TV's Missing Men Still Flocking To Games?

Thanks to Ad Age for its article discussing the young male demographic's move away from television and towards videogames. The article notes: "Some 32 million 18- to 34-year-old males constitute the mother lode for a vast array of marketers. That's about one-quarter of the total U.S. male population", and goes on to quote an advertising executive as suggesting: "Games have bigger viewership numbers than The Sopranos." Also of note is a referenced Codemasters survey, which "...found that 32% of gamers were over 30 and 47% were in their 20s. It was the latest data to confirm that video gaming, once almost exclusively associated with teenagers, has become a mainstream interest that is dramatically altering the pattern of media consumption by men."

Comments

maybe now..

[JohnLi]

journalists will understand "violent" video games a bit more. They are dealing with a mature demographic. Or, at least we know that companies trying to make a buck will continue to do so even with the protests.

Re:maybe now..

[bigman2003]

I haven't watched television in about a year. DVD's yes- TV, no. I don't miss it.

Yesterday I was playing tennis, and told everyone I had to leave by 11:00. They all asked "what's the hurry, the game doesn't come on until 12:00".

First, I had no idea what "the game" was. Second, I thought it was sad that they scheduled their day around the television schedule. The same group of guys changed our Monday tennis to Tuesday during football season, so they could watch Monday Night Football.

But I did tell them that "yeah- I gotta go home, and shower and stuff to be ready in time for the game". Sad, I *almost* thought I needed to know what the game was, just to fit in- but I really truly don't give a damn about whatever the hell they were talking about. On the other hand, no reason to stick out like a sore thumb, and get into the whole "I don't watch sports" discussion with 7 guys that are rabid fans.

But for me- it was because I was scheduled to play in a Links 2004 tournament on Xbox Live that started at 11:30. That's the 'game' I was talking about.

Hopefully I'll never go back to watching television. For me, I hate to see the same stupid projects on HGTV every Sunday morning- because sadly, that was about all I was interested in. And for my daughter, while I am definetly not an over-protective parent, I don't think that 5 hours a day of MTV is good for a 13 year old. My wife on the other hand loved things like Lifetime, and other stupid drama channels. She is probably the one most affected by not having TV- not surprising after reading the article regarding programming aimed at women.

I'm not surprised

[Quixotic Raindrop]

It seems to me that the generation that is now in its 30s and late 20s is the generation that the phrase "video gaming, once almost exclusively associated with teenagers" used to describe. All that happened is that while the media wasn't paying any attention, the home console video game generation grew up. Or, at least, grew older. Does this really surprise anyone?

Re:I'm not surprised

[*weasel]

It surprises anyone who still clings to the idea that gaming is the domain of children. Those people would assume that players of the Atari and ColecoVision would have 'put away childish things' by now. The same way previous generations did with cartoons, action figures, puppets and comic books.

The truth is that gaming as a form of expression has largely matured with them.

Older gamers aren't playing Tron any more often than boomers catch a classic disney flick - mostly they are finding new games with content that appeals to their matured taste. The more complex stories and nuance that mature society has historically turned to theatre, and later film to find (that they didn't find in puppet-shows and cartoons) - are being made in modern computer games.

This could change of course, if the "won't anyone think of the children?" reactionaries successfully kill the idea of a legitimate M or AO game title.

Re:I'm not surprised

[Captain Rotundo]

The sad part is I feel I have matured far more than the games have. I have a very difficult time finding "good" games with strong mature sorylines.

Too ofter "mature" means sex and violence, and "story" just doesnt mean anything.

Even critically acclaimed games have yet to reach the consistancy of say Hollywood in the story department. You may hate Hollywood "re-tread" story lines but at least they are cohesive (maybe thats why they are re-used so often)

I recently played "Enternal Darkness" which was an OK game with a very mediocre story, but for crying out loud it felt like they just forgot about the end, at one point there is a random knock on the door and a package is left for you with an item you need! This doesnt even jive with the explaination of what happend to said item, and feels like the designers just said "fuck it I don't want to spend the time explaining where this is, lets jsut give it to them!" - it takes you out of the games illusion completely and leaves you asking "why?"

