Surveys Bust Myths about Hardcore Gamers
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Most game companies think they know their market: it’s the hardcore gamer, that 18 to 34 year old male who loves to spend hours playing ever-more-challenging games, often violent first person shooters. Two recent surveys turned up some real surprises, however. The question is, are gaming companies listening?
Video game companies seem to divide the gaming public into two categories: hardcore gamers and casual gamers. The former class is pretty well defined, but describing the latter class is trickier. According to Yuanzhe Cai, director of broadband and gaming at market research firm Parks Associates, "Casual gamers may refer to anything from 'everyone other than hardcore gamers,' gamers who spend little time and/or money on gaming, to gamers who mainly play casual games such as card or puzzle games."
Cai should know. His company released the results of a survey in August that showed hardcore gamers made up 11 percent of the market - and the other 89 percent included no less than five distinct groups. The online survey boasted about 2000 participants, and focused on time spent gaming and motivation for gaming rather than money spent on games.
Why does this matter? Quite simply, it means that gaming companies are not serving more than half of the potential gaming market - and given the numbers, you can see it runs deeper than the cliché that gaming companies are not coming out with games that appeal to women. (In fact, there are a significant number of hardcore women gamers, as you'll see later in this article).
To understand where gaming companies are falling short, and what opportunities they may be missing, we need to take a closer look at those six categories. You just might be surprised.
Next: Six Kinds of Gamers >>
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