Broadening the gaming generation

Success in the video game industry has largely been predicated on games designed to appeal to adolescent male fantasies. But this core market is extremely saturated – and is also aging along with the rest of society: today, the average gamer is actually a 30-year-old man, according to the San Francisco-based International Gaming Development Association (IGDA).New blood from other demographics will be needed to sustain sales in the future. Yet games such as Grand Theft Auto, which are designed to appeal to that core market, are blockbuster sellers. So the million-dollar question is: How to retain the appeal of conventional online games while also broadening it to attract new gamers from different demographic cohorts?Although half of humanity can hardly be described as a "demographic cohort," the industry is eyeing women as a desirable market for gaming development. The surprise is that women already play online games in significant numbers. Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women – and women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%), according to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) based in Washington DC.These female gamers already play a pivotal role in sales. "Any game that breaks out and sells in the millions does this because it has succeeded, design-wise, in attracting women to play as well as men," says Kathy Shoback, director of the Los Angeles-based CMP Game Group.Research conducted in Canada by Toronto’s Solutions Research Group Inc. (SRG) supports the overlapping appeal theory: for males, Grand Theft Auto is the third-favourite game; for females, it’s 14. But there are differences in patterns of play. Women are more active in online gaming than console gaming, says Donna Hall, director of marketing strategy at SRG. Of the 68% of Canadians who have played an online game within the past month, 53% are female, 46% are male."The whole idea is a mini-escape, a mental break for a short period...that’s how women described the attraction," says Hall. "They tend to go to online sites such as pogo.com, GameSpot, card and poker sites, and they also like to play built-in cell phone games when they’re waiting or need a break."The breakdown of females by age also provides insight. "Our numbers show 56% of female gamers are in the 12-29 age group, but about 29% are over 30," says Hall. "I think that over-30 category is a market that people are just clueing into now."Women who aren’t already playing are the untapped market, says Heather Kelley, a game designer at Montreal-based Artificial Mind & Movement and chair of the IGDA’s Women in Games special interest group. "It’s not a problem to attract women and girls who already like the kind of games the boys like," she says. "The goal in expanding the audience is not to discount the women who already like those games – it’s to ensure they don’t turn women off by being obviously sexist or stupid."What women wantThere are no hard and fast rules for designing games for women, and little scientific inquiry has been done. " can only extrapolate from the products they’ve shipped," Kelley says. Also, only about 10% of gaming developers are women, exacerbating the problem. Nonetheless, some guidelines have emerged, she says. Technology needs to be easy – Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s touch screen technology is very popular with females. And games designed for women need a shorter length of play so they can fit them into their lives better.But the content development side is murkier. "The going wisdom is that the story doesn’t matter – it’s all about game play," says Kelley. "But I think guys aren’t really motivated to do what they’re doing in the game by anything other than the thrill of it, whereas women are more contextual." By way of explanation, she debunks another piece of conventional wisdom: women don’t like violent games. "I don’t think women are inherently opposed to violence," she says. "If you give them a game that requires violence, but there’s a reason for it – someone has been wronged or it supports something they believe in – they’re totally just as violent as men."Designing games for women has been a major theme at the last few Women in Games conferences held annually by the CMP Game Group, says Shoback. "The things we came up with are not particularly revolutionary but shockingly obvious." For example, marketing ads often send off-putting messages. "They feature lots of blood, weapons, metal and Barbie-ish female characters dressed for the beach, not combat," she says. "There are ways to present strong and attractive female characters...that appeal to women." And, content should be designed for more strategy-oriented play that excites brains as well as passions. "I think both females and males, particularly older ones, prefer a well-rounded and nuanced play experience created with sophistication and cleverness." But Kelley warns against treating females, particularly young girls, as one homogenous mass. "This audience doesn’t have a Borg mentality. There isn’t just one type of girl – there are tomboys, princesses and so on." Yet games designed for the core audience rarely consider the different types of boys. Kelley agrees, saying this is an issue that should be raised: "Someone should be really pissed off about that."Beyond Venus and MarsWhile women are clearly an untapped market, there are other audiences out there that have yet to be reached. "About half the population of North America – 200 million – says they are gamers," says Jason Della Rocca, executive director at the IGDA. "There is more diversity in the audience today." Gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation – all are opportunities for artists to explore different themes.With free time and disposable income, seniors form a particularly promising new market. Nintendo is marketing its popular Brain Age puzzle and mental exercise game as anti-Alzheimer’s training, Della Rocca says. A significant number of people buying Nintendo consoles are first-time gamers over 35 who want to play Brain Age or females who want to play the popular Nintendogs, a pet-raising simulation game, he adds.Musical games also hold potential for reaching both genders. Guitar Hero provides a guitar-shaped peripheral and nine avatars to help gamers indulge rock-god fantasies. "This has sold in the millions to very non-traditional gamers," says Della Rocca. Artificial Mind & Movement’s Kelley points to Dance Dance Revolution, which uses floor pads to recreate dancefloor moves, and karaoke games such as Karaoke Revolution. "Girls go crazy over those," she says.Kelley notes that as many first-generation gamers enter their child-rearing years, another burgeoning area is family games, or "games that allow parents to interact meaningfully with their children." The Wii is a clear example of a successful new concept that combines gaming with movement to allow families to play together.On the design front, family-oriented games need to consider the way a child perceives the world. "How to play the game, the rules, can be very confusing for a really young kid," Kelley says. Some games such as Lego Star Wars include controls that allow parents to help their kids. "If a kid needs some help, a second person plugs in a controller and...can enter the game. The parent’s avatar can say, ‘Follow me,’ instead of having the parent point at the screen," she says.But Shoback warns there are still obstacles to capturing niche markets, not the least of which is creating a distribution strategy to deliver games to where target audiences are. And, platforms and technology are still not standardized: PCs and mobile phones, rather than consoles, are the most promising delivery platform for niche audiences, but there are hundreds of different configurations and compatibility problems. "Curse Windows if you will, but it goes a long way towards stabilizing the PC as a platform you can reach millions on," she says.

Broadening the gaming generation

Broadcast | January 24, 2007

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Broadening the gaming generation

Broadcast | January 24, 2007

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