Research Firm OTX Reveals GamePlan Consumer Tracking Service

During the MI6 game marketing conference taking place in San Francisco on Wednesday, market research firm OTX is revealing its new business intelligence tool and tracking service GamePlan. This new tool aggregates detailed consumer data on hundreds of games on a weekly basis, and projects forward-looking consumer behavior surrounding those titles. It joins a number of other consumer and game tracking and research tools in the game market, including consumer-specific offerings from services such as IGN GamerMetrics and GameSpot Trax and game-specific analyses from firms such as EEDAR. However, OTX has partnered with game rental company GameFly and eBay transaction data provider AERS, in conjunction with internal data from OTX's own GamePlan Consumer Tracker. The results allow publishers and other interested parties to analyze metrics such as what games are most desirable to rent and own, and which titles gamers plan to rent or own in the future. "The goal with GamePlan is to present scientific primary research," OTX gaming director Nick Williams told Gamasutra. "There aren't too many companies putting out syndicated data with actual research data reflective of the actual purchase population. It's a credible research source for an industry that's growing up." The GamePlan Consumer Tracker has been gathering information since October 2008; it processes data on more than 600 games from 25,000 players, with OTX claiming that figure is increasing by 1,000 on a weekly basis. That information is gathered by OTX's "multi-source sampling" method, which polls players in the United States across hundreds of online panels. In advance of the official announcement, OTX has provided Gamasutra with samples of separate partner data supplied by AERS and GameFly for the month of March, listing the most-sold games on eBay, the most-queued games on GameFly, and the titles GameFly users most frequently buy after renting. All data in cited lists applies to the date range of February 22, 2009 to March 28, 2009. In a forthcoming post, Gamasutra will reveal projected data generated by GamePlan, including games with the overall highest level of purchase intent by gamers, and those with the highest level of preorder intent, as well as which games in particular are considered "first choice" titles by the most gamers. Subscribers to the service will have access to that data, as well as data provided by OTX partners. Said OTX founder and CEO Shelley Zalis in a statement alongside GamePlan's debut, "The ongoing feedback we get from consumers is the way to make research relevant today. GamePlan was built to plug into and listen to our gamer."