ICv2 caught up with Fantasy Flight Games’ Vice President of Marketing and Communication Steve Horvath to discuss FFG’s innovative iPad-based Media Center Program. The device is free to retailers who have a wifi connection in their store and order $999 wholesale in FFG games (see “FFG Offers Free POS Promo Device”). As Horvath explains in addition to a loop featuring FFG’s blockbuster titles, the Media Center also provides access to in-depth “How-to-Play” videos for all of FFG’s Living Card games as well as other cool features.

It’s about six months into this program. How many have you been able to deploy into the market since November?
We’ve placed a little over 100 Media Centers across North America so far, and we’re adding more every week. The program’s been going so well that we’ll be opening it up to international retailers as well.

Have you been able to track results?
One of the reasons that we’re ready to start rolling this out internationally is that the feedback we’ve received from the 100 plus retailers has gone beyond our pretty high expectations for this. We’re very happy with the results. All of the retailers that we’ve talked to, almost across the board, have reported some sales increase from having the Media Center in the store. It varies, but on the average it’s somewhere around the 25-35% range. We’ve even had a couple of retailers say over 50% and one said 70%.

We understand that there is both the opportunity for the user to call up information about a specific game, but there’s also pre-programmed material that comes from Fantasy Flight. How do those two things work together?
The unit itself is an iPad that has some proprietary software that we designed in-house on it to run the program. It has a playlist that sends out a list of videos that will just run; that’s the default screen. Depending on the week, the length of that play loop will be about an hour and a half.

It’s also a fully interactive device—you tap on the screen and it will bring up the menu and in the menu you can go to different folders to bring up game tutorials and other information that we’re adding to as time goes by. Right now, for example, we have “Learn to Play” videos for all of our LCGs (Living Card Games) including our new Lord of the Rings game. You can find all of those tutorials on there. So you have this screen, you find the menu, you find the game you’re interested in, you can call up the tutorial on it. And we’ll be adding a lot more of that content as we go forward.

That’s been a particularly big hit with the retail community as people can really dig down and find information about the games. Those tutorial walk-throughs are so in-depth that we don’t think it’s appropriate to put them in the play loop, but for those people who are interested to learn more about a game, the information’s right there at their fingertips.

If they’re calling up specific content that they’re looking for, that interrupts the loop, and the loop resumes when they’re done?
Yes.

Is there sound?
Yes there is.

Is that coming out of the iPad speaker or is there additional speaker in this device?
We’ve built in some extra speaker units that connect to the iPad and amplify the sound.

What are the issues with aligning the content from the loop with the specific products in the store? Is the assumption that the store is carrying pretty much everything from Fantasy Flight and that every product will get exposure at some point?
We try to support all of our products. We have a huge portfolio of products, as you know, and we want to support all of them. A lot of the content on the Media Center revolves around triple-A titles—the big blockbuster releases that have those huge game trailers that we’re famous for doing. So those are on there. We think it makes sense for stores to carry all of those games because they’ve been bestsellers for us. Also based on feedback from both retailers and distributors, we’ve added some short video snippets on there for games that are releasing in a given week, when they go on sale. So that helps the retailers and the players know when a game is releasing.

Also, a short way out from a release of a game, we run 10-15 second video clips of a game that will be out in the next three to five weeks telling players now’s the time to pre-order with your retailer—to raise awareness throughout the whole supply chain when the games are getting close and reminding the customers in the stores because we know there’s a lot of noise out there. So that’s been very, very helpful, and it was something we were happy to add.

When you’re promoting backlist, do you avoid promoting games that are between printings?
Yes, that’s correct. If we’re currently out of stock on something we usually don’t have it on there. Occasionally one of the big triple-A videos may stay on there, but it’s our intent to try to not have something on there that’s not available, as we rotate through until the next printing comes out.

Sometimes even when we’re out of something, we know it’s still in the channel, so it’s still a value to be promoting it. It’s only when we feel something’s clean through the channels and it’s not available for retailers or distributors that we may pull it for a few weeks as we’re waiting for a new print run to come in.

What kind of feedback are you getting from retailers in terms of how they are using the device? What’s the mix between the content that’s driven by Fantasy Flight and stuff that they’re picking?
I think it’s a good mix. They’re using it very well as a tool to give a deeper view into games. I’ve got countless testimonials I could go through on that, but really what it’s coming down to is that not only does the play loop itself help educate customers and help them gravitate toward games, but it’s really helped the store staff as well. They’re more educated about the games, they can answer more questions, and if a question comes up about a game that they’re not familiar with, they can direct the customer to the Media Center and they both get an answer so the next time that question comes up, they’ll know about it. So it’s been very, very helpful on that.

It’s almost like having an additional employee that’s an expert on FFG games every day all day in your store. As people have questions about games the Media Center is really good about answering them and helping retailers explain games in depth. As some retailers have put it, it’s one thing for them to give a spiel about a particular game and why they think it’s cool, but it adds a lot more if they can show the video of it as well. And from what some retailers have told us, the customers don’t feel as much as if they’re being sold to by the retailer because they can just show them the video and let them make up their own mind and so it doesn’t seem like such a hard sales pitch.

One of the requirements for retailers to participate in the program and receive a device was a one-time $1,000 wholesale restock in FFG games. Did you get any push back on that from retailers?
There’s been some, but generally it’s been met very, very well. I think a lot of retailers have come to recognize that it’s an investment in the future and that the Media Center should pay much bigger dividends than that going forward.

One of the reasons that we wanted to have that restock fee was to make sure there was enough product in the store so that the Media Center could do some good. And with the percentage sales increases that we’re seeing from across the retailers that have this that’s clearly the case. But we want to make sure that the stock’s in there for it to actually do its job.

And where I’d like to see every retailer take one of these, I understand that there are some stores where it just might not fit into their plan depending on what type of store they are.

One other really important point is that when we launched this six months ago, we made a big push for it and we had this massive influx of retailers applying, and like I said, we’re sending some out every week. But I have talked to some retailers and distributors at GAMA Trade Show that made it clear to me that some of them didn’t realize that they could still apply at any time. So this is an ongoing program. We’ve included a pamphlet about it in the new retailer version of GTM that’s going out. We’re going to be doing a big push again over the next four weeks. But even when that push is done, every week—any week—retailers can contact their favorite distributor or us to get this kick-started and get this thing rolling for them as well.

In terms of the next stage, you’re adding international. Do you have a goal for how many additional units you want to deploy this year?
I would be thrilled to see at least another 200 units go out in the short term. The long-term it’s hard to say. It depends on where the industry is in the next couple of years. We, of course, think every retailer could use one of these things, but we understand that that may not be feasible.

Anything else you’d like to share about the program?
I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve got to tell you, this is probably the initiative that I might be the most proud of being part of, to help promote games for the industry as a whole. It’s just been really exciting.