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The Core Gamer a Myth?
Next Generation explores the possibility that the 18 to 34 year old 'hardcore' male gamer, a coveted demographic, may not actually exist. Research from the NPD Group indicates that most 'heavy use' gamers are younger, between six and 17. From the article: "Frazier explained ... 'The segments were determined by examining player behavior, rather than defining segments demographically. While it's easy to talk about the 18 to 34 core gamer, it's not necessarily accurate. The industry has been in need of much more nuanced information that can be used both when developing and marketing content. In all, 10 behavioral attributes were used to determine the segments, and they fall into four primary areas: ownership of systems, use of systems, frequency of use, and purchase behavior. Segments emerged by minimizing differences within clusters and maximizing differences between the clusters." Is this yet another sign of the 'greying gamer' phenomenon, or simply evidence indicating the marketers have had it wrong all along?
Certainly the demographic exists. Whether it is as large or important as previously thought is another question entirely.
Saying it doesn't exist at all is akin to saying that no 10-15 year olds are interested in programming. I'm sure there are some, but the demographic isn't deemed important enough to cater to most of the time.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
It seems to me that the "core group" they are referring to do exist and in my experience play many more hours per day, with some playing the whole weekends away. They exhibit classic signs of addiction like only associating with people who play the game on a daily basis and hiding the "playing of the game" from family and friends who do not partake in it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The core gaming group is more like 14-22 years old, from the time they have actual money to the time they get out of college. (Some will continue for a bit after college, but there's going to be a rapid fall-off.)
The other big group is parents, buying games for their 6-16 year old kids.
the core gamer is a high school through college student, whatever the age. they have much more free time per day.
real life drags core gamers (like myself) down to the level of casual gamer.
so, i suppose that would make the core gamer 13-22 or so.
"The segments were determined by examining player behavior..."
So age was determined based on behavior? Can someone think of any flaws with this, or did I misunderstand something?
If this is accurate, then Nintendo might have the last laugh with their one-size-fits-all approach to gaming. In Japan we are already seeing the sterotypical demographics blend and blur withe the DS and more specifically Brain Age. The Wii claims to be even more non-gamer friendly and potentially tap into the broad games market rather than the 3% hardcore gamer demographic that MS and Sony want to capture.
certified elipsis abuser
When you think about it, who *really* has disposable income and disposable time? It's probably your typical teenager, with few commitments outside of school and a part time job that can entirely fund a video game habit. Once you get past this point, in college or the real world with a real job, time rapidly becomes a precious commodity. "Hardcore gamers" don't last very long in college (I should know, I basically lost an entire semester...). So, the vast majority of gamers have to work to support themselves (or study hard to convince their parents to continue supporting them) and thus they only have time for a few hours here and there.
Game Publishers aim at the 17-34 hardcore gamer because they -purchase- most of the games.
The NPD study is weighted heavily by -use-.
Is anyone surprised that K-12 kids have more spare time and fewer entertainment alternatives than college students and young professionals?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Of course the Core gamer is a myth! Everybody got shanghaied into buying the Premium just for the hard drive.
Clearly the authors have not seen Grandma's Boy. Don't they know that all 25-38 year olds live with their Grandma and work as game level testers while programming games in their spare time?
Forget about kids, they're *so* yesterday. Aging baby-boomers are where it's at. (Although I have a seething hatred for that demographic.)
Look on T.V. Notice anything lately? You see all those T.V. anchors with grey hair? What about Taylor Hicks from American Idol? Get it? The boomers are getting older, and unfortunately are still the biggest demographic in the U.S.
In addition, MMOs are getting better and better, and bandwidth is increasing. Add in a bunch of retirees who have absolutely *nothing* to do, and all of a sudden we'll be seeing games like "World of Shuffleboardcraft", and "The Sims: Retirement Community"
Know it. Fear it.
From the article: "The Video Gamer Segmentation Report separated gamers into six groups: heavy gamers, avid console gamers, mass market gamers, prefer portable gamers, secondary gamers, and infrequent gamers."
But if we re-name the groups to better describe who they are, the results aren't too surprising.
1) 14-20 year old guys. The only people who can easily fit into the first group are those with large disposable time and incomes, so naturally, this will be skewed towards those in high school. But, at one gender and only a few years of the analysis window, it's not surprising that they are only a few percent of all the gamers overall.
2) Fanboys. They can come in any age, but "avid" console players still need lots of time, so again, the skew towards high school, but not as much so as the "heavy" gamers. Also, the fact that many people mature in college and may lose their fanboyism also drives the skew towards younger kids.
