Labeling consumers in the games market *spawn*

[Deleted member 11852]

I doubt too many people bought an iphone mainly to play Clash of Clans or Candy Crush, but if you buy a dedicated gaming machine, it is ear marked to do a purpose: gaming, that makes them more "core gaming" to me.

I'd wager that many, many people buy iPhones in part because of the plentiful cheap high quality games. Games are the biggest selling category in that multi-billion dollar mobile app ecosystem.

I disagree. You don't need to pigeon-hole people but just clarify different subsets where you can easily have overlap. In general discussion there's a fairly clear difference between 'casual' and 'core' gamers such that the terms are meaningful and helpful.

And I'm sure that if you ask the denizens of B3D they would agree that there is a difference but that would be a variety of individual's idea of what constitutes of casual or core gamer and what where the differences lie.

And doing away with such distinctions means we literally can't talk about aspects of the industry. When Sony or whoever sets about looking at the gaming market, do you count up everyone who plays games and says, "our console is targeting 2 billion people"? Or do they differentiate and say, "our console is targeting 'core gamers'"? PC and console. Core and casual. Mobile and handheld. All qualifiers that are, IMO, fairly meaningful generalisations.

No, Sony and Microsoft wouldn't have to blunder around using ham-fisted nonsensical labels for gamers. Both will have vast volumes of metrics and indicators that tells them how many people buy and/or play what type of games, how many hours they spend gaming and when those hours are. They may also have a good sense of income of those individuals and some of their other habits or preferences by their use of non-gaming ecosystem features.

Most people will agree that core gamer is generally opposite of casual gamer, but what's a casual gamer? Somebody who enjoys casual games, i.e those designed to be played in smaller sessions (The Sims, Animal Crossing) or gamers who play less often than the average gamer?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No, Sony and Microsoft wouldn't have to blunder around using ham-fisted nonsensical labels for gamers. Both will have vast volumes of metrics and indicators that tells them how many people buy and/or play what type of games, how many hours they spend gaming and when those hours are. They may also have a good sense of income of those individuals and some of their other habits or preferences by their use of non-gaming ecosystem features.

Of course. But how do they talk about them in their meetings if they have no means to differentiate between consumer types?

Most people will agree that core gamer is generally opposite of casual gamer, but what's a casual gamer? Somebody who enjoys casual games, i.e those designed to be played in smaller sessions (The Sims, Animal Crossing) or gamers who play less often than the average gamer?

Which is where better labels are useful. Sporadic gamers versus time-invested gamers, perhaps. And complex gamers versus touch-gamers, maybe. What's to be gained by getting rid of every label and grouping absolutely everyone under the term 'gamer' such that we can't differentiate in conversation?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Of course. But how do they talk about them in their meetings if they have no means to differentiate between consumer types?

They likely have terms for the metrics they have available: high value customer, low turnover customer, high usage customer. They don't need anything so crude as core and casual. I'm not sure that Sony even give a toss about core vs. casual, their library has always been pleasingly eclectic.

Which is where better labels are useful. Sporadic gamers versus time-invested gamers, perhaps. And complex gamers versus touch-gamers, maybe. What's to be gained by getting rid of every label and grouping absolutely everyone under the term 'gamer' such that we can't differentiate in conversation?

Except you'll never consensus and the threads become arguments what is X, what is Y and what is Z. Frankly, I couldn't define myself as a gamer, how is somebody else supposed too?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Except you'll never consensus and the threads become arguments what is X, what is Y and what is Z. Frankly, I couldn't define myself as a gamer, how is somebody else supposed too?

Seems to me everyone was happy using the terms except you.

Here's another distinction and required definition. I just demo'd a new build of my game and it didn't go down well. The players aren't interested in learning and make lots of assumptions about how it should play. So I'm sat here thinking how to adapt to that, and I realise that back in my day we just didn't do that. We picked up games and understood them without needing to be told everything. So I think there's a distinction between those who inherently 'get' games and can interpret and adapt, and those who don't 'get' games who need them to be very simple and intuitive. That's typically what we'd expect of 'core' and 'casual' gamers (though those terms may not be ideal). Whatever we call it, talking about those different types of players with different types of games requires a name to differentiate them, no? Otherwise how else do I or you talk about different design target based on audience?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Seems to me everyone was happy using the terms except you.

