Games Industry And Gamers Getting Older

The Guardian Gamesblog has an interesting piece wondering outloud about the greying of the gaming population. Both the people who make the games and the people who play the games are increasingly older, far from the targetted 15-year-old male in typical gaming marketing. From the article: "Not only does this [marketing] policy cost the industry over 50% of its potential market on gender terms alone, but in a few years time, it's also going to cut out a huge audience on the age side of things too. I wonder, are forward-thinking publishers already having brain-storming sessions in order to address the challenge of the grey gamer? Wired.com ran an article this week on how the ageing population in Japan is bringing about some major cultural changes. Have Namco, Nintendo, Capcom and Konami et al caught the zeitgeist?"

Comments

Just make good games...

[Winterblink]

Call me strange, but I don't care what age group a game is targeted for, as long as it's a good game then it will be worth buying. I've got games that run the entire spectrum of ratings and subject matters in my colletion.

Re:Just make good games...

[XenoRyet]

I think you've hit on the point that publishers, marketers, and analysts are missing. It doesn't matter if they're female gamers, old gamers, casual gamers, or any other distinction you care to make, the point is they are gamers. That means they like good games. Quit trying to "target" one group or another, just make a good game, and gamers will like it, and buy it. That's why we are gamers in the first place: We like good games.

Re:Just make good games...

[Golias]

They market games to 15-year olds for the same reason why they don't make music videos for the latest CD from the Cleveland Orchestra.

Marketing is better at selling flashy crap to young people than it is at targeting more sophisticated tastes.

Re:Just make good games...

[gutnor]

Sure they should not take a specific demographic into account in order to make a game.
But still, we are all different. I can say from my experience that my taste in games have changed radically over the years ( let's say from college to work to work + wife ... and I fear I'm not far from work + wife + kids )

I used to play a lot a first person shooter, RTS and loads of other time consuming games. A good game for me at this time was a game you have to play literally for days to master. A game with an average/easy difficulty level that gives less than 20 hours gameplay could not be really good ( Basically at the time less than 20 hours could have meant about a single day ... when today 20 hours of gaming can be up to 1 month of gaming or even more depending on my work or social activities. )

That's right, I chose *myself* to spend less time playing and as such I cannot be considered as a real 'gamer' anymore. But that's not my point: I still have the money AND the wish to spend it in games and as such I'm a market ... but if game vendor want to get to me, they need to think about my constraints !
And even if in my ex-gamer heart I can still recognise that a game is the best thing of all time ( hey, I miss my college time now, when I would have been able tho play WoW ), I won't spend any penny in it ...

Re:Just make good games...

[jchenx]

Yup. One reason why casual games do so well (Bejeweled, Zuma, Astropop, etc.) is because they're not targeted towards any niche audience in particular. I do have one interesting story to tell ...

I was at the Casual Games Conference last year, and it was interesting hearing some of the development houses talk about the way they create their games. Many of the developers themselves are guys, big into "hardcore" games like MMOs and FPSes, but the games they make themselves are for a much broader audience. Initially, they were shocked to find that the biggest audience for their casual games were actually older (35+) women, who ended up playing their casual games during lunch time or in small breaks throughout the day. One guy in particular mentioned that his team thought about maybe targeting their games for that audience (older women), but realizes that was silly. He compares their work to G and PG movies from Hollywood. Not all of those movies are made for kids, and they suit a very wide and broad audience. It's just a good bit of entertainment ... that happens to be popular for the older women, but it's not necessarily tailored to them.

I don't see how this is news

[Corbu Mulak]

Everybody says this. Everybody on this site says it, and every gaming rag likes to say it anytime they say anything about marketing.

Yeah, but

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

As I get older, I am not as interesed in the A.D.D. type gaming that companies are targetting at 15 year olds. I don't get that much out of 3rd person shooters for instance, and would give my right arm for a decent RPG to hit the market that isn't based on Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm in my early 30's and still enjoy playing video games, as do most of my friends. It is something I grew up with, and I think we can safely say that video games are not childs play anymore. But is the industry really targetting adult players, or are they just hoping for enough adult players to keep up with the kids by playing overly spastic 3rd person deathmatches.

