Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I'm not a gamer but after watching an MTV show about the game WOW I got this idea. These gamers are really passionate and I think there is a market for something like this.

I researched some of the Wow guides from Clickbank and they are selling well. I'm a marketer and I have made money from several niche markets that I was not familiar with before. After talking to an ex Wow player, he said that it was not a good idea specially since I did not play the game. Well, here is my idea:

Create a Wow membership affiliate site where players get 50% commission for every person they refer.

Initially I would get experienced Wow players to join free and offer them 75% commission if they post content or are moderators to the forum. This would be done before any regular members would join so that there is already content.

The site will have guides, videos, and a forum all created by the members. I will start off with a low membership price and increase as members increase.

I have several membership scripts and can outsource to have the site built. I know how to market and get traffic to the site. Everything technical I can handle myself or can outsource. I could even outsource some initial content for the site.

My issues:

I will need someone that is familiar with the game to help with new ideas. Finding Wow players to join and create content.

Suggestions? If there are any gamers that are interested in this project let me know.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

How would you know who referred each new member.

Or are you talking about from clickbank?

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

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How would you know who referred each new member.

Or are you talking about from clickbank?

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No not from clickbank. I have the membership software that handles all the affiliate and referals. Like I said the technical part is not the issue.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

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I researched some of the Wow guides from Clickbank and they are selling well. I'm a marketer and I have made money from several niche markets that I was not familiar with before. After talking to an ex Wow player, he said that it was not a good idea specially since I did not play the game.

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I would have to disagree with your friend about it not being a good idea. One guy I've been talking to online has been marketing WoW guides through CB for a month now, and has made a good amount of money. His sites are here and here, and you can check out his blog for info on his current stats.

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The site will have guides, videos, and a forum all created by the members. I will start off with a low membership price and increase as members increase.

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I think you'd have to have some content already existing to get members. I personally wouldn't join a site if it offered nothing to start. I especially wouldn't pay for the site if it didn't have anything to offer.

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I could even outsource some initial content for the site.

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I think this would solve my above issue with the plan. Also, you might want to offer an incentive to members to provide video and guide content, perhaps getting a month free if they meet the video/guide submission criteria that you create, and if you think it's good and doesn't overlap with content that's already on the site.

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My issues:

I will need someone that is familiar with the game to help with new ideas. Finding Wow players to join and create content.

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I doubt this will be a big problem, being as it's such a popular game. But I agree that you'll definitely want someone knowledgeable who can contribute to forum discussions and offer input to members and the site itself. Since the site sounds like it's intended to be a community, it would be good for the site admin(s) to show a presence here as well, which would make this important in that regard.

Sounds like you have an interesting idea. I'd see if there are any similar sites like this out there (whether free or subscription), and see what's good/bad about them. Try to make your site better in the areas where the other sites fail or are weak.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

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I think this would solve my above issue with the plan. Also, you might want to offer an incentive to members to provide video and guide content, perhaps getting a month free if they meet the video/guide submission criteria that you create, and if you think it's good and doesn't overlap with content that's already on the site.

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Yeah I want to recruit several members that will have Free Lifetime memberships with 75% commissions referals. Most of these members will be moderators and will have to contribute something daily, weekly, or monthly. These are the guys that are going to build the site so I want to give them plenty of incentive.

I will probably have some kind of incentive for the regulars users on top of their 50% commisions if they submit a guide or a video.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Nato,

Go to the WoW boards at gamefaqs.com, and simply write a post asking if anyone would like to help on a WoW related project, and that there's money in it for them.

I guarantee you'll get more volunteers than you need.

Good luck with the site.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

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I think this would solve my above issue with the plan. Also, you might want to offer an incentive to members to provide video and guide content, perhaps getting a month free if they meet the video/guide submission criteria that you create, and if you think it's good and doesn't overlap with content that's already on the site.

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Yeah I want to recruit several members that will have Free Lifetime memberships with 75% commissions referals. Most of these members will be moderators and will have to contribute something daily, weekly, or monthly. These are the guys that are going to build the site so I want to give them plenty of incentive.

I will probably have some kind of incentive for the regulars users on top of their 50% commisions if they submit a guide or a video.

