BUS330 Week 1 Discussion 2 Products and Services

When I first looked at the prompt for this assignment, all I could think about were the Doritos for women. Thankfully, that never happened.

Instead, I picked a product that I think could have gone right but sadly went all wrong because somewhere in research and development, mistakes were made. My product is the Atari video game, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial. It was based on the classic Steven Spielberg film, and this video game was developed and released shortly after the film debuted in 1982. It is now referred to by many as the worst video game in history!

Section 2.3 in our books reviews the second step in the marketing process, marketing strategy. There are five steps in the process of how market research is conducted:

Step 1, Problem Definition: This defines why the research is being done and what is the end goal. For E.T. They were looking to see how they could capitalize on the success of a movie with a video game.

Step 2, Research Design: Step two is where the company selects if they want to use a primary or secondary research method and a quantitative or qualitative data type for their research. Based on the results, I would argue that most research for the E.T. video game was based on quantitative values.

Step 3, Data Collection: Data collection takes the focus of the first two steps, and gather information. This can be done in many ways and was likely done by Atari’s internal teams.

Step 4, Data Analysis: Once step three is completed, all of the data is analyzed. That information is turned into insights. This is where they decided the game could be profitable and their budgets.Step 5, Report Presentation: After all analysis is completed, the insights gained are presented to management and stakeholders. In Atari’s case, their management made a huge mistake here and approved the idea to move forward based on the analysis.

They pulled one of their most successful developers, Howard Warshaw, who had already dubbed one of Spielberg’s other movies into video game format. While doing research, they decided that this game would do well for them financially if it were ready by Christmas. This game Warshaw only five weeks instead of the six to eight months that was usually allotted to game development. I think this would generally fall under step two and four. They should have known a quality product could not be developed in that amount of time.

Another reason that they should have taken more caution, but that also prompted more risk, is that the company was starting to lose money to home computers. The E.T. game flopping was a massive hit to the company. They spent $21 million to purchase the rights to the movie, $5 million on marketing, made 4 million copies, and only sold 1.5 million. (Sauter, Comen, Frohlich, & Stebbins, 2018)

When I go back in time, I will share the insights that making a quality game that upholds the name of their brand while outside competitors are growing is more critical now than making a game before Christmas. I will share insights into the future, and that gaming will continue to evolve, so quality and being innovative is more important than ever. Showing that they can create new games that will compete with new technology is what could have kept them in the business longer. If possible, I would get them started sooner as they have invested in Spielberg before.

Overall I had a lot of fun researching this, here are the resources I used:

Hooper, R. (2016, February 22). The man who made ‘the worst video game in history’. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35560458

Sauter, M. B., Comen, E., Frohlich, T. C., & Stebbins, S. (2018, July 11). When product launches go awry: 50 worst product flops of all time. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/07/11/50-worst-product-flops-of-all-time/36734837/

White, S. (2019). Principles of Marketing, Second Edition Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books/White.4975.18.1/sections/fm