Or more likely people are just using the term as it has meaning to them.

Here's another distinction and required definition. I just demo'd a new build of my game and it didn't go down well. The players aren't interested in learning and make lots of assumptions about how it should play. So I'm sat here thinking how to adapt to that, and I realise that back in my day we just didn't do that.

Perhaps the distinction is that some people have played games which had similar controls/mechanics and some have not? Most people can't intuit a mechanic they've never used before and in the mobile space, I think they are less likely to persevere. There was a recent interesting thread on Reddit on the topic of how people solved point and click adventures before the internet. Games like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, Day of The Tentacle and so on had some sublimely obscure puzzles but working it out was half of the fun - at least for me.

But in a market where tutorials are the norm, games where you are just thrown to the wolves with no explanation about controls and mechanics may be perceived not as intentionally challenging but as badly designed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Perhaps the distinction is that some people have played games which had similar controls/mechanics and some have not? Most people can't intuit a mechanic they've never used before and in the mobile space, I think they are less likely to persevere.

Whatever the cause, there's a distinction in behaviours that benefits from a name so we can talk about it.

But in a market where tutorials are the norm, games where you are just thrown to the wolves with no explanation about controls and mechanics may be perceived not as intentionally challenging but as badly designed.

I agree. That's why I spent a long time crafting a tutorial (three drafts) and giving instruction, much like games like Dungeon Siege 3. Yet having explained they have to fight only the type of monster that their class is good for, the continued to walk headlong into monsters because that's their assumption. And I think there's a mindset (perhaps learnt) that denotes a different type of gamer with different design goals/requirements. Which is something I want to name to be able to talk about them.

'Casual' suits quite naturally IMO. They want to pick up a game and play with zero learning curve because they aren't able to intuit the basic gameplay mechanics that a 'core gamer' would be able to pick up on. Similar to designing a game for twin-stick control or a touch screen. Plenty of 'casual' gamers who can tap crystals in Bejewelled can't control a twin-stick arrangement that a 'core' gamer would be quite comfortable with. They also don't have the interest in acquiring the skills, which differentiates notably from the core gamer who'll persevere more. eg myself, getting used to twin stick shooting in FPSes was a bit of work, but not insurmountable and not frustrating enough that I'd give up. A 'casual' game would have a go, find it annoying, and stop in order to play something simpler and easier.

Going back to what started all this, talking about what devices are a suitable alternative and where gaming competition is coming from, if console gaming requires skills that mobile gaming doesn't, and a contingent of gamers happy to play touch but uncomfortable to persevere with dual-stick, 12 button controls, then those gamers won't be giving up consoles for mobile. The analogy was photography, where the market for full-feature cameras used to be everyone who wanted to take photographs because there was no other option. Cameraphones introduced the option for highly automated snapshots and in doing so, served those with a simpler interest in acquiring pictures than whose who want to practice photography as a an art/hobby. Thus cameraphones cannablised the 'casual' photography market leaving only the 'core' photography market to buy dedicated cameras. Are those names misleading or unintuitive?

 

[function]

Folks on both the production and consumption side of the games industry generalise about consumers to a degree, as it makes the bewildering process of assessing markets more manageable even if at the individual level things quickly break down.

There's probably some analogy about complex simulations where overall trends can be discerned but exact prediction at an individual level isn't possible. I read about that kind of thing once. Probably. I think.

"Casual" is interesting because it seems black and white, but when you drill down into what it means it can quickly be seen to apply to one or more things. For example: difficulty of learning to play; difficulty of accessing the product (not many arcade gamers left these days); the need to schedule time around the game vs taking the game with you for convenient moments; the determination to track down games that are rewarding when there are none that readily present themselves. I've seen the most casual of phone gamers get sucked into a game they enjoy for hours (but only hours, as their battery dies after a few) and l337 as f00k PC gamers that can barely maintain their overclock after a few rounds of losing.