As an adult, I can't dedicate 6 hours a day to my favourite games. While I love a good RPG, I really can't waste 80 - 120 hours of my life to complete it. Few game companies seem to be making compelling games that can keep an adult occupied without reaching a point where and adult gamer is either bored with the content or can't waste more time finishing the game.

This is definitely a growing trend to have 30 and 40 somethings an older playing video games, and considering that adult gamers generally have more disposable income then a high school kids working at McDonald's, I hope the industry would recognize that targetting games at adults makes good economic sense.

Unfortunatly, companies like Nintendo can't realize this. They are too busy making ready the next pokemon or mario or zelda adventure. Zelda was fun to play, but the last overly cutesy childish Wind Waker on the Gamecube left me screaming for something more adult like to do, like my doing my taxes or doing home renovations. The Nintendo DS hasn't offered any compelling adult-centric games either.

But also just an unfortunately, companies like Sony that can be said to be more adult-centric are not making compelling games either. The PSP was a perfect adult centered device. Slick and sophisticated and expensive, adults would prefer this over the Nintendo DS, yet few games have been offered to really drive up sales of the PSP to adults.

There will always be a few gems on the market, like Civilisation 4, that will help drive sales to adult players, but for the most part I don't think the gaming industry really knows how to deal with aging adult players. Why don't the aging game developers start making games THEY would actually like to play, rather then trying to create the next teen sensation.

Re:Yeah, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo may not market its products to adults, but they are making exactly the kind of games that you claim to want; fun, engrossing titles that are short enough to finish in a reasonable amount of time, but that don't chew up all your free time, and they are both fun and exciting right off the bat. Sure, adults have disposable income, but we still don't like to waste it. DS is cheap; all that means is I can get some more fun games for it. My adult friends and I have spent most of our time over the last few years playing mainly our gamecube and DS's - the only game to significantly hijack our attention was GTA, and more recently God of War and Guitar Hero. With the exception of God of War, these games all offer instant gratification and you can elect to have short play sessions.

Sometimes you can't just sit on your ass and wait for some suit on the opposite side of the world to decide to market games exclusively to you; there is fun stuff out there, you just have to try a couple things out to find just what you like!

PS - If you finished Zelda, you were rewarded with an ending that was not childish in the least. In fact, most of the games settings tended much more toward artistic or expressionistic than childish. The synchronization and musicality of the sound effects and environment, combined with the stylish rendering of the characters made for a pretty remarkable animated experience. Of course, cartoons are just for kids, right?

Re:Yeah, but

[shawb]

I don't know if it's necesarilly true that adults have more disposable income than teenagers working at McDonald's. Those adults have all sorts of bill to pay: rent/mortgage/property taxes, food, utilities, cleaning supplies, etc etc etc. Most of the income a teenager makes is disposable. If they buy their own car, it tends to be that they are car fanatics and that car is their hobby. To play console video games, an adult has to not only buy the games and console, but also buy the TV, sound system, pay the electricity bills to keep it running and all sorts of other things. These costs go up much farther if you have kids of your own to support.

Yes, there are people who do have well paying jobs and don't have children to support (at least not yet.) This Yuppie market has slowly become the "geek chic" market, with more emphasis on electronic gizmos than name brand windbreakers.

Re:Yeah, but

[rabbot]

You made a huge mistake throughout your rant. You seem to think that most gamers (adults or kids) care about how THEY look playing a game. Most of us (I'm an adult), don't care if the game has cartoon graphics or the system didn't cost $400 dollars. Most of us aren't so shallow that we would dismiss a piece of hardware or a great game because of aesthetics. These things do not have any bearing on how fun a game is.

Re:Yeah, but

[Anonymous Coward]

These things do not have any bearing on how fun a game is.

I tend to believe that you're describing an ideal, and that the reality is somewhere in between the two views. Just because graphics aren't everything doesn't mean that they aren't worth anything!

