you have no need to charge well over 10 times. If you have success with that, I will follow your marketing and undercut your prices by half, but the reality is that at $60 a bottle the demand is so small as to be not significant.

Ideally you want to compete with a gamer's 'play money'. That is what they spend for membership fees, or a few energy drinks. I have done my due diligence and can see no reason at all to charge $60. Do you have a compelling need to do it? Because the book said $50-$200 is no reason at all. The price is very elastic in this case.

From econ wiki:
elastic demand means that consumers are sensitive to the price at which a product is sold and will not buy it if the price rises by what they consider too much.

Check out the book, and find some resources on the net for split testing. That is how I got my name and how Tim got the name for the book. Don't get too attached to Precision Pills. The average age for MMORPG players is 35, and they all grew up in the Reagan Administration with Nancy spouting, "Just say NO!". I am sure I am not the only one who gets a bad image of the word pill. That, of course, is neither here nor there though. Split testing will clear that up very quickly.

Stay away from banners for a while. You can do a lot of testing with Google ad words before you get to the point where you need banners. Just think about some of the annoying ones you have seen. Unless you have the Snorg t-shirts chick, nobody wants to see it. Get your marketing nutted before you go that route.

[prizman]

@Marcie

A little controversy never hurts :)

@Kamakiri

I understand where you're coming from on the pricing side and will look into modifying it.

Also, I have been looking into split testing and have come across software which tests variations of pages which wont be much help to me at this stage. Would I need to purchase domain names before testing each name or can I just have different ads linking to the same page?

[kamakiri]

You don't have to own anything before you test it, but be careful as people can buy names out from under you.