Gamers Are Fans of Games, Not Genres

_xeno_ writes: A recent article on Steam Spy talks about how a "target audience" for game genres doesn't exist — or, more specifically, how there is no such thing as an "FPS gamer" or an "MMO gamer" or a "MOBA gamer." The majority of players tend to be fans of specific games, rather than genres. For example, the wildly popular MMO World of Warcraft managed to reach over 10 million players at its peak. However, these players never became "MMO gamers" — they were simply World of Warcraft gamers. As World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers fall, there's been no corresponding uptick in subscribers of other, competing MMOs. In fact, pretty much ever MMO released since World of Warcraft has been forced to move to a "free-to-play" model simply to survive. The article explains how the majority of gamers concentrate on a very small number of games, rarely trying new games: they're fans of a specific game, not any game that plays like it.

Comments

When I was very young, I didn't even understand.

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

This makes sense. When I was quite young, I was perplexed by the idea of a genre. I saw surveys with a check box. What games do I like"[] platforming, []racing, []shooters, []puzzle, etc" I looked at the survey and was confused that they could classify such diverse games into such small categories. The thought didn't even occur to me that games were like each other so much they could be classified. I simply thought games were all different. Now as a game designer, game programmer, I can see genre classifications, but I think to operate in them is laziness. I think with something as complex as a computer, we can have new genres of games like Katamari Damacy if someone puts their mind to it. I think experimenting and trying stuff no one tried before is bold and to be praised.

Just like children can't see through the veil when watching a movie and needs to be reminded Godzilla isn't real and the set is a miniature city, I think a lot of people get caught up in games without thinking how the game is made or similar to other games. A lot of people just play and if they like it, they stay. I just wish the veil wasn't so thick that people could see through a Clash of Clans, Farmville meets castle, pay to win, and wouldn't sponsor that type of drivel. I once had a "game designer" honestly think Clash of Clans took as much skill as Wacraft3 to play... The veil is there even for people who are supposed game developers.

Bad comparison?

[ADRA]

MMO's are a crappy comparison because:
1. It is SOO important to have a good set of people to play with that 'switching to MMO xyz' immediately becomes extremely difficult. Maybe in a series of multiverse guilds supported by some awesome gaming service hub could work like a guilds-out-of-games social service, but it doesn't exist, so the entropy moving from title to title is very hard at this point
2. MMO's in general wear you down in ways that make you never want to go back to MMO's. I like to grind once and a while because I'm sadistic, but I imagine a lot of people who've played MMO's never went back because the genre was so punishing
3. The entire 'point' of an MMO (as well as other genre titles) is to suck you into their playing system in a way that moving off to competitors becomes too high cost. Oh you wanna drop sub and play that -other- game? Well sure, but we'll delete your content after being idle for a certain time, etc.. like that

There are certainly some holy wars of gaming which have polarized gamers against one another, such as DOTA 2 / LOL. That doens't mean people can't enjoy the fruits of both, but people tend to stick to what they're used to for 'regularly played' games regardless of the competition. Realistically, the games are so close that anyone competent on one could be the same with some training for the other.

Really? Don't think so.

[cirby]

At least half of the people I know who play Final Fantasy XIV came there from another MMO (mostly WoW).

Back when I played WoW, most of the people I knew came there from other MMOs.

For that matter, in pretty much every MMO I've played, one of the stock discussion tropes is "which MMO did you play before this?" - with a very, very low percentage who never played MMOs before.

Yeah, most people also play other genres, but if you made them choose, you'd find that pretty much everyone IS primarily one "type" of gamer first.

MMO's

[ScienceofSpock]

I USED to consider myself an MMO gamer. Played UO for almost 6 years. Then moved to EQ. I thought, wow, this isn't nearly as feature-filled as UO, but hey, 3D GRAPHICS! Played that for 4 years. Then I started playing DAOC, and a whole host of others, including WoW and even some more recent ones like LOTRO and SWTOR. Each successive game I played lost my interest more quickly than the last. I tried to play ArcheAge and I lasted a whole week before I gave up on it.

Most MMO's have turned into nothing but F2P grind-fests. They are time and money sinks. Either waste a whole crapload of time grinding a quest for a shiny bauble, or, OR... you could purchase the bobble on our store. Not with game money silly, with real money!

I'm still convinced that UO is the most feature-complete MMO created to date, and aside from it's antiquated graphics and interface (Which they may have updated since then) nothing since then has come close.

Now, I play games other than MMO's, but I wouldn't consider myself a fan of any particular genre or style. I do despise most of the mobile F2P games. I don't view them as games at all, they're formulaic, addictive and only designed to get you to spend small amounts of cash frequently so you don't realize that over the last 3 months, you've dumped more into this "free" app than you spend on WoW over the course of a year. Scams are what I consider them.

Sorry if this sounds like a "Back in MY day" rant, but I am getting a bit long in the tooth.

I used to be an MMO player

[RogerWilco]

I used to be an MMO Player, I played several, with my biggest amount of time spent in World of Warcraft.

I stopped playing MMOs when NCSoft killed my favourite MMO out of the blue: City of Heroes.
I liked it because it was not like other MMOs I had played. There were no restrictions on level, class, gear or skill as to which players could team up and have fun together. Your character was totally unique. There was the most and best story telling I've seen in any MMO, including WoW. It wasn't perfect, but I still consider it the best game ever.

I was having a lot of fun in that game, only having discovered it quite late (It was at first not available where I lived).
Then NCSoft killed it two weeks before the new expansion went live. By what information the players could gather, not for financial reasons, but due to corporate politics.
After that I decided I never wanted to invest time again into something where I was at the mercy of a corporate boardroom on the other side of the globe. I don't want to play any game where I don't control the hardware needed to run it.