Re:Yeah, but

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be from the "A.D.D. type" gamer generation that grew up with the PSX, despite your age suggesting otherwise. This article isn't about you. You act too young to be "older". Me, I grew up with the NES and SNES, and I act accordingly. That puts me on the young side of "older". The truly "older" ones grew up with the Atari, Colecovision, etc, and aren't ashamed of it.

Until the SNES and Genesis era, mainstream games never focused on being "mature". And the technology was restrictive enough that they couldn't be very realistic, either. Even during that 16-bit era, only a few games dared to push the "mature" envelope. It was simply understood that games were games, and to label one as "mature" and another as "kiddy" was absolutely pointless and stupid.

Until the PSX era, it was understood that a video game system was just an appliance at best, and more like a toy or media player (VCR, DVD player, etc.). As such, the price of a system should be low, while the games should cost comparitively more. Think toaster vs. bread. A toaster could be $20, while bread can be as much as $5 if you get the "good" kind. But in the PSX era, the system itself became a status symbol. Two kids could be talking about games, one of them says, "I have a Playstation," (cool) and the other one says, "I have a Nintendo 64." (uncool) They'd argue for a few minutes about technical specs and FMV and media format and such, then one of them would throw out the Godwin-nazi-argument of system comparisons: "I paid more for mine than you did for yours. Mine *has* to be better." Thus the birth of the age of games as a status symbol was born.

Your comments about Zelda betray your "mature" vs. "kiddy" view of games (based soley on their graphics!), and your comments about the PSP being more "adult-centric" because it costs more belie your games-as-status-symbol fetish. You may be in your "early 30's", but you have the immature mindset of a teenager that purchases things based on how "cool" they make you look.

Personally, I'm 26, a former "enthusiast" gamer (now I'm classified as a "casual" gamer from what I can tell), and I found Zelda:TWW to be more of a variation of artistic expression than being "made for kids". I've also found the DS to be a *very* cool little device. It has new, interesting, fun games, and a lot of potential for more. The PSP has none of that, but has a very nice display. For my money, guess which one I picked... This is what happens when you look beyond the opinionated hype of uninformed teenagers that want to look cool - you get products that are well-designed and fun.

The problem is that the money is where the hype is. Hype allows you to both sell more of your product and keep the prices high. It artificially inflates demand based on opinion, conjecture, and unfounded facts spread by word-of-mouth. The best way to tap into this gossip machine is to sell it to an easily-influenced, well-connected (socially) teen. Bam! Instant demand, higher profit. I can't say that I blame the developers. They want money, and they're probably so bored and burnt-out by games that they never want to play one ever again.

Re:Yeah, but

[AuMatar]

I think you need to fix your definition of "adult". You seem to be obsessed with the concept. A game is fun, or it isn't. Windwalker was fun (well, except for the sailing all the time). Kirby's Canvas Curse for the DS is fun, and unique gameplay- who care's what the character is. Advanced Wars DS is fun- who cares if the storyline is a little lame, its the strategy you play for. I'd have bought the game without a storyline mode. If its fun, play it. Who gives a shit if it has a cartoon character or a guy with a cigar and a BFG?

Re:Yeah, but

[BenjyD]

It does annoy me that many games add in some repetitive or boring chapters just to pad the play time for the reviews. Give me 15-20hrs of engrossing gameplay rather than that same material spread out over 30-40 hours. Resident Evil 4 wouldn't have been so good if it was strectched over 10 sections.

The worst thing is 'cheap' game play lengtheners: putting a ten minute easy section before a hard boss fight, with no save point in between, or rehashes of previous missions - "Now do exactly the same thing, but in a *blue* car".

You are artificially limiting your choices, though, by ruling out the DS. There are a lot of *very* good DS and GBA games.

