Over the previous 12 years, laptop and online game distribution methods have undergone a seismic shift. Gross sales of digital video games exceeded these of bodily copies for the primary time in 2013, and the development was additional accelerated by the 2020 lockdowns. In Italy, for instance, the primary week of confinement led digital recreation downloads to skyrocket by 174.9%.
Trying forward, the market is poised to proceed rising, with Statista projecting it’s going to develop at a CAGR of 5.76% between now and 2027, ultimately reaching a market quantity of $25.4 billion by the tip of that yr.
Regardless of this, competitors stays fierce. The digital video games market is dominated by solely a handful of platforms, and with 94% of spending happening digitally, that leaves little or no room for brand spanking new entrants. Established gamers — akin to Steam and Epic Video games Retailer within the PC sphere — reap the benefits of this to impose hefty charges on publishers.
For these main entities, integrating AI into their operations is second-nature. Nevertheless, for smaller, rising platforms, AI might be a game-changer — one that permits them to problem the incumbent oligopoly.
Whereas replicating profitable AI implementations requires cautious consideration of platform-specific traits and operational contexts, listed here are 4 methods wherein AI may also help fledgling e-commerce corporations compete with digital distribution giants.
#1: Enhancing fraud detection
On gaming platforms, fraud occurs at a a lot bigger scale — and extra recurrently — than in different e-commerce verticals. Given its capability to course of and analyze huge quantities of transaction knowledge, AI’s algorithms can promptly establish suspicious patterns or anomalies.
By scouring via in depth transaction databases, machine studying algorithms can adapt and acknowledge fraudulent operations, starting from unusual person behaviors to irregular cost schemes and purchases from atypical geographic areas.
In conventional rule-based programs, a few of these indicators would possibly go unnoticed, hindering an organization’s skill to detect fraud and exposing it to potential monetary losses.
At our firm, by implementing AI-powered software program — developed by a 3rd social gathering — we’ve got prevented roughly 95% of fraudulent transactions. We additionally work hand-in-hand with expertise. As soon as an operation is flagged as doubtful, our supervisor personally critiques it. Digital recreation keys should not launched to the client till the acquisition has been manually authorised by our supervisor.
#2: Streamlining Buyer Assist Queries
In e-commerce, AI-powered chatbots are one of the vital frequent functions of synthetic intelligence.
Since there are a lot of options available in the market already, chatbots are comparatively simple to implement, even with out historic knowledge. As a result of they will be taught from person interactions, chatbots yield outcomes virtually straight away, and assist corporations cut back their want for buyer assist employees.
Moreover, they liberate time for the prevailing buyer assist brokers.
In our expertise, most queries acquired — round 70% — are fairly easy and repetitive. Examples embody:
- Is the sport accessible for buy?
- When can I obtain the sport key?
- How do I activate my license key?
- What’s the standing of my order?
In 80% of those circumstances, our AI bots have been fairly profitable at serving to our customers without having to switch them to a dwell operator. Thus, we are able to say that our bots cowl roughly 56% of our incoming assist requests, liberating invaluable sources that had been beforehand poured into assist employees in order that we are able to use them elsewhere within the firm to boost our development.
#3: Figuring out UX conversion-driving patterns
A typical dilemma e-commerce-oriented enterprise house owners face is figuring out these components that efficiently drive conversion and those who don’t.
That is one other space the place AI may also help, by accumulating person knowledge that pinpoints recurring behavioral patterns that both lead or deter conversions. Based mostly on this knowledge, corporations could make UX-centered changes to their web site.
Moreover, AI can create buyer segments that enhance the effectiveness of selling efforts. Since it may create person profiles throughout numerous dimensions, AI can uncover connections and group look-alike segments which may not be apparent via handbook critiques. For instance, prospects who buy GTA 5 can also be fascinated by video games from a special style that, in precept, bears no relation to GTA 5.
To facilitate this, we’ve got carried out a third-party AI personalization answer from Retail Rocket. By leveraging historic buyer buy knowledge, this device helps us accomplish a number of duties, akin to offering personalised product suggestions — each on our web site and thru e-mail — and figuring out relationships between merchandise, enabling us to counsel complementary purchases.
Moreover, we are able to additionally time our prospects’ subsequent potential buy. This additionally improves our timing for advertising messages. All in all, we are able to proudly say that these efforts have bolstered our gross sales through advertising channels by roughly 15%.
#4: Forecasting gross sales
Given the time-sensitive nature of the gaming trade — as an example, Steam imposes constraints on what number of keys publishers can generate — efficient forecasting is vital.
Right here, we’ve got carried out an easy AI mannequin that’s based mostly on two main strategies: time collection forecasting and regression evaluation.
By detecting patterns, the previous helps us predict future gross sales figures and adapt to seasonality, which is a crucial issue within the gaming discipline. Alternatively, the latter assists our workforce in establishing relationships between gross sales knowledge and different variables — demographics, pricing, product classes, and extra.
Since there are broad divergences in these parameters — for instance, there are sports activities video games launched yearly, akin to these by EA Sports activities, and different technique video games that span throughout many years — getting these crucial components proper is of paramount significance for correct forecasting.
We first began with this within the spring of 2024, so, as of now, our outcomes are just like what we had been attaining with out AI. Nevertheless, we count on that as we additional calibrate and refine our mannequin, and accumulate extra historic knowledge, our accuracy will considerably enhance over time.
Remaining ideas
In some fields, akin to gaming, AI can change into a democratizing issue — one that permits rising, high-potential platforms to compete with established behemoths.
Having stated this, to completely notice its potential, it isn’t a lot about merely integrating AI for the sake of it, however about doing it proper.
For smaller corporations that can’t afford to keep up an in-house workforce of AI specialists, a viable answer is to make the most of current third-party software program. A few of these ready-made options can be utilized by common builders, even when they aren’t specialised in AI.
My suggestion is that you don’t transition your whole workload straight away to AI. As an alternative, take a gradual method. For instance, ask AI to deal with 10% of person queries, or to dynamically value 10% of your merchandise.
Final however not least, keep the human contact. Having individuals evaluation the standard of AI’s assist might be very helpful. As AI proves its value, you’ll be able to broaden its scope inside your group.