The Game is Made for a Player
The success of a game is in the experience of its audience - success in both the practical and financial sense.
Of key importance, you are not your audience. Even if you fit the demographic profile of your audience, you still are not your audience.
Demographics
Some interesting notes on audiences for games:
- 0-3: Infant/Toddler. At this age, a child is interested in toys, but lacks the problem-solving capabilities to enjoy "games"
- 4-6: Preschooler. At this age, there is an emergent interest in games, but the logic of the problem must be very simple or it will be unfathomable.
- 7-9: Kids. At this age, children have entered school, are generally able to read, are able to think and solve problems. As a note, this is the age where children start to choose their own games/toys rather than accepting what parents provide for them.
- 10-13: Preteen. IChildren this age are going through a period of tremendous neurological growth and are suddenly able to think about things more deeply and with more nuance than they were a few years back. This age is sometimes called the "age of obsession," because children this age start to get quite passionate about their interests. For boys especially, these interests are often games.
- 13-18: Teen. At this age we generally see a significant divergence between male and female interests. Boys continue to be interested (and often get more interested) in competition and mastery, whereas girls become more focused on socialization and communication. This makes boy and girl game interests very different at this age.
- 18-24: Young Adult. Adults, in general, play less than children do. Most adults do continue to play, but at this point, with their teenage experiments out of the way, they have established certain tastes about the kind of play and entertainment they enjoy. Young adults usually have both time and money on their hands, which makes them big consumers of games.
- 25-35: Twenties and Thirties. As the responsibilities of adulthood start to add up, most adults in this age bracket are only casual game players, playing games as an occasional amusement. On the other hand, "hardcore gamers" in this age bracket are an important target market because they purchase a lot of games, and are often quite vocal about what they do and don't like, potentially influencing the buying decisions of their social network.
- 35-50: Thirties and Forties. Most adults in this bracket are very caught up in career and family responsibilities and are only casual game players. As their children become older, adults in this age group are often the ones who make decisions about expensive game purchases, and when possible, they look for game playing opportunities the whole family can enjoy together.
- 50+: Fifties and Up. Adults in this age bracket suddenly have a lot of time on their hands. Some return to games they enjoyed when younger, and others, looking for a change, turn to new game experiences. Adults in this age group are particularly interested in game experiences that have a strong social component, such as golf, tennis, bridge, and online multiplayer games.
Gender Differences
Male players seek:
- Mastery - the ability to accomplish something
- Competition - matching one's skills against others
- Destruction - a keen interest in smashing things up
- Spatial Puzzles - A natural inclination toward spatial reasoning
- Trial and Error - Willingness to experiment to find a solution
Female players seek:
- Emotion - a sense of connection, identifying with characters in games
- Real-World - As opposed to fantasy or fantastic settings
- Nurturing - Accomplishment by growing and tending to things
- Verbal Puzzles - A natural inclination toward word skills
- Learn by Example - A need for tutorials and instructions rather than intuition
It's noted that the emergency of computers made games more appealing to males, simply because of the nature of the medium: it's a solitary task of a player working on a device to try to solve an imaginary problem by trial-and-error methods. Much has changed since then, both in technology and game design, such that more and more females are being attracted to gaming.
Psychographics
Since gaming has been around, some research has be done into the psychological aspects of game playing - and it's found that different audiences seek different kinds of satisfaction from games.
Eight basic "game pleasures" have been defined:
- Sensation - The pleasure taken from the aesthetics of the game
- Fantasy - The ability to immerse oneself in an imaginary environment
- Narrative - An interest in the story of the game
- Challenge - The satisfaction of success at problem-solving
- Fellowship - In multiplayer games, a sense of friendship and community (though some have this reaction to AI characters)
- Discovery - The pleasure of finding something new or unexpected
- Expression - The pleasure of creating something that expresses oneself, or a representation of oneself (a custom character, for example)
- Escapism - The ability to "escape into" a game
Another source categorizes gamers into four types:
- Achievers - seek to "beat" the game (challenge)
- Explorers - prefer to wander about an experience the game world (Discovery)
- Socializers - Are interested in interacting with characters and other players (Fellowship)
- Killers - seek to defeat other players (Competition)
Another source just lists some of the different things that people "like" about games: Anticipation, justice, helping others, humor, discovery, accomplishment, pride, purification, surprise, thrill, overcoming adversity, wonder.