GAME: iPhone a part of longer term digital strategy

Specialist retailer The GAME Group has announced the launch of an iPhone app for its gamestation chain of stores, complementing the version that's been live for GAME shops for a little while - but that's only just one part of a long term digital strategy.

That's according to the head of the digital team at gamestation, Paul Howes, who told GamesIndustry.biz that the GAME app had already enjoyed a degree of success.

"I think we recognise as a business that we need to engage with our customers on a number of different devices," he said. "New devices are emerging all the time, and the iPhone is the most prevalent currently, I'd say, so our move into the iPhone space with the applications is the first stage in a longer term digital strategy.

"The success of the GAME app suggests that we're doing absolutely the right thing, not just in terms of the customers that are downloading it, but the engagement from that. We're seeing a considerable amount of traffic come from the iPhone to our e-commerce business - and obviously the app also has a store finder so no doubt it's pointing people to their nearest available store... and is transactionable as well.

"So we're very happy first of all with the amount of traffic it's sending to e-comm, and the transaction rate is pretty good. We see it as the first step in a digital strategy just to engage more effectively with our customer on the mobile device."

When asked whether or not he expected the gamestation application to prove as effective as the GAME version, he replied that it was too soon to tell just yet.

"It's very difficult to say - we're less than two weeks from go-live on the gamestation app, but if we see a similar take-up I'll be very please," he explained. "The customer is different - they tend to be a bit more of a core gamer - and until I've got five or six weeks of download numbers to call upon I'm not really sure what the take-up levels will be."

And he added that, with the company looking to be wherever the customer is, he was keeping a close eye on other mobile devices moving forwards.

"At this moment in time, yes, but we're looking at the whole smartphone market - the question is, where do we go next?" he said. "Looking at the variety of operating systems like Android and Windows Mobile, we're looking very carefully at the smartphone space - because it's also a considerable handheld gaming device at the moment."