This is not to say there aren't useful generalisations that are made - there certainly are. But when you look into many of these generalisations on the individual level they become assumptions rather than predictions.

For myself, I can see that I'm both stupidly hardcore at times and in ways, while also being decidedly casual in my approach other times and in other ways. And the older I get the more my casual side seems to assert itself when I'm not having fun.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

"Casual" is interesting because it seems black and white, but when you drill down into what it means it can quickly be seen to apply to one or more things. For example: difficulty of learning to play; difficulty of accessing the product (not many arcade gamers left these days); the need to schedule time around the game vs taking the game with you for convenient moments; the determination to track down games that are rewarding when there are none that readily present themselves.

Then there is Clash if Clans which is recognised as a casual game and while being easy to play and control it is difficult to master. It's requires careful planning and experience to build a base that'll hold up to attack and pick an attack force to conquer somebody else's base.

 

[bunge]

The Language Trap
Use a word in different ways, but logically treat it as the same concept:

https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html#language_trap

 

[mrcorbo]

Here's my stab at an analogy that informs what is, in my mind, the distinction between "casual" and what I would call "dedicated" gamers.

Imagine you have a city next to a major thoroughfare that is a common commuter route to a larger city further down the road. The city itself, though, is a major tourist destination. In this analogy, casual gamers are commuters and dedicated gamers are vacationing tourists.

The commuter may stop in that same city every work day for years and spend a few dollars on a grab and go breakfast and maybe occasionally buy some gas. They're not there to visit the city specifically. They're there because it's convenient, being on the way to where they are going, and presents some nice diversions before they have to get back to their main task.

The vacationing tourist, on the other hand, is coming to the city as their main task. They're there to see everything there is to see and have an experience based on being in that city. They're only going to be there for a short time, but in that time they will spend, relatively, a lot of money so you are going to want to give them as much to do and see as possible so they will stay longer. Eventually, though, they will be gone and for their next vacation they will probably go to some other city.

 

[mrcorbo]

Then there is Clash if Clans which is recognised as a casual game and while being easy to play and control it is difficult to master. It's requires careful planning and experience to build a base that'll hold up to attack and pick an attack force to conquer somebody else's base.

Per my analogy above one could see Clash of Clans as a golf course in the city with an attached driving range. Mr. Casual and a work buddy start stopping off on the way home to hit a few balls at the driving range. This leads to them making plans one weekend to play a round on the golf course and this, eventually, also turns into a regular thing. This, though, doesn't make that golf course into a world-class venue that people who are serious about golf will travel to specifically to play on.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

As for the chart. It does seem a bit counter intuitive to me that the major publishers are seeing their profits go up while the market is in "downward spiral"

The chart is about publisher profitability. If you take a look at it again it coincides quite well with mobile gaming taking off and then being amplified with digital sales (edit: to clarify this includes the rise of DLC) starting to accelerate with the introduction of the PS4/XBO (edit: to clarify PS4/XBO accelerated full game digital sales).

Prior to the and for a bit after the PS3/X360 came out, publisher sales were almost entirely console + PC. It also represented a low point in PC sales (hence low impact of greater profitability from digital sales) as well PC had a much large physical copy presence at the time. You can quite easily see the downward trend of physical game sales profitability leading up to that point. Not necessarily game sales volume, but game sales profitability. During that period not only did digital sales greatly accelerate on PC, but publishers started investing far more heavily into mobile. Sales and profitability were also impacted to a degree by the Wii, as there is a bubble that coincides with success and then fall of the Wii. Yes, 3rd parties weren't as successful as Nintendo at moving software on the Wii, but some (especially UBIsoft) had some really good selling titles on the Wii.

The chart says absolutely zero about console hardware sales (or install base) and doesn't say much about console software sales. Not unexpected as it's a chart of profitability and not sales. While linked, there is no direct correlation between sales and profitability.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And what is a core gamer? There are people who pour hundreds to thousands of hours into games like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans, dwarfing times people put into COD and Destiny. By those standards, most console gamers are casuals.

