Podcast – Video Game Revenue Models To Save The New York Times?

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I am Following up my original post below about micropayments with this interview I conducted with GamesOverGirls.com founder Jack Bartolucci.  The purpose of this interview is to learn more about the different revenue streams game companies and console manufacturers use to make money.

Through the interview I learn that money comes not just from selling the games themselves but also:

1. Add ons (like buying new songs for RockBand via their in game store – 28million downloads since Dec.2008)
2. New Chapters (like for Grand Theft Auto 4)
3. Peripherals (like game specific controllers)
4. In-game advertising  (like the ads Barack Obama ran in Burnout Paradise and 17 other games)

And the point-of-purchase is really simple.  Depending on what system you are using it’s either done online or right through the console.  Regardless of what system you are using all the major gaming systems work like E-ZPass. Just set up a one time account with your credit card and all purchases from that point on are transacted with one click.  iTunes works similarly.  Super Easy, Super Convenient.

What newspapers are doing now is not working.  If NYTimes.com can’t break even with advertising revenue, who can?  LATimes.com thinks they can, but they can’t.

How can newspaper sites use these types of revenue streams to make money?  As I say below, I would have paid 10cents to watch the Mike Tyson interview.  What would NYT need to do to get my account info to enable such a “one click transaction”?  How about having the video cut out halfway through at which point you are asked to submit any monetary amount above zero cents? Just like the the videogame companies you would only have to input your credit card info One Time.  After that, transactions occur through one simple click as described earlier.

Obviously you can’t do this with every single article, but you can absolutely do it for every single video and audio slideshow.  Make sure to allow comments and ratings viewable by everyone so people will be even more inclined to pay to view the multimedia piece.  If people don’t want to pay?  That’s their loss, you’ve got bills to pay NYT.

Here’s how Nintendo and Activision are doing compared to NYT stock over the last 2 years.

The interview is safe for work until about halfway through when Jack decides he wants to interview me and we wind up talking about all sorts of things we are not qualified to talk about like Professional Journalism, Sexism, Maria Bartiromo, and Race Relations in the USA.  But it sure is funny to listen to and if you are a gamer and not easily scared by political incorrectness then head on over to GamesOverGirls.comfor more.

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Originally Published January 20, 2009
Economic sustainability through Micro-payments at NYTimes.com

I cancelled my print / online subscription to the New York Times back in 2006 or maybe early 2007. Either way, I could no longer justify the cost even though I was a Graduate student at the time, getting a student discount. For my interests, I could get everything I needed for free online at NYTimes.com and I wasn’t even stealing! NY Times was offering their content for free and when Times Select died, it was ALL free.  At that point, for me, the print version made no sense at all.

I stopped paying, and the content kept flowing.  How hell is this possible?  It isn’t.  So we get this:

I have no problem with this, the problem is that NYT as a company cannot make any money.  I repeat, the most trafficked newspaper site in the United States can’t break even!  WTF?  Why pay a dividend? Well, that’s another matter I suppose.

Micro-payments.  I’m sure others have mentioned micro-payments as a revenue supplement, but it hasn’t been tried yet, not that I know of.  But a curious thing happened to me today.  As I recently tweeted,

metaprinter I would have gladly paid 10cents to watch this Tyson / David Carr interview. http://tinyurl.com/6sha83 NYT has no revenue model.

In between watching the Obama inauguration and working, I stumbled upon, watched, and enjoyed the aforementioned Mike Tyson interview.  Afterward and still now, I wish I could have clicked a button to pay 10cents for the video.  Set up through PayPal, I can see a one click (two max) feature bringing in money.

Smaller than spot.us, smaller than Kiva.org Micro-payments.  Just an idea.  One of many floating around.

RELATED:
Get Me Rewrite! A modest proposal for reinventing newspapers for the digital age -from The Atlantic

OTHER CONTENT I WOULD HAVE PAID FOR BUT DIDN’T :
Skateboarding In Afghanistan -from NYT.com

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3 thoughts on “Podcast – Video Game Revenue Models To Save The New York Times?”

  1. Pingback: Can Video Game Revenue Models Save The Newspaper Industry … | Epic Gamer

  2. Thanks for the plug for our site, Robert. The interview was interesting. I think one of the main problems facing printed publications, is the lack of individualization available. Todays newspapers are forced due to relitively high production costs, to use a fixed model for pricing and content. This requires the publications to provide content which appeals to the greatest number of possible consumers. I have always wondered if a ala carte offering would be a viable alternative. The ability to customize content puts internet publications at a distinct advantage to printed publications. I personally would love to be able to customize my newspaper (ie… i want the following sections: us news, world news, food and dining, arts). being able to customize my own newspaper with only sections i am interested in would make the newspaper much more valuable to me and make the newspaper much more of a “bargain” as well. A subscription only newspaper where each subscriber selects only the sections they wish to recieve would be a solution. Having it subscription only should help to keep production costs in check.