andyson:This is significant.
Holy crap...
I got the pop up ad today too, I didnt think anything of it it as I had always been able to play RG's however there were some US tourneys , Corbel for instance, we couldn't enter from Australia.
SGTBilko: I believe a lot of this drop in visitors
This 20% decrease over 12 months, after a substantial peak in June would be a worry for WGT!
Was June when Olympic was released?
You could be very well right there Bilko.
However, it could also be Market Saturation.
This
is when a product is released into the market there is a significant
rise in sales whilst preliminary promotions are implemented new consumers are borne and word of mouth begins.
Subsequent advertising only needs to be topped up during this honeymoon period.
Then it eventually plateaus and at that time a realistic indication of projected sales can be used to plan further campaigns.
So, since 2009, WGT has seen a steady & probably fluctuating rise in popularity & new memberships, until now when the
Market is mostly aware of the game (saturated) and the return on
advertising investment is diminished.
With drastic actions like we have recently experienced, the cash-cow that we once were
has possibly come to a stage in which WGT were either not prepared well
for or simply didn't expect.
Andyson's analysis of WGT opening up the market now seems to hit this nail on the head.
All speculation of course, but if something smells like pudding, it is probably pudding.
I imagine we can guess as to what this inevitably means.
Perhaps a new breed of marketing staff to resurrect WGT and get it's focus back onto consumer satisfaction & development, as they were in 2009, will turn things around, However, it may be too late trying to relate to a non 'Caucasian' market to restore WGT's utopia.