Dylan Hunter

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Contrary to popular belief that gamers are primarily teenage boys, results of the study indicate that video games have much broader appeal. On average, gamers are 41 years of age with an average annual income of $55,000. Further, females account for 52 percent of the gaming audience. The average gamer has been online for nine years and 84 percent have broadband access at home.

….When asked about their primary reason for purchasing their last game, the two most prevalent responses among gamers centered on previous gaming experiences, regardless of gaming device used. More then one-quarter of those using each type of device stated that they purchased their last game because they had played it before and enjoyed the experience. Game sequels also drove gamers to purchase their last game. The next most popular responses included “I heard good things about it,” and “A friend recommended it,” indicating the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations in influencing purchase behavior.

….nearly four out of ten heavy games (37 percent) agreed that featuring actual products or companies in games make the games feel more realistic, while 27 percent of light/ medium gamers agreed. Moreover, half of heavy gamers believe that advergaming “is inevitable and will be in all or most games in the future,” compared to 42 percent of light/medium gamers.

More

Hmmm… maybe worth a slight re-evaluation of MMORPG’s…*1* Still end up being utterly enormous timesinks, (i.e. actually beyond enormous - they compete head-to-head with RL, which is utterly unsustainable especially for those of us with families) so still not sure even this would make me re-engage, but certainly at least something to think about, (nah, still probably not… ).

Still, there’s definitely something nice about getting to know folks as a function of an intriguing shared activity, (similar to getting to know folks around sports in RL, as I did when I was younger - btw - who decided that adults have no desire to play sports anywmore?) rather than those “networking meetings,” which have always struck me as forced, at best.

———

*1* I used to actually enjoy UO and Everquest many, many years ago, (back before I got married and had kids) but eventually decided that the gameplay was basically a waste, (camp-spawn-kill-camp) got sick and tired of the PK’ers, (who then forced you to spend another whole week online to recoup the equipment they stole from you, at which point they’d do it again - rinse, wash, repeat - thereby driving you insane, and increasing RL hostility levels, and that’s unacceptable). Anyway, didn’t care about the funds, but the experience so soured me to the product class that it’s hard for me to even think about re-entering, (even though I still am a serious gaming junkie! ).

And while I’m here, a quick word to game studios / publishers as that serious gaming junkie - _please_ start making your games capable of downgrading graphics to enable play on normal laptops, (not those 10 lb+ monsters! ). There’s so much blather about me still being in one of the prime demographics for computer gaming, (i.e. mid-30’s, male, etc., etc), and guess what, when I’m traveling around for business, (which is one of the few times when I have spare time and can’t spend it with my family) there are a lot of times I want to bring a good game with me for the plane, hotel, whatever, and the game studios and publishers don’t seem to be paying attention to the trends in their enabling tech, (a very good lesson in paying attention to things around you):

• I want a laptop that’s fairly small for travel, (certainly no more than the 5 lb range, preferably even smaller) which most likely means integrated graphics
• I have a wife that “reminds me” that I have no need to buy additional personal hardware, as I’ve got the work laptop.
• And even if I did set aside the funds for a personal rig, I have absolutely no desire to be pinned down to one specific location in my house anymore, (so don’t tell me to get an Xbox 360, even if I wasn’t offended by the concept of paying $400-500 for a gimped desktop)

So, if I have to do without super-mod-ultra shading and V-gamma-X textures, who the heck cares? I should be able to load new games on my laptop, with its integrated graphics card, (it does have 128MB VRAM) and be able to play. Let me play, and you’ll get your 5-8 games per year @ $50/unit sold.

You know, it’s this kind of crud that really makes folks hate MS, (and others who engage in such similar tying practices*1*). You’ve got one thing that folks want, which you then use to force them to buy something they don’t want - it’s tying, pure and simple - another anti-trust violation, (where oh where has the lawsuit vs. MS gone?).

Yes, it does goose the per-user numbers in the spreadsheet, (so long as you’re not also modeling adoption rates and/or "probability of switch to competitor" which you just dropped and boosted, respectively, by at least 8-10 full percentage pts each).

Appealing to Bill & Co is a waste of time and effort, but for the rest of us, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - focus on building products that people want and need and they will _happily_ buy from you / be advertised to on your site. Stop wasting time, effort and money on restrictive pricing schemes, endless pointless litigation, etc.

The most disappointing part of this, of course, is that, though I personally hate the idea of one company having the level of power that MS does, and am not exactly what you’d call the greatest Windows supporter, to be fair, it’s a solid product, and there are, indeed, people who are fully happy using - there should be no need for these kind of heavy-handed tactics.

If MS is worried about adoption rates on Vista, then they’ve got to do something real like not requiring _major_ reinvestment in higher-grade hardware to accomplish - geez, there’s an idea! How many of us remember all the additional money that we had to spend, and how many perfectly good PC’s all got shelved when Win95 came out? And if the adoption rates, especially on the corp side were too slow for Bill, et al’s taste, by God, they should have planned it better and built Vista to _work on what we all have now_! Forget this crud about tying Halo 2 - make the balance between cost, (Total Cost - which, for Vista, also does include all the new hardware that we need to buy to get it) and value fit your customers, and things will work out fine. Push down too hard on the cost side to your benefit vs your customers, and the number of people who will consider the balance struck will be all that fewer, and you deserve the results you get.

Anyway, breathe…. relax…. enough about Vista - this was about pathetic pricing tactics, and am sure you’ve more than got the idea by now!

————-

*1* Though MS bears the brunt tenfold-plus, of course, because they’re controlling your OS - Apple, where’s that version of OSX that’ll run with BIOS?! And/or Go Novell - finally make that new Linux Desktop 10 a viable alternative!

This is cool as…. stuff.. (remember, I’m a Dad now, have to watch the language! ). Going to have hop over to Bunchball and see how to insert my own trip down arcade memory lane into my blog, (actually just bought the 20th anniversary version of Dragon’s Lair / Space Ace / Dragon’s Lair 2, so, as you can tell, engaging in one seriously long walk down memory lane - don’t even want to venture how many not just quarters, but whole $10 rolls of them that I blew figuring out Space Ace as a cool dude early teenager back in the mid-80’s - at least until I had to get good at pinball to be one of the true hep cats of the arcade! )

U.S. consumer spending for online entertainment, including on-demand gaming, music, and video services, will grow by 260% in the next five years, according to Digital Lifestyles: 2006 Outlook, a new study from Parks Associates. Driven by broadband usage and innovations in digital entertainment platforms and content services, revenues will grow from $2.4 billion in 2006 to nearly $9 billion in 2010.

* The number of worldwide consumer broadband subscribers will grow from 184 million in 2005 to more than 360 million in 2010;
* The number of households worldwide using data networking equipment will grow from approximately 82 million in 2005 to more than 135 million in 2010; and
* Worldwide subscribers to IP multichannel video services (IPTV) will grow from approximately five million in 2005 to nearly 70 million in 2010.

More.