Mobile Entertainment

The issue of sideloading has been in the news recently and it's absolutely a distribution channel that games publishers should be looking at.

But sideloading as a strategy requires a shift in business thinking. A publisher selling its games via an operator or other third partner can keep itself abstracted from the end consumer.

But a publisher that wishes to succeed long-term with with a sideloading model needs to be much closer in terms of direct customer support and dialogue.

Put simply, a buggy product delivered directly to the customer will cost a lot more in returns and complaints, so you have to be prepared to invest more in sales and CRM to things right.

In some ways, diversifying in this way means becoming less of a specialist, taking on more parts of the value chain than you expect.

And even if you chose to partner third party web-based sales channels as opposed to handling the whole process yourself, you still have to work more closely with them than you would other forms of delivery.

But if you do run your own channel then a lot of effort tends to go into customer relationship building, running reward and discount schemes to encourage repeat purchases, taking surveys, setting up referral schemes, etc.

Even just running good customer services - dealing with queries by phone and email, live chat or running forums - gets you a lot of direct feedback about what you're doing well and what you need to improve on.

Of course, there is additional revenue to be made by adopting a web-based sideloading distribution model and the slice of revenue you get is larger that through an operartor partner.

Furthermore, the closer relationship to customers could help you to develop products that they prefer. This kind of closeness with the end user may not suit all publishers.

Perhaps it isn't surprising that the publishers that have been able to do this have generally been smaller. It is harder for the larger companies to project that personal, friendly image that encourages customers to buy direct and return for more.

Getting this right requires a conscious effort and a lot more than just setting up a blog. We found a major step forward was to stop hiding behind our website and referring to ourselves as 'we', but to admit who worked in each of the roles in the company and even to include staff pictures.

If doing this fills you with dread, perhaps it's an indicator that being successful with sideload isn't going to be easy work for you...