Relationship Marketing in a Video Game Industry

Abstract

The main topic of this diploma thesis was relationship marketing in a video game industry. The goal was to demonstrate the usage of relationship marketing aspects on this market and to assess relationship potential of a selected video game brand. Focus was put on internet socialization about video games and on the associated social media, as a platform of support for the newly created communitas. Symptoms of relationship presence were identified inside these brand communities, consumer tribes and subcultures of consumption. Love for video games took shape of individual or collective gatekeeping, technical and emotional support among gamers, voluntary maintenance and extension of products’ functionality and marketing communication, and in a shape of visible projection of affinity towards selected game developers, games, or gaming characters, due to the presence of shared values. These aspects were inspected in detail on TombRaiderForums.com, a gaming community that was later identified as a brand community centred around Lara Croft, the main character of the Tomb Raider video game series. Netnography was selected as the main research method for primary, qualitative data collection. Its insights were broadened with quantitative data collected through an online questionnaire. Author’s own self-reflection and experience with the community and the Tomb Raider series also served as a foundation for the methodology. Besides artefacts that proved the relationship potential of the group, values of the Lara Croft brand were investigated as well. Data gathered from official audio-visual material analysis of individual Tomb Raider titles were confronted with community’s ideal and revealed key, relationally potent brand values of Lara Croft. Results of the research also served as an overview and a critical evaluation of each Lara Croft iteration, including her latest incarnation. It was found that the brand had preserved its relationship potential, but its consecutive alterations led to erosion of key values and to a split in the community, TombRaiderForums.com being an example. It was concluded that the Tomb Raider series has a big potential due to its long history, good production value, strong key values of the Lara Croft brand, and positive specifics of the target group. Game’s developer and publisher stand before a dilemma whether to remove the conflicting values from the current depiction of the main heroine and to move her towards the community’s ideal, or to place their bids on current Lara’s relationship potential and to create a new community. Concurrently, there is still space for extension of relationship marketing activities, thus a space for deepening the support of the active, mature, intelligent and creative community that surrounds the brand and that co-creates brand value for free. The video game market is then an ideal space for relationship marketing practices in general, since the consumption of video game products derives directly from relationship aspects.