3) Average Joe Consumer. This is the one to blame for all the sports game rehashes, boring sequels, movie tie-ins, and cartoon show tie-ins. Only buys based on what is popular and/or advertised. The article didn't giva a full breakdown as to how many people were in this group, but I'm willing to bet its the second largest behind the casual/non gamers. Of all the demographics this is the one I really wish would go away, because most game publishers ARE aware of this large market, and hence they push more and more mediocre games every year to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
4) Commuters. Either the young children who need something to do in the car while mom drives them all over suburbia, or those who take public transportation to and from work. Portable games are there primarily to alleviate boredom when you can't be home playing games. SO, with more gamers actually getting jobs as they grow up, many will shift from consoles to portables. Hence the surprisingly older ages of those who like portables.
5) People with lives. Gamers who like to play, but don't always have the time or money. Not much was said about this group in the article, so I can't say much here.
6) Non-gamers. They know what games are beacuse they live with gamers or know gamers, but they don't really have an interest. Big market, but good luck cracking it.
Anyway, the bottom line is that this isn't really news to anybody who actually watches what is going on in gaming. It is nice to see that the gaming culture as a whole is getting some consideration though. Of course it still doesn't fix the fact that no matter what category each of us falls into, the others will always be the ones to blame anytime the industry starts to falter or stagnate.
This is the thing, the 18-34 year old gamers are just single men with no families. So, between 18 and 24 there's probably a lot of hardcore gamers, but beyond that, the numbers really start to dwindle. I have a family, and between that and my job, I don't have that much time to which I can devote to TV, Movies, Games, Sports, programming for my own interests, hanging out with friends and any other recreational activities that I may want to spend time on. Gaming simply doesn't come that high on the priority list. I suspect that it's the same for most people in this age group. The only people I know who spend a significant amount of time on games are single people.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Is this yet another sign of the 'greying gamer' phenomenon, or simply evidence indicating the marketers have had it wrong all along?
Probably the latter.
I'd say it's more likely a little bit of both.
I am one of these "greying gamers" you're always reading about. I grew up with the Atari 2600 (my cousins had it) and my first console was the Mattel Intellivision. I went for a period in the 1980's and 1990's where I was totally hardcore, and owned all the current systems and just had to buy all the latest games as soon as they came out. (Well, not *all* of them, but all the big ones.) I was at that age where you basically just give in to peer pressure, and I wanted to be able to talk about all these games with my friends in high school and even the first part of college. Then, when I got a job, I suddenly found myself flush with all this cash I never had before.
I even eventually got nostalgic and built up a pretty sizable game collection (link from my link at the top here). This is still sort of a hobby.
But then, reality started to sink in. Once you get married and buy a house, everything changes. If and when I have kids (and we're already at the age where we seriously need to decide one way or another pretty quick), I can't imagine ever having time to play games. Even just managing my household, doing various gardening chores and repairs on weekends, I haven't had time to even hook up a system since we moved 6 months ago. I do play with my DS on the commute in to work, but I haven't actually bought a game in 3-4 months for any system.
I think my life is pretty typical of middle class people. I was a hardcore gamer, but then I got older. Life catches up with you.
So I think there are hardcore gamers, but most of them probably do eventually grow up. I don't think gaming is something you "grow out of" as much as it's just something you lose time for. And once you're sort of outside that hardcore community, you start to look a lot more critically at the games and genres that everybody else is going so nuts over, and I, for one, have realized that I just don't have a lot of interest in many of the popular titles right now. From what I've seen, this isn't really unusual.
As for the age cutoff, I think 17 is a little too young. When I was in college, I probably had more friends than ever into video games. We even had semi-organized NHL Hockey tournaments in my dorm. So I do think there definitely are 18-34 year old hardcore gamers, but there are probably a lot more closer to 18 than 34. (I'm 34 right now.) But it wouldn't surprise me if there have always been *more* 6-17 year olds that are hardcore gamers, just because a lot of people probably start to drop off in their gaming as they get up closer to the top range of the 18-34 demographic.
Indeed. When I was much younger, it was only natural for me to have significantly more free time for gaming. I didn't have a career, a house, or a girlfriend, and being under 18 meant that opportunities to pursue certain hobbies or entertainment that took me far from home were at their minimum. It was at that time that the appeal of my games was undeniable.
Now in my 30s, gaming is pursued when there's nothing more compelling on the agenda, which means that though I've owned Devil May Cry 3 for well over a year (and the first in the series was the primary reason why I purchased a PS2), the disc has yet to be removed from its case. It would be fun, yes, but I've grown to discover that it's not nearly as enjoyable as dozens of other things.
I don't have as much time for gaming; and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to have as much time for gaming.