As someone who likes to play the odd game or two on their computer for some fun (mostly racing for those interested) I use a game hub/store/social media program called Steam just like every other PC Gamer. Steam is owned by Valve and works on the fact that CDs are fading out in technology, so when you buy a game, you just pay and download it on Steam. They're also heavily conscientious that gamers like to play with their friends and others online and the social media aspect to it, while it isn't really based on profiles and status updates is more so used for chat and invitations to join people's games in a seamless way.
So how do they digitally market their games? Well, a Gamer can never be satisfied with just one game, they have to have the latest and greatest and the ones to play with friends. To convince people to buy the games, they run special discounts every day on certain titles of up to 75% off. But the real driver for gamers to make purchases come when Steam has its annual Steam Sumner (us sumner) sales.
These sales are huge in the community and are well known for making the temptation of 80% off a pack of games irresistible to gamers that just have to catch them all. To put it in perspective of how users buy games, according to steam, 37% of the games purchased on steam haven't even been played. That's pretty incredible to have a third of the products you sell not be used. This isn't because the gamers don't want the games, they do because they bought them but they mostly stick to the games they love as 98% of the time users are playing the top 20 games on steam.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FbCjJ30ggM[/embed]
(for context, the guy in the video is Gabe Newell creator and managing director of Valve)
The beauty of steam is that because it is all online and digital (no discs) you can buy games for your friends so you can play together .This is actually popular because people enjoy games more with friends and are willing to pay for their game to have greater value. Every time you start steam, a window pops up of all the sales or new releases that are on steam. Users don't find this intrusive as they appreciate steam constantly giving them discounts, it's been built into the experience of steam. The digital marketing technique of Valve is such a natural part of the user experience that users can't keep up with the rate at which they purchase games.
Do you know of any companies which consumers buy products from faster than they can consume?