Slashdot Mirror
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
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?"
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?
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.