Hardcore gamers are a niche. Soccer moms are the mainstream.
The convention wisdom is that the gaming industry is dominated by teenage boys playing violent first-person shooter games on near-supercomputer gaming consoles. The conventional wisdom is wrong, as revealed by new sale figures and market trend.
As a group, casual gamers (who are mostly women between the age of 34 and 55) buy and play more games than all hardcore gamers (who are mostly males in the teen and young adult categories) combined.
A brave new world of gaming is here, and it does not belong to teenage boys, young men or hardcore gamers. It is dominated by adults - mostly females - in search of easy, fun, casual games.
Article by Mike Elgan, ComputerWorld TechGear, on July 26, 2007.
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I don't agree with that. I WISH I could agree with that. But buying habits and customer opinions prove otherwise
We've seen developers in the AAA space try new things and ideas. More often than not, the customers aren't willing to give things a chance, or not enough people buy into the project for it to grow.
Creativity works better in the indie space because the budgets, pressures, and expectations aren't the same.
it's a nice idea and it worked during the PS2/PS3-era when AAA didn't cost hundreds of millions of dollars. smaller budgets and shorter development time left room for more creativity and more risk. a game didn't need to sell 4 million+ copies to break even. things are different now.
This is the guy who bragged about crunching his staff and having them work through the night. Crunch culture has lost more talent and done more damage to the industry than any other factor. Screw him.
AS long as both survive and the industry takes both into account im happy.
I do have a nasty feeling that companies will start catering more and more for the casual and less and less for us as that is where the money is. If that does happen...i dont even want to think about it.
No more RPGS? FPS? GOOD games? Just SUdoku and Brain Training? That really is worst case scenario and weirdly, i do see it coming. Amazon UK for instance has it's top 10 video game charts FILLEd with soley nintendo and has been for ages. Granted the Ps3 is in it now which is a relief. Just hope its a motherly fad lol.
Dont get me wrong, its cool my mum likes DS, just dont get rid of our games too!
I really think that the whole 'casual gaming' thing has been exagerrated, I mean the games that are innovative and well designed are fun but they arent usually that deep and the fact is that just because your a 'casual gamer' doesnt mean you want to be playing wiisports or board games all the time, sometimes you want to be able to play other things too with more depth.
i'm sure Solitaire on Windows is probably the most played game in the world but it doesnt mean that it somehow 'dominates' over something like Gran Turismo.
The mainstream videogamer is woman between the age of 34-55??? Are you jokeing??? I think there must be something wrong with that study.
Don't tell me that a "soccer mom" spends more money on videogames than I do.I have a $600 PS3 with 18 games 4 joysticks and 35blu-ray movies so far and I also got a $5000 HD-TV just for gameing. That's about $7970 in 10 months. Are you telling me that a "soccer mom" spends more than this amount on videogames. Are you mad???
First off if it's true than it's just too bad for gameing as we know it. The problem is the Wii in general...because these 34-55year old people buy the Wii because they don't know crap about videogames at all. They where just WOW-ed by the motion controls of the Wii..but the Wii grapichvise is just like me PS2...not better at all! And yea...I palyed with the Wii...alot!!(My sisters bf has it) If the Wii and the likes are gonna be mainstream and all the developers will focuse on it than we will have a sad gaming future. I will be done with gaming if consoles like the Wii will be the only ones on the market.
These people seem to forget that we (hardcore gamers) made the gaming industry to be what it is today. Without us...they would be nowhere. And how they bacisally f*ck us like this...with the Wii. More Wii sports anyone??? Wii Fit??? These are the groundbraking games??? These are a joke...these are not video games.
It would be nice if these businessman would relise that it's us the hardcore gamers made this industry to be what it is.
They have to know that.
As soon as Sony & Microsoft will stop makeing consoles I'm done with gaming!!
I won't ever tuch a pice of crap like the Wii. These "soccer moms" are ruening everything we gamers like. It's just sad!!It wil be sad when all the games out there would be like the Sims or Mario or Zelda or Metroid...that's all Nintendo has. Mario over and over and over and over and over and over again....Mario should just drop dead already.
It's sad that they can't look past the pricetag and see what the PS3 and Xbox really offers.
Especially the PS3...the cheapest blu-ray player on the planet.
I mean...do you people want to be stuck with the DVD forever?? Can any change occure??
Because I truly love blu-ray movies in 1080p. I don't want to go back in time and buy DVD's...I'm sorry but DVD is outdated, it's the past! Get over it!
HD-TV's are not that expesive anymore either(if anyone wanna complain about it, just go and get a job! I'm 23 and brought my on HD-TV for $5000)...and they are cheaper by the day. Also if you wanna buy a HD-TV...you are probably buy that TV for the next 10-11 years. Isin't that so? Unless you are crazy about new stuff..than for 5years. So it's not that expensive anymore if you look at it this way. All I'm saying is we have to move on, if there is a better product and we can get it than why not save some more money and get the better product? I don't get it.
Anyways...this just goes to show that the general public is so ignorant and holds back progress because they don't even know what they are doing and they chooseing poor products because of it's price.
Just sad!! And if you are wondering...I'm 23years old and been playing videogames since 5.
..blu-ray is not a gimmick. It's the next-generation for media such as movies. I remember when DVD came out. Everyone called it a gimmick, everyone said that it wont ever replace the VHS. But we both know what happend. Same thing will happen here. We are now moveing on from DVD hopefully to a better quality disc. Even my 72 year old grandfather admited that blu-ray looks jaw dropping. (Yes he can see fine :D )
So it is not a gimmick at all.
On the other hand the Wii is a gimmick. You have to be honest. Nintendo Only made 1 successfull console...wich was the Super Nintendo. The N64 was badly beaten by the PS1 and the GameCube was Beaten by the PS2 and the Xbox as well. They did not last at all. Only the Super Nintendo did.
As far as the breaking of the systems go. I got a Playstation in 1997 back in Europe and it still works today. My PS2 only once had a disc reading error and that's it.
I think in most cases it comes down to how you handle your consol and where you keep it.
In my opinion the PS3 is a solid system even though there is a million things that could go wrong. The thecnhology packed into it is just fenomenal.
on the other hand the Wii's tech is really old and it should work fine without any problems. No excuses!
You may argue that the Eyetoy is not that entertainin but guess what..it's the same thing. It's motion sensing.
To me none of the Wii's games are entertaining and I have played a few of it. For example: Zelda TP, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Rayman Raving Rebbids, Red Steel, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Tiger Woods....all sucked!!
Don't get too nervous people! There is a new trend of gamers, and yes they are older females, and yes nintendo is leading the charge!
But this is part of a larger plan!
This is an effort to get people to look at gaming in a more respectable way! There will be lots of mini-game games out there, but shooters and RPG's and such will be the next step for those entry level gamers. This is a way to ease those individuals into this industry that we love so much, and get them to understand what gaming is really about!
This is a plus for gamers everywhere!
But we can't slack off... Developers usually go where the money is! And if they see their sales are falling by making shooters and fighting games... they will jump to the casual only crowd! So if you see a game you like... "Buy it!"