Re:Yeah, but

[iainl]

I don't know about "companies like Nintendo", but Nintendo themselves have the DS, which seems to utterly dominate videogaming amongst the 25-35 people I know. Whether its strategy gaming with Advance Wars, puzzlers like Meteos and Zoo Keeper or collaborative sandbox things like Nintendogs and Advance Wars they're doing a far better job of getting our attention than EXTREEEEEME CHAV RACER 12, Shoot Everything Yet Again or sports games.

The only other thing to come close is the mighty SingStar from Sony London, which has sold a _lot_ of PS2s to people who didn't understand why I'd want a console at all.

Re:Yeah, but

[microTodd]

"would give my right arm for a decent RPG"

Try Fable. Doesn't require 120 hours to finish, you can save anywhere (*very* important feature for the casual adult gamer), and plays like an RPG with leveling, character building, etc.

Elder Scrolls 3 is similar in most of the above respects, but it has about 200 hours of gameplay, so you might never finish.

If you are looking for a more "Final Fantasy-ish" console-style RPG, you're screwed. I know, because I've looked. I cannot find a decent console-style RPG that lets you save anywhere and doesn't require a 3-hour uninterrupted block.

What works well (not that I would encourage anything illegal) is PC-based emulation of the classic SNES RPGs. Because the emulator can save the state of your game anywhere, so you can just play for 30 minutes or so and not have to hunt for a save point.

Re:Yeah, but

[lhouk281]

I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned the loss of physical dexterity that often accompanies aging. I know I enjoyed "Shadow Hearts: Covenant" much more when I turned on the "Auto Ring" function, so I didn't have to try to time my button presses to attack successfully. Unfortunately, it seems that games now are going in the opposite direction, as when "Final Fantasy X-2" and now "Final Fantasy XII" switched from a strictly turn-based combat system to a real-time one. Hopefully, in the future more games will accomodate those of us with slow reflexes, not to mention those with physical disabilities.

assumptions

[TheCarp]

"Not only does this [marketing] policy cost the industry over 50% of its potential market on gender terms alone, but in a few years time, it's also going to cut out a huge audience on the age side of things too. "

This makes some interesting assumptions, the biggest one is that marketing does what it claims to do.

That is to say, we assume that marketing "aimed at" 15 year old males has no relevance to older or differently gendered people. What is this marketing exactly and how exactly is it so tailored for a specific age and gender?

Remember, it is in the interests of marketers to convince us that A) Marketing works and B) Targeted marketing actually targets - whether either of these is true or not isn't so much relevant, they are assumptions that the marketeers sell to companies.

Frankly, all a game advertisement has to do is make you say "oh hey that looks cool" and make you say, when your in the store "I have seen an ad for that game, and it looked cool". Thats it. It doesn't matter if you have seen the advertisement once or one thousand times, as long as it gets you to recotgnize the product and take a look at it when you are in a position to buy it, then it has done its job.

Taking that into account, I think you will find very little difference between marketing a product to one group from another. In fact, I would bet that the gaming industry could cut its advertising budgets drastically without hardly any loss in terms of purchasing.

I think its alot more marketers and analysts who like to overthink everything comming up with ideas and selling them than a real issue. Remember, its in the interests of both media publishers and marketers to see more marketing to more groups.

In fact, if this says anything, it says that the marketers are wrong. If the marketing is nominally aimed at 15 year old males, but the real demographic is shifting older, then either A) the current marketing scheme is working just fine for older age groups or B) marketing has no real effect whatsoever (a conclusion that marketers would rather you not ever draw of course)

Remember, as someone here once said to me:
marketing is marketing marketing.

-Steve

This was MS's problem...

