Reference no: EM132900290
Case Study - Minecraft
Markus Persson is the lone developer of Minecraft, the no-frills video game that has sold close to 2 million copies. This number is even more impressive when you consider that Persson has not spent any money to market Minecraft. Further, unlike iPhone bestseller such as Angry Birds, Minecraft has not benefited from the distribution muscle of Apple or any other company.
The only place to buy Minecraft is Persson's website, which sells it for about $21. The game is played through a web browser. Minecraft places users inside a vast landscape. The goal - to the extent there is one - is to avoid being eaten by monsters that come out after dark. All the fun, however, lies in using square blocks of materials like dirt, gravel, and clay to build elaborate caves, towers, and fortresses. The person wrote the Minecraft program in 2009 as a side project while working on his day job at King.com, a gaming website. By the end of January 2010, he was selling about 7,000 copies on an average day. As Persson observed: "Once (sales) got up to 15 copies a day, which was enough for me to have a salary." One source stated that by late 2010 Minecraft was earning $350,000 per day. In March 2010 the Independent Games Festival awarded Minecraft its grand prizes.
In late 2010, Persson founded a gaming company called Mojang. Swedish for "gadget." He and seven employees split their time between continuing to develop Minecraft and working on a new video game, called Scrolls. In addition, Mojang is creating versions of Minecraft for iPhones, iPads, and Android phones that will be available in late 2011. These versions will be sold through third-party app stores such as Apple's iTunes.
Questions
- What are the two most common types of electronic commerce that used by Persson's business to be successful?
- The current scenario shows that the organization uses business to business (B2B) to restructure their supply chains and their partner relationships. Identify the three business models for B2B that can be applied to help Persson's business develop.