Future of Video Game Merchandising

A new solution for merchandising is being introduced by upcoming startups and Rucept, with its extremely original offering in the video game merchandising, has been breaking ground by onboarding upcoming and established video game studios.

Merchandising is a big $250 bn+ market and has traditionally always been sold on 3rd party stores and marketplaces like Walmart, Amazon, etc. this model has served the Movies and other entertainment industries well. However, it has always been ignored by the video game industry in general. The reasons are many; video games mostly make money from showing their audience ads, selling virtual items in-game, or making them pay upfront for the download. While all these approaches are profitable, the reason why they work is that they're all digital monetization solutions. For video games, it's easy to monetize their users digitally because, as a software company, that's what they understand best.

However, as is well established from movies and other entertainment industries, physical products can create engagement, retention, and loyalty the way no other monetization solution can.

Consider this, over five years, a franchise like Cars (Animated movie made by Pixar) generated $1 bn in box office ticket sales. Still, over the same period, its merchandise sales were 10x, almost $10 bn. Merchandise has helped establish Star Wars, Harry Potter, Cars, Toy Story, Lion King, etc. not just as movies and franchises but by creating a real-world connection with the content. It has made the characters and our connection with them timeless. Can a Harry Potter fan imagine a life without the wizarding world?

Rucept's original contribution to patent-pending software technology connects games, factories, and brands in a way almost no other service does. They're able to showcase merchandise and real-life experiences within a game as part of the gameplay. This is extremely new. Imagine killing bosses of multiple levels to find unique unlocked merchandise at the end. Players can also collect in-game items or win points to do the same. Or think of capturing a beautiful scene in a game like Firewatch, which can be printed on posters or t-shirts within the game itself. This is a unique and extremely engaging way to let players get introduced to the custom game inspired merchandising.

Rucept's CEO Mudit says, "I've always bought movie merchandise, but whenever it came to my favorite gaming titles, it was always tough to find anything unique and interesting. Over and above, I am an online shopper, so it never made sense to me that I couldn't buy Assassin's Creed or COD gear while I was playing the game."

Sri Prasanth, who runs a Gaming Studio with some of the best gaming investors from Europe, said, "Rucept helps us increase engagement and retention of our users. Their software has automation that showcases the merchandising to gamers in the right place and time and unique and fun ways. This is helping us increase engagement and also monetize users. The best part is that all we have to do is invest 48-72 hours of development time. Rucept takes care of all manufacturing, shipping, logistics, customer service, etc. we never thought we could sell physical merchandising for our game unless we were the size of Angry Birds, but made possible by Rucept's unique and original software."