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Oh okay, I kind of misread/misunderstood your commission plan in your original post. I think it sounds like you have a good idea though, and I'd be interested to see how it goes if you decide to move forward with it. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

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Nato,

Go to the WoW boards at gamefaqs.com, and simply write a post asking if anyone would like to help on a WoW related project, and that there's money in it for them.

I guarantee you'll get more volunteers than you need.

Good luck with the site.

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I did this on another Wow forum and got some good responses but the thread was deleted. I posted no links or anything. I just ran a poll.

I would like to get someone that is already a respected existing member of Wow forums to help with recruiting. I will definitely need some help with this project.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Nato, since you haven't played WoW, it might be worth your while to find a local cybercafe, and chat it up with some of the gamers hanging out there. Maybe get them to give you a tour of the game, and might provide you with some ideas and assitance, as well.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I don't know much about games either, but even I have heard of WoW and it seems like it's been around for a while now. This means alot forums and support is already established, and the growth for that game has already occured. (I'm speculating here)

Why not focus on the next big game that will come out from one of the big software companies that make these games? You will enter the topic early and it will be easier to drive traffic if you make yourself an authority on that given game... Just an idea...

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

WoW has a ton of competition for gaming & advertising services. If you want to get in on the ground level with less competition for a game that already has 1.6 million downloads at cnet in a little over a week (it's been popular in Korea for 3yrs), I highly recommend War Rock. http://www.warrock.net/

I would use many of the successful marketing plans for WoW and use them for this game.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

There are a ton of free content sites for WoW already. What value would your service add?

sites like thottbot wowhead wowguru (just to name a few) have tons of information and guides already.

there is also a wow wikipedia wowwiki that is 100% free user generated

most these sites make money off ads, not many use adsense tho

what kind of information would your site have would make people want to pay to be a member of?

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I only see one problem, but I realy like the idea. If you need any specific help hit me up cause I play. WOW players spend a huge amount of their time.....playing wow. But they are pretty active on the wow forum and their guild websites. Maybe it would be good if you made a useful social network for wow players.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I think another potential problem is that most people who would play WoW already do. So if you launch this site, you should have a longer-term goal of spreading the same model to ALL MMORPGs that may come out in the future, or any other subscription based games. This way you'll already be set up to capitalize on the next big game, cause WoW won't be it forever.

I believe that penny-arcade.com had a deal with Eve-online that was earning them a healthy kickback on new signups.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

You would probably have better luck going after new games as opposed to WOW. There are multiple games just released (Vanguard) or about to release this year (Warhammer, Age of Conan). You would just have to find competent gamers that could write the guides for you.

If you have any MMORPG related questions feel free to PM me. I have played or beta tested about every game made to date. I also used to make a majority of my income from MMOs.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I want to thank the people that responded in this thread and through pms. It has been about an even split of people that think this could work and the rest saying it would work for a newer game.

This is what I did to test the market:

I bought a domain name. Setup a squeeze type page offering a bonus if they they opted in. I setup a 7 day autoresponder emailing my list and preselling them to some WOW guides I found on clickbank.

PPC was used to generate traffic. I had some very broad keywords. I didn't care because it was just a test to see if this is a market I should invest my time and money in. I did this over the weekend.

Ended up spending about $148. I sold 5 ebooks ($75 commission) and had a little over 100 opt ins. This was over a 2 day period. I knew it would be a losing campaign but that wasn't the point. With some keyword research I could make this a profitable campaign.

What my test told showed was that even with all of the WoW forums, gamers are still interested in paying to get more information.

Several posts suggested that I would have more luck trying to setup a site for newer released games. What some people don't understand is that competition is a good thing.

It looks like I might be moving forward with this. I still need some gamers that will be interested in helping. Let me know. Also any sugggestions are appreciated.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Looks like it could absolutely be profitable, especially with organic.

Best of luck!

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Is this basically CardRunners for WoW? I've thought for a long time that the CR business model could for lots of different things.

tc

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Is this basically CardRunners for WoW? I've thought for a long time that the CR business model could for lots of different things.

tc

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Yeah it would be similar to RealPokerTraining, PokerXFactor, and your CR site for WOW. I'm sure your business model would work for several other markets.

CardRunners is a great example of how even when there is a ton of info on a certain subject like poker, money can still be made in that niche.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

This is an awful idea. WoW is way too mature for a new player to enter the game without something special.

