Next Step - Product Vs Service.

Thank you to the person who made the comment on July 12, 2008. While I see the log of page hits on the site, the interactivity helps me to keep writing.

There are a few more large design aspects that I want to bring forth and illuminate before I tie all of this up into a package that has astounded every gamer who has had the opportunity to discuss this with me. If you have read to this point, keep checking back and this should all be tied up by mid August.

The next step is talking about what these MMORPG are for the provider. Key point.. these are NOT products. We in the PBM world figured this out 20 years or more ago. Once you have released an offering to the public where they pay a fee on a monthly basis, the offering becomes a Service. Yes, a service with a capital “S”.

The important takeaway is that a service has different deliverables and key points and orientation to the customer than from a product. Stop here. Think about this for a moment. So often we read the words, without savoring the deep meaning. So often I meet folks, both in and out of gaming who pay lip service to this concept, but have not the slightest inkling what this means.

Lets do a little exercise, think of it as a little challenge. Take out a pen and paper and list out three differentiators between a product and a service. Go ahead. Once you have completed this, then please continue reading.

Now that you have put some brain power behind this concept for a few minutes, something should pop out at you.

A product offering is all based upon point of sale. You sell the product, then move on to create “XYZ II”. In the past this has been done with better graphics, different content etc. Key point: You cannot retain subscribers by providing a product. Products are transactional: you buy them then consume them then you are done. Almost all gamed today are created from the perspective of a Product. The prevailing concept is to add more "content" and that somehow makes it a wonderful service!! Bah! If you believe this then you are not thinking.

A service offering is based upon meeting customer needs over a long period of time. The longer you can meet their needs, the longer they will keep with your service. This means that they must have a constant stream of unique challenges, situations, problems to be solved and most importantly “Questions than need to be answered”, and just as importantly, that what they are doing MUST have some form of personal meaning.

“HA!” you say! “I knew that!” Really? If you knew it, and designed with this philosophy, then why are there hundreds of thousands if not millions of posts by gamers around the world begging for designs that incorporate this ideology?

My next entry I will tell you, in detail, how to create a dynamic game environment. Yes we have the technology, Yes it has been put into a prototype, yes it works, and yes, it is amazing. No, no main line game publisher has tripped over this concept successfully yet.