Well...
I did not get a chance to slap a few battlebids listings together last weekend, just other engineering stuff I had to attend to (no choice). I'll get it done this weekend.
I can agree with some folks comments yet this form of addition may also have promise.
As it "is" from what I can see of the few games they are effectively a novelty item. This might draw some interest via some eBay buyer demographic... may not. Larger load times could discourage bids for example. Some folks (though I cant imagine many) might not be Flash enabled.
What Auctiva long term goals might be for BattleBids could be many things... we just do not know. If they are building a code library of routines via these initial novelty items long term prospects could get interesting. That is to say games within auctions that could result or play out in varied ways. Bare with me for a moment.
Some thoughts just off the top of my head could be truly competitive games, say Euchre, Poker, Space Invaders on and on with results that may vary a bid or result in some form of discount or compensation. For example, the Euchre game winner gets a "free" this or 10% discount on that as they "checkout" through Auctiva. Or lets say a Buy It Now listing where one, two, three whatall consumers will compete for "Buy It Now". In other words, Auctiva or whatall "Buys or reserves the item". The players play out the game whatever it is... The winner then "pays". A "High score" for say Space Invaders might be kept within the game engine.
These are completely radical differences in the ways auctions/consumer purchasing take place. Or are they? No & Yes. Yes in that its certainly not been done before at eBay or in any scale. No in that consumers are frequently subjected to varied marketing campaigns by retailers that are or border on games.
The successful key to such things revolve around a targeted demographic. It can be HIGHLY successful which is why retailers do such things as scratch off's, McDonalds monopoly games on and on.
I'll cite a few ideas I have as examples that would be targeted. For someone vending say historical books and merchandise a "trivia" game where they compete against others could be HIGHLY effective. Again, end results could be varied. Free Item, discount(s) or even for every answer correct some amount come off the price for every incorrect response some money goes on. I answer right and the buy it now (end cost) drops .05 lets say, I answer incorrectly it costs me .05.
One could have the old "Tank" game from the Atari Console where the winner of the game is your "Buy It Now" winner. Or "Krazy Robots" (which I worked on) for high scores.
Build a space armada via winning where it will compete against other armada's. Or like the original Cosmic Balance which I did some work on where the player (players in this case) pre-program ships in battles against one another that then play out in real-time. Again, rewards can vary.
Do not say there is not a market for such things. Online gaming is a ENORMOUS market as is gaming in general. "Electronic gaming" as a total in dollars will blow anyones mind. World Of Warcraft expansion sold 2.4 Million copies in 24 hours. Halo 3 just released, 170 Million dollars in first day sales.
Point being there is a HUGE gaming public out there. The keyword here with Auctiva IMHO would be how to tap that gaming public in a way that results in competitive (or not) *FUN* for prospect buyers/bidders that results in:
1. A marketing edge for vendors using the technology.
2. A worthwhile experience for the players. The end experience could be, winning an item, discounts, free item(s), high scores, on and on.
A novelty item will quickly wear-off when it comes to consumers. But items that TRULY draw on the human beings need for "play" could be very very nice for Auctiva, eBay and all parties involved.
So dont count this stuff out... not at all in fact.
I can think of TONS of stuff just off the top of my noodle given eBay will allow for it.
Like here is an item for sale... buyers opt in, so as far as things go... its sold. Only issue now is WHO gets it and perhaps for how much. I mean my goodness imagine the prospects!!!! Say online horse racing where they jockey the horses. Flash has really good capability to make "decent games". Or, "Shoot pool to see who gets it!".
Guess what, I have "10 of these for sale!". So perhaps the pool player who wins a round of "8 ball" gets his cheaper, but now I sold two and the buyers had a ball (no pun) doing so. Much more the "Thrill" than "I went on eBay and bought it now".
Perhaps Auctiva comes up with a game where it can have many many players and bidding is integral to the game. Now lets say we have 500 vendors taking part and each vendor has agreed to kick $10 over to the "final winner" so $5,000 sits out there as a prize.
So dont just write this stuff off as "What in the heck?".
Games have been applied to more effective marketing for years by retailers. Many on the web have tried as well. However the prospect of doing so in the worlds largest marketplace to me is completely fascinating. I come from an software engineering (programming) background and for many years worked in the video games industry.
Lets all take a bit of effort and offer this stuff up in some of our auctions. Let Auctive measure what they can of demographics, success, pitfalls and various marketing prospects.
If we can all get on the same page it really could be something very unique and really BIG. I mean hey... even something as simple as game selections for our Auctiva stores could be a decent equation. There sits Tetris (and others) we can rotate in every month... In order to play a game, gotta buy something. High score at end of the month gets a Free something or another from us, $20 gift certificate to be used in our store for Buy It Now or we slap $20 to their PayPal account. Perhaps they get entered into a master drawing where every month the vendor participants kick $10 each towards a tournament or just plain drawing.
Point being... there exists a pretty broad range of ways this sort of technology can be employed to everyone's benefit.
Now... with some of this said, I do have a question that'd be related.
WILL eBay allow vendors to link to an Auctiva store?
In other words given say the above concept of Tetris thogh any game could be the hitch will eBay allow say us to put in every listing, "Come Play Tetris and blah blah blah..." at our "Store" which ultimately is an Auctiva storefront? Or for that matter... if not, would they allow us to plant the .FLA in a custom page and then promote it in ad's?
The success of the (very brief) concepts I just outlined above rely on traffic obviously thus latching the browsing consumer to it becomes an imperative.
I am 101% positive if I put my brain unto the subject in some detail there is some really BIG possibilities with this stuff but not just as novelty.
The big question would be what will eBay allow? And... given what they will/wont allow what mechinisms can be employed to be most effective.
For example... Lets say eBay goes, "Umm.. no cant put a tetris .FLA in a custom store page and we wont allow redirect to Auctiva Storefront" (which really they should allow since purchasing at an Auctiva Store is purchasing at eBay? yes?!?....?????) its not to say as the consumer "Check out through Auctiva" they get a token they can enter into our Auctiva store that still allows them to play to win whatever?... any number of things... 25% your next purchase from us, free this, $5 whatall.
We should talk Auctiva.
I am perfectly willing to sign an NDA as is appropriate and discuss this stuff and/or other stuff!
Like I said in another post... I got'salot of ideas fer' ya'll.