Other sites have been around for Everquest and other MMOs, and people go to them when a new game comes out, before they even have content. The only way you have a chance is if you have something up and running for the alpha and beta releases. There will actually be a NEED for content at this point. Don't waste your time on a game that has already been released to the public. By the time, it's too late.

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I'd think that the only way you are going to get players to come to the site is if you have big name players go there and help you promote it.

On mmorpgs there are 2-3 people on each server of the game that are looked up to as awesome players. Kinda like the big nmaes here on 2p2. You get them to post on your site and you'll get traffic.

Honestly though.... most gamers have a dedeicated guide site they already visit. I play FF I rarely do any searching on the topc simply because Ive got my fav. FF site saved.

Just a thought...

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Ended up spending about $148. I sold 5 ebooks ($75 commission) and had a little over 100 opt ins. This was over a 2 day period. I knew it would be a losing campaign but that wasn't the point. With some keyword research I could make this a profitable campaign.

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It's hard for me to doubt Nato's abilities. He's managed to sell 5 ebooks in a short period of time for a niche he knows very little about...Keep us updated on your progress.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I really don't know if this project will be a winner or a loser at this point. More than half of my projects fail but I won't give up just because I get a few people telling me it won't work.

I'm very hard headed and I usually go with my gut feeling which isn't always right. I am going to continue testing and tweaking to see if it is worth doing.

At worst I lose $70 but still have a list that I can sell products to in the future. Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far. Keep them coming.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I disagree, I think it could deffinetly work, but you would want to get influential guilds and people to use it. On my server Sinister is the most active and Jacht is the most famous guy in the game. He posts stuff on the WOW forum all the time. When they take down a boss they take a screen shot and put a link to it on the wow forum. When people check that out then they would be taken to your site. "Assuming that they were using your site for their services."

I would look into what guilds need and what functionality they currently are missing with the sites they use. I think it would be huge and it would spread quick if you got the right people using it.

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I disagree, I think it could deffinetly work, but you would want to get influential guilds and people to use it. On my server Sinister is the most active and Jacht is the most famous guy in the game. He posts stuff on the WOW forum all the time. When they take down a boss they take a screen shot and put a link to it on the wow forum. When people check that out then they would be taken to your site. "Assuming that they were using your site for their services."

I would look into what guilds need and what functionality they currently are missing with the sites they use. I think it would be huge and it would spread quick if you got the right people using it.

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This is why I need assistance from Wow players. I would need to get in contact with these type of players that you have mentioned. I want to talk to several well known players and letting them know about my idea of starting a website that they could benefit from what they are already doing.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

I will see what I can do for you.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Nato, you should also give consideration to recruiting your own Guild team... this would also drive traffic...

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Try http://www.wcradio.com/. There is plenty of info there and they have an IRC channel.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

If you could sponser a guild such as Death'N'Taxes. Give them a cut and run a membership site. That could be a huge niche market right there.

The sponsered guild would provide raid walkthroughs, videos, pictures, etc.

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The site will have guides, videos, and a forum all created by the members. I will start off with a low membership price and increase as members increase.

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All of this exists already. Have fun starting new forums this late in the game.

Forget all the stuff you mentioned, you're going to need new content. Forums, guides, and videos have all been around forever. There are plenty of places to get them all free, and they have a ton available.

Also, if you aren't a player, you're going to have absolutely no clue when it comes to what's needed in the WoW community.

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All of this exists already. Have fun starting new forums this late in the game.

Forget all the stuff you mentioned, you're going to need new content. Forums, guides, and videos have all been around forever. There are plenty of places to get them all free, and they have a ton available.

Also, if you aren't a player, you're going to have absolutely no clue when it comes to what's needed in the WoW community.

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You might be right about my idea but my campaign is already pulling a profit. There is definitely a reason for me to look into it a little further. If it doesn't work out I will just continue tweaking my campaign to maximize my profits and move on.

Re: Any Gamers? WoW Membership Site Idea
 

Bump for curiousity. How has this been turning out, Nato?

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Link to site?

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I was always in support of this. I need to get a wow card so I can try and get you some high profile users. Sorry I havent been able to do this yet. Are you still working on this project? I think it could work.