Lets not even get to the problem of games often feeling like they lead you around by the nose rather than you leading them. Isn't it an interactive media? I often get the feeling that the industry has mastered puzzle games, and button mashers the why the film industry had mastered sound, and black and white, but for some reason when it comes to color no one can figure out what to do with it.

Blatant Errors?

[Ian_Bailey]

hard-core players who prefer first-person-player games like Nintendo's "Final Fantasy" series which takes 100 hours to complete

Now, I can understand someone not understanding what a 'first-person' game is.

But thinking Nintendo makes Final Fantasy? That's either a testament to the strength of the Nintendo brand, the weakness of Square-Enix (in North America, anyways), the inability of the writer to look up a simple detail, or some combination of the three.

Explains the shift towards female-oriented TV

[redelm]

If men are MIA, then TV writers and producers have to go after women to keep their eyeball score (ratings, share) in the profitable range.

I've noticed a shift towards programming to attract female audiences over the past ~10 years. There always has been some, just as there is some directed programming for males. But the shift is not just in female oriented networks (Lifetime), but also in mainstream broadcast programming. Some of this gets extreme. - pardon the commercial reference.

Re:Explains the shift towards female-oriented TV

[JohnLi]

You sure you didn't just get a girlfriend who makes you watch the decorating shows? As far as i've read lately, tv execs are going after our lucrative young male audience.

Re:Explains the shift towards female-oriented TV

[wizarddc]

What you propose is actually kind of the opposite of the way I heard this situation described. It wasn't the case that since men were tuning out, they switched their programming lineups to more women oriented programming, but the constant portrayal of men as ignoramuses and mornons who couldn't function in society without their strong willed, intelligent wives wasn't copasetic with the idea of what men thought of themselves. More estrogen filled prime time tv, including shows about dating and marriage, only alienated the majority of the men that these major tv's execs were really going after. Somehow, somewhere, these television bosses decided to turn their attention towards women, probably because of some poll or research that showed tv was too male oriented. Now that the pendulum has swung the other way, they're panicing, and are trying to find where all the good ole boys went. Where we went wasn't away from tv, but away from shows that weren't even conceived for us to like or watch. If they simply made tv either for men or just not so feamle leaning, we would probably watch again. But changing the perception of guys who have already turned off the cable box and turned on the PS2 will be hard, no matter how much Spike TV (The FIRST network For Men) or the like get's shoved down our throats. I wonder how the vierwership of ESPN has gone over the same timespan they found us not watching Everyone Loves Raymond?

Re:Explains the shift towards female-oriented TV

[Lord_Dweomer]

" I've noticed a shift towards programming to attract female audiences over the past ~10 years."

Actually, I saw a very interesting show on this very topic. It was the Donny Deutsch show. For those of you who don't know who Mr. Deutsch is, he owns the massive Deutsch ad agency. He's kind of thought of as a rockstar in the advertising industry.

On the show, they had very prominent speaks from TV Guide, and from other places talking about how studies have shown that women make most of the spending decisions in a relationship, and thus, woman as a majority have more spending power. So in response, networks are gearing their shows towards women in hopes of drawing in advertising dollars from people who want women to see their ads.

I also just read a fascinating (albeit brief) article in the New York Times Magazine about the success of Cartoon Network, especially with Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Apparently, the grass roots feel of it, and the type of humor appeals to the "missing demographic", and men 18-35 (as have I) have been flocking there in droves. What this is leading to is a further segmentation of demographics that are reachable with one message. So before, you could just advertise on Fox if you wanted that demographic. Now if you really want them, you're going to have to advertise on Cartoon Network, but then your other audience, of women 18-35 for example, would not be reached.

I work in advertising, and I feel that these things are all contributing. Games are a rising area for this demographic. So are magazines. But the overall trend is into more specific marketing segments.