It's a denotation that divides based on the types of games played, not on how many hours one has played or how many players a genre has. It's long been known that a casual audience of something is always going to be far larger than a core audience of something. And it isn't uncommon for a casual audience of something to consume far more of something than a core audience of something.

In general a casual game would be one that is considered extremely easy to pick up and generally, but not always, shallow with a low skill ceiling. Something like the match 3 genre (largest single gaming genre in existence), for instance, fits that to a T. While some people are significantly better than others, the skill divide between the two is small.

Casual and core can also be defined by skill and level of investment. Hence you can have a casual game of basketball or a more "core" experience of professional basketball. Replace basketball with your choice of sport that is easily picked up by casual players.

Anyway, while I suppose I could easily go on for a few pages about "Core" (in some markets you could also use the labels "niche", "professional", or other words) vs casual, as it pertains to games, it's more about the game genres as well as how easy it is for one to pick up and put down combined in many cases with how high a skill ceiling there is and how steep a learning curve there may be.

The lines between core and casual can at times be easily blurred. Clash of Clans, for instance while a casual game, falls closer to core games than the vast majority of casual titles. It's easy to play, it's easy to put down, but there is a deceptively high skill ceiling.

But in most cases one can easily identify a core versus a casual game. Wii bowling is quite obviously a casual game. It's easy to pick up, easy to put down, shallow, and with a low skill ceiling. COD on the other hand is difficult to pick up if you aren't already indoctrinated in FPS controls and gameplay, it isn't easy to put down (gameplay emphasizes longer play sessions), it has a steep learning curve as well as a high skill ceiling.

In that case it's easy to divide people into 2 respective pools, although there may be overlap in people that like to play both Wii bowling as well as COD. But it's easy to differentiate the market that each applies to.

Here's what I don't like about the whole thing. Derision that many people feel towards people that predominantly play casual games. At the heart of things a gamer is still a gamer. A person plays what they find enjoyment out of and in some cases find accomplishment out of. Not all people find the same enjoyment from any given experience.

From a business standpoint or even in some cases just a discussion standpoint, it can be useful to talk about users of a "core" gaming experience and users of a "casual" gaming experience. What isn't helpful is when discussion starts to imply that one is inferior to the other.

And most importantly of all, while there is a difference in gaming experience, it has to be accepted that there are users that enjoy both a "core" and "casual" gaming experience. Heck, I'd be flabbergasted if a significantly large portion of Beyond3D users didn't enjoy both "core" and "casual" games.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Here's what I don't like about the whole thing. Derision that many people feel towards people that predominantly play casual games. At the heart of things a gamer is still a gamer.

The derision stems from the way these gamers 'support' their hobby. There are those that want free games and won't pay a penny, and others who spend countless amounts of cash on in-game 'consumables' which is completely laughable to core gamers who know about buying a game properly and getting the whole thing without being nickle-and-dimed. We end up with a bizarre maketplace unlike any other, and incredulity shown towards those who made and support it, I guess.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The derision stems from the way these gamers 'support' their hobby. There are those that want free games and won't pay a penny, and others who spend countless amounts of cash on in-game 'consumables' which is completely laughable to core gamers who know about buying a game properly and getting the whole thing without being nickle-and-dimed. We end up with a bizarre maketplace unlike any other, and incredulity shown towards those who made and support it, I guess.

Yeah, I don't get that either. Pay once games means that everyone pays the same money for the same game. It's a rather limiting model that not only limits how much or how little one can pay for a game but also limits what the developer can do with a game.

Traditional pay to play MMO's take that model and expand on it with monthly fees. A user can still limit themselves to the original purchase and a month of gameplay or spend more for an expanded experience. It also allows the developers to potentially greatly expand on what they could have done with a fixed single price game model.

F2P games changes things in both directions. You can spend as much or as little as you wish. Someone with little to no money can easily jump in the depending on the F2P financing model either get most of the core experience (typical MMO F2P experience, for example) or all of the core experience (Path of Exile or Warframe, for example). Someone with more money than time can also enjoy the game since they can spend money to cut out some of the timesink. Something that cannot be done with your traditional pay once