I just read this study which reveals some surprising information re the changing demographic of video game consumers and the types of games they buy: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf Of those surveyed, 19% apparently play on mobile/hand-held devices. I'm not sure that the App Store currently reflects this study's findings but it's food for thought, nonetheless.
I'd like to know their definition of a gamer. I suspect it includes people that play solitaire on their PC etc. Different than what the traditional definition of a game player is.
Interesting article, I think I remember PopCap saying a few years ago that 60% of their Bejeweled player demographic was women over 35! Mostly in the US btw, maybe euro house wives have no computers or different hobbies
The problem with European housewives is they just want sex all the time I remember PopCap doing a campaign back in the day saying you could 'Loose weight by playing Bejeweled'. It was run in the UK as far as I remember. So the premise was every time you think of food play Bejeweled instead. Pure gold and a great example of what people will shallow...excuse the pun
it is genius As "traditional" gamers and game developers, it can be frustrating to think that these are the types of dollars we are competing for, but this is exactly the case. I know of one specific company that has it fairly nailed-down "our target demographic is a bored 43-year-old woman who loves puzzle games." You can't argue with it because there are millions of them out there, and they will gobble up product. These are the people we need to be marketing toward now.. unless you've got another N.O.V.A up your sleeve..
I know of one 43-year old woman (my wife) who burned hundreds of hours playing Final Fantasy and ChronoTrigger. She hates DoodleJump. I think what the study is saying is that you will not understand the growing market if you don't drop your stereotypes of a what constitutes a "gamer." Good advice, IMO.
I won't argue with you - there are exceptions to every rule. Also, remember that although there are going to be certain cases (43-year-old Chrono Trigger fans!) there is a reason stereotypes exist, and more than enough market research has been done (and published) to prove this. The exploitation of this is the beginning of why we have companies like Zynga being so alarmingly successful. I think one of the tenets of the past generation of games (specifically on consoles) is that it's proven there is a much wider market than the scope previously considered. Look at Rock Band, look at Wii, both (seemingly) lower-tech money-dominating powerhouses in gaming. And now we've actually got franchises like COD which are really considered "mainstream" whereas a generation ago they were far more niche. This will all grow as time passes, look at how much focus big groups like MS and Sony are putting on trying to catch up and snag "those casual dollars" as they concentrate on "kiddie-themed" motion control schemes for their HD setups..
My definition of a gamer (from a developerd perspective): Any person in the world who may be interested in buying my game.
That's all well and good but who's going to stop these sex crazed euro house wives!!! For the love of God has no one ever told them about Bejeweled!
One of the key points I took from the survey was, possibly, that an unlikely demographic has been the main consumer of IOS games all along. It's easy to assume that the IOS gaming customer-base is made up almost exclusively of teenagers but, actually, just the cost of the hardware may provide a clue that we've been wrong. (Personally, I look through the forums on TA & assume that members are aged mostly 13-18, but in the absence of any data, I really can't be sure; maybe there's a significant percentage of frustrated European housewives... ) I also wonder whether developers are really best able to be objective about their own products or to assess their appeal or lack thereof to any given demographic. If anyone has any data purporting to show a younger demographic (ie the one I think we'd all assumed we were primarily marketing to) , I'd love to see it. Lots to learn...
<--bingo kids/"gamers" are who we as developers are used to pandering to, and they represent the vocal group. But this is not to say they absolutely represent a hugely significant portion of the audience. a glance across the charts with any regularity paints a striking picture that this is not the bulk of the people who are downloading apps.
