Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

In terms of the Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-Share Matrix, I would put iOS games in the star category, Xbox and PlayStation in the cash cow category, and computer games in the dog category.

According to the Boston Consulting Group, “Stars are high-growth, high-share businesses or products. They often need heavy investments to finance their rapid growth.” (Marketing: An Introduction, Armstrong and Kotler, 44) iOS games are exactly that. Hundreds of iOS games are being created, uploaded, and downloaded everyday. One of the most notable iOS games is Angry Birds. “Angry Birds has become the fastest growing game in history, scoring 500 million downloads in less than two years since its December 2009 release, the most for any game all-time.” (http://www.ibtimes.com/angry-birds-most-downloaded-game-all-time-364390#) These days, people play games to kill time. They want a game that is portable and easy to access to entertain them when they have to wait in line or are on their break at work. Because of the popularity of these iOS games, The London Games Conference has named Steve Jobs as the most influential person of the gaming industry. “Jobs and the iPhone came out ahead of Valve co-founder Gabe Newell, Facebook inventor Mark Zuckerburg and the Nintendo Wii and Xbox Live.” (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/countdown-to-london-games-conference-apple-cuts-to-the-core/087090)

The rapid growth of iOS games has put Xbox and PlayStation in the cash cow category. They have been putting out new products like the Xbox Kinect and the soon to be PlayStation 4, which are generating some revenue for these companies. So, there is still money to be made with video game systems. However, their markets are at a plateau and it doesn’t seem that it’ll grow any time soon.

Lastly, I put computer games in the dog category because I don’t see it generating any more revenue or any growth in their market. I feel that computer games have their set market and users, and there isn’t much change that is going to happen to it.