Have Them Join Us

[ajax0187]

What the journalists really need is to start playing the games themselves. I imagine the major news outlets will change their tune when their reporters start playing these games and find that they AREN'T turning into homocidal serial rapists, but instead that these games are [GASP] fun.

Of course, if all the reporters of The New York Post suddenly find themselves playing CounterStrike during their working hours, well...no big loss ^_^.

Re:Have Them Join Us

[Incoherent07]

I've noticed that the mass media in general has NO idea about anything concerning video games. They consider them a curiosity, a destabilizing element in our country's youth, or simply a pastime that's not worth reporting on. By and large, they're not much better with computer-related stories, unless it's on the business end.

Why is it that scientific stories generally have "science correspondents", weather reports are made by actual meteorologists, and even political stories are made by people who watch politics closely, but video gaming stories are reported by whatever clueless hack happens to be open at the moment?

Perhaps tv needs to realize we moved on.

[SmallFurryCreature]

I don't think there is anything really wrong with tv programs. There are enough shows I would want to watch except for two tiny little things.

One is to do with the tv schedule. The computer has changed the way I do my entertaining/time wasting. I want it when I want it. It is not really even a want. It is more like I see a program I might like to watch and then totally forget to turn the tv on in time. Of course it doesn't help that were once I had the tv on as background noise I now have to turn it off in disgust when their is some reality show before what I want to watch and even hearing it in the background irritates me. There is at the moment only 1 program that I watch and that is "have I got news for you" on the bbc. Nothing else. Not that I don't wanna watch but I simply forget.

I have been hearing since I was a little kid about on demand tv. First machines I seen used tapes to give you an idea how old it is. Yet it never happened. No demand the networks said. Nope people didn't demand it. I don't demand it. I simply don't watch your product anymore.

There is a group to whom I belong that tv just can't seem to reach anymore. I never liked programs like gameshows but when they where half-shows I could at least tolerate them. If in a group I would watch it with half an eye. Shows like Idols I can't stand. Wich means I have the tv off and won't watch the program I might be intrestted in afterwards since I am now doing something else.

So tv networks can do three things. Whine and die, aim at other groups, win us back. 1 is what they will do, 2 is what they should do, 3 is what they haven't got a chance in hell of doing.

Oh and cutting back on the number of ads wouldn't hurt either. Don't have 10x$1000 ads. Have 1x$100.000 ads. Same money less channel hopping.

We interupt this First Person Shooter.....

[orthogonal]

"Games have bigger viewership numbers than The Sopranos."

Let me correct this statement: games have a larger number of players than "The Sopranos" has viewers.

In case you're an ad-man, or have an MBA, let me clearly state: gamers are not viewers.

Anyone remember the whole premise of cable-tv channels? That you'd pay for the channel upfront, and so avoid commercials?

Now this is only true for the so-called "premium" channels, so called because to view them you must pay an additional premium over and above what you pay for the basic cable service. Indeed it seems like most cable channels not only feature ads, but sell their entire late night time to infomercials. (Of course, I may be wrong; I only watch cable on vacation, because I won't buy lots of channels with lots of ads.)

So beware this discovery of games by Madison Avenue: prepare to find the games you've paid for to interrupt your play for commercials, or to sacrifice playability to product placements.

Final Paragraph

[Boglin]

...hard-core players who prefer first-person-player games like Nintendo's "Final Fantasy" series... (emphasis mine),/i>

I was going to make some lame jokes about the journalists poor fact checking abilities, but it's honestly an easy mistake to make. I mean, he at least correctly associated the games with their primary console platform, assuming the article was written in 1994.

This doesn't surprise me

[dobber]

Reality shows just don't cut it for a lot of men. I am sick of hearing about them, and I would rather see higher quality fiction on television. Instead, shows like Firefly, John Doe, Mr. Sterling, and The Lyon's Den get canned. All for 'lack of ratings'... sometimes a show takes awhile to get a following, but this short-sighted nature will kill a lot of good tv.

I have Tivo, so the time a show is on doesn't really matter much to me. I get to watch the shows I'm interested in, when I want to. Unfortunatly, television schedules still work on the prime-time model, and that needs to change. If there are three shows on at the same time that I want to watch, I'll usually only pick one. If they show one in another time slot, then I can get that one as well. Fortunatly this isn't much of a problem now, as the networks are hell-bent on cramming every form of reality show into as many spots as they can.

Until then, the computer is a better use of my time anyway. Maybe the execs will get it, maybe they won't.

No more TV

[Apreche]

Freshman year I paid for cable. That was a mistake. I barely used any of it, my roomate used it all the time. I had to pay half. Oh well. I never paid for cable again. It's my 4th year of college now, and TV is dead to me. I only watch it in two ways. Way 1, when I go home for a break or something I'll watch some sports and some cartoons to kill the time. Way 2, download shows like family guy, or get DVDs of tv shows and watch them. Tivo isn't even worth it. Heck a home brewed linux tivo isn't worth it.

TV is dead to me. I get all my information from the internet and I get all my video entertainment from DVDs and the internet. It's not just video games. It's push vs. pull technology. I just wont use anything that is push anymore.

Fuck you TV networks you lose.

Give me cartoon network, TLC/Discovery, and Sci-fi

[moebius206]

The only reason I, as a gamer in his 20's, don't watch much TV these days is because the majority of the tv and especially its primetime (I assume that's the time tv execs want us watching the most) lineup are geared toward mindless comedy, trite drama, and the much over-played shock-value.

It seems to me that all of the tv that I find interesting has some aspect of it that hasn't been ran through the politically-correct/marketing machine. Things like reality tv are only intriguing (and sometimes funny) because they hint at showing everyday life, filled with obsceneties, moodiness, and everyone's unique perspective/opinions on life. Sitcoms and drama's just don't have that, even a fictional state. They try so desparately to keep their hands clean that its no wonder people tuned in everywhere when Southpark uttered "Shit" almost 200 times in 30 minutes.

Its not that people want filthy tv filled with sex, violence, and cursing... rather, perhaps they want something that doesn't make them feel like they're children and have to cover their eyes all of the time.

Besides the movie channels, I really only watch Cartoon Network (honestly, only Adult Swim/Toonami and a few others like Samurai Jack, occasionally Justice League, etc), Discovery/TLC, and SciFi. I'm sure I'm not alone, either. And if you think about the programming you watch on those channels, I would bet that they all just don't pay much attention to what the other channels are doing, and instead just focus on what they do best: anime, documentaries, and science fiction with lots of cheesy effects.

If you want me to watch your station, don't hold my hand like I'm a freakin' 2 year old. Just spit out the real truth behind what you're trying to tell (if there is some), and for God's sake quit trying to market to every demographic possible!

Oh, and it might help to come up with something original instead of just repackaging the leading channel's ideas. Just a hint.

Sorry for the rant.

TV not competitive...

[ronfar]

When stuff comes on TV that is aimed at me, it is either:

A. On the cartoon network. (Or kids WB, etc.)

B. Short lived.

I get tired of watching science fiction series X to have it cancelled, just as I am getting into the characters. (Besides the fact that there is a lot of bad, dumb or both science fiction on TV.)

Video games, on the other hand help me to use up hours and hours of my life without boring me to tears. I can't say that about reality show Y or Friends.

If they want the people who play video games to watch TV they should pay attention to what kinds of video games sell.

Hey, it worked for Peter Jackson.

Oh, and another thing, what is with the ads? How much show versus AD content is there these days? It seems like the AD content is steadily increasing, to the point where all shows are will be like the occaisionally entertaining "60 second radio hour" that they play on community radio around here, except with lots of ads interrupting every ten seconds.

Re:Give away quality games...

[shadowcabbit]

A game that has commercials and product placements is not, can not be, and will never be a quality game.

Say what you will but I seriously doubt that Nobunaga's Ambition goes better with Coke.