What Startup Founders Can Learn from the Gaming Industry: 5 Essential Lessons

Uzone.id – In the last 20 years, the gaming industry has seen remarkable growth, racking up revenues of US$178 billion and projected to hit US$225 billion by 2025. No wonder people started to ask the pivotal question: what should we take lessons from this sector? 

The gaming industry has set new standards for what users anticipate from products and experiences. For instance, it has pioneered personalized experiences by leveraging a profound understanding of customer behavior. This level of insight and engagement can offer valuable insights for businesses in other fields.

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If you are a business owner and can understand what your customers need, they will come back and create profits. And, there are many more interesting lessons you can learn from this industry. Let’s go!

Test, perfect it, launch

Game developers always test the early versions of their games through “alpha” and “beta” versions. Developers will conduct trials to get feedback from users. Then, developers will make improvements so that the game that is later released is in perfect form.

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What game developers do can be applied to your current startup. Instead of spending time perfecting a product that turns out not to meet market needs, you can try doing what game developers do.

You can release a product that is already worthy of being marketed to consumers to get feedback. After getting the data, you can make improvements and align the product according to market desires. By doing this, you will reduce the risk of failure and bankruptcy.

Learn how to make them come back

The gaming industry has taught us that while acquiring users is important, keeping them engaged and coming back for more is key to success. 

For example, the popular game League of Legends keeps its user base engaged by updating the game with new content, challenges, and features. Because of these regular updates, users are encouraged to keep playing.

Just like the gaming industry, to grow your startup, you need to find a way to keep customers coming back. Creating a product that attracts users but fails to retain them will make it difficult for a company to survive in the long run.

You can learn from the gaming industry to engage customers in updates or start by offering something new to an old product.

Open multiple revenue

Game companies do not only rely on initial revenue, they increase their income through the purchase of premium items or features that can enhance the gaming experience. So, even though the game can be downloaded for free, the company will be able to continue to generate revenue from purchases made by users.

Well, you can adopt what these game companies do into the business you are running. To continue to maintain your business, you can open a subscription system, affiliate marketing, or strategic partnerships with third parties.

Build a solid community

The success of a game is not only determined by how interesting the game is but also by how strong the community they have. Through the community, players can interact with each other both inside and outside the game. The community will also be a place that encourages organic growth through word-of-mouth recommendations.

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From a startup perspective, building a community means that you gather people who are loyal to your brand. Whether through social media, offline forums, or in-app interactions will create a space for them to discuss. This will have a big impact on the industry in the long run.

Take a risk

When you play video games, it’s—almost—has three basic roles. It’s an attacker, defender, and healer. Every player has their strength and weaknesses. Basically, without each complementary role, the team will be lost. 

In a real startup company, you will lead people with different roles, backgrounds, ages, strengths, weaknesses, etc. So, you should know how to take advantage of this to build a bigger company and make it stable. 

Allow your employees to take risks learn, try, often fail, and create optimism. You can learn to harness that spirit beyond gameplay by focusing on learning and improving as you go.