[BTWR]

I think MS going after the male teenage demo is a model destined to fail. You see, like the WB network going after teens, it works initially (Dawson's Creek, etc) become very popular. But, like teenagers always do, they are very disloyal to a trend. One day, it's super popular, and the next, it's totally loser-like (I was 18 when Dawson's Creek came out, and EVERYONE in my dorm watched. 3 years later, you got snickers if you mentioned it). Same with XBox. The 15 year-old demo loved it, and bought millions of consoles and games. But, in 5 years, these 22 year-olds won't want to be seen playing the same thing as 15 year-olds. There won't be any "nostalgia" for Dead or Alive volleyball

On the other hand, 25 year olds today DO want to relive Zelda, Mario and Metroid from their youths. Nintendo survives on players desire to buy the newest incarnation of their favorite games (take one look at a Nintendo Board. Before the new zelda is even out, everyone is salivating for it for 2 years now). True, we may not touch Pokemon games, but that's Nintendo's brilliant strategy. They're already seeding tomorrow's nostalgia game. In 15 years, today's 8 year-olds will have disposable income, and will want to relive (albeit, a more mature version) of the series they loved as a child.

I simply don't see this happening with XBox titles.

Re:This was MS's problem...

[Generic Guy]

Pokemon... In 15 years, today's 8 year-olds will have disposable income, and will want to relive (albeit, a more mature version) of the series they loved as a child.

So, you mean like a full-contact Pokemon game with blood splatters?
One wonders what kind of games will show up for the Revolution.

You can tell the games industry is aging...

[Wilson_6500]

Like other entertainment industries, the games they're turning out these days are more and more glitzy, formulaic crap; development prices are increasing due to new technology, risk is feared, and the gamer loses in the end. Nobody takes chances because nothing is new and exciting anymore. There's no trepidation about whether people want _any_ games at all, and they've hooked onto exactly what generates the highest number of net dollars in their pockets.

Hell, you could also say that other industries have now noticed the games industry--like AMD and their $1100 processors that cater to the gamers who MUST HAVE that extra 40 fps in Doom 3, even though they could run it at 75 and be happy. Let's not forget the video card folks, who've figured out that people out there are willing to buy _two_ of their enormously expensive high-end cards.

God, but PC gaming is screwed.

You mean my real age???

[black_shadow201]

I guess some of us are just better at staying young at heart (and mind if you ask my wife) than others. :)

Of course...

[Sierpinski]

Of course the gaming community is getting older. How many of those "targetted 15 year-olds" could afford to pay $300-$400+ for a new console system, or $1k+ for a new PC system to play games? Back while I was playing Sword of Fargoal on my Commodore-64, yeah I was probably in that demographic, however I have taken my desire to play games through my years and now I'm twice that age with the same desire. You know what the ladies always say... Boys will be boys, they just get more and more expensive toys as they grow up.

My parents bought me my first NES for maybe $40 if I remember correctly. Super Mario Brothers (this pre-dated the free Duck-Hunt addition) then soon afterward, Excitebike and Double Dribble. I got older, the systems got more advanced and more expensive. Give the next generation (like my children) some time to grow up and I bet you'll see an explosion of the gaming community. Kid sees Dad play WoW, Kid gets older, Kid plays WoW, Kid PKs Dad, Kid gets grounded, Dad ravages Kid's account for spare gold for epic mount, Kid disowns Dad, Dad sells Kid's account on eBay for $200 (used to by WoW gold for afore-mentioned epic mount). Kid runs away at age 16.

Maybe I should stop letting my kid watch me play WoW. I don't want them to run away!

What's new?

[Israfels]

Hasn't it always been that the games being designed were by older people ~20s-30s. It's not like the programmers are going to be 15 like the target audience.

Also, the games were a lot less complex years ago and didn't require the same level of experience that today's games require. Unless there's some genius programmer with prodigy like business experience, there's no way some 20 year old kid can make a game that would be able to compete in today's modern gaming industry.

Gamers getting older!

[NoSuchGuy]

Gamers getting older!

You insensitive clod - I am 32 years old that's not old!

Re:Gamers getting older!

[Thrymm]

Im 32 next month!

I still want my FPS, and RTS! I dont want pokemon and/or 3d fighters!

Kind of a circular point, but...

[argStyopa]

I'm not sure I agree with the article, I mean, yes, *some* gaming ads are directed at hormonally-charged adolescent males, but then again, aren't adolescents the most likely to be persuaded by a flashy ad ANYWAY?

Personally I don't believe games or marketing is exclusively aimed (any more) at young men. Sure, there are some T&A ads in print, but even those are getting rarer (and generally ridiculed - I remember that John Romero wanted to make me his "bitch" but I'm still waiting, John...).

In fact, I can't think of a single TV ad for any video game, ever. I'm not saying there aren't any, but if there are, they certainly didn't grab my attention.

No, I'd like to think that the 30+-somethings that are playing already have a fairly clear view of what they want from a game, the sense to read multiple reviews before buying, and generally act like informed consumers - a demographic that advertising is rarely aimed at.

30+

[wishus]

I recently surveyed the players of my game, Warband 1066, and one of the questions I asked was about their age. I had a single category for "30+", and nearly 30% of the surveyed players put themselves in that category. I had expected that most would be in the 18-24 range, and was surprised at the outcome. Over 50% were 25 or older.

Maybe I should not be that surprised - I'm 27, and I'm creating a game that I would enjoy playing. Still, I expected more college-age adults and less full-time-job adults.

What the hell is wrong with you?

[Inoshiro]

Wind Waker was a great game. Finally, a game I can play that has good graphics, fun dungeons, and which I can cut up and enjoy in 1-hour increments. I don't have time for dungeon crawls, where the dungeon takes over 3 hours to finish. I have studying to do! Wind Waker was great because it was fun without being stupid, and something I could finish in my lifetime.

If you thought the graphics were kiddy, you must've hated Jet Set Radio Future, and totally hated Akira :p

As for the DS.. I'm not sure what's kiddy about fun games. They have Wario Ware: Touched, Meteos, Advance Wars... what's causing you consternation? Is Scrabble and Risk what you consider adult?

Re:What the hell is wrong with you?

[Jackmn]

Wind Waker was awful. It's not bad because of the childish graphics, but simply because the game was both rediculously easy and needlessly repetitive.

I died a grand total of once in that game. The last boss didn't even manage to kill me, which was a dissapointment. Far too much of it was filler - locating items with your ship, digging up the triforce bits, that bloody sidequest where you have to slash the combat trainer a thousand times, etc.

Thankfully my copy came with a GC port of OOT which included a 'master quest' version of the game, which made the purchase more than worthwhile.

movies

[Anonymous Coward]

They're always comparing the games industry with the movie industry. Plenty of old geezers make movies that appeal to teenagers. Quentin Tarantino is 42.

Nostalgia not the problem.

[Inoshiro]

"The 15 year-old demo loved it, and bought millions of consoles and games. But, in 5 years, these 22 year-olds won't want to be seen playing the same thing as 15 year-olds."

It seems clear to me that anyone who thinks that 15 + 5 = 22 has bigger problems than Dawnson's Creek or playing Xbox, assuming they can tie their shoes and make it out of the house without incident.

Re:Nostalgia not the problem.

[BTWR]

and someopne doesn't know what a "15 year-old demo" means. It means teenager... males 13-19. Which means that "5 years later" of that demo is 22. No prob if you didn't know that. But if you're just a troll asshole, then go fuck yourself.

Re:Nostalgia not the problem.

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

how about next time you use "15 year-old demographic" to avoid said confusions. . . or how about just the "13-19 demographic" :)

Not hard at all

[Neo-Rio-101]

Running around with huge guns and blasting things, and driving around like maniacs is what kids fantasize about all day.... but what do adults fantasize about all day?

Maybe escaping the quiet desperation that is modern civilization, getting out of that boring job, or running a successful enterprise, or doing things which they don't have the time and money to do.... such as build that dream home, or pick up scads of women.

It's not a hard one to figure out if marketing bods pulled their heads out of their collective rear-ends.

What I may be playing in the year 2045...

[Joohwan]

The SIMS: Golden Years On a serious note, playing strategy games can keep the mind sharp in one's "golden" years. Examples: chess, checkers, or go. Although these are board games, I don't see why strategy video games wouldn't work. I don't mean video game versions of the board games; the Civilization series comes to mind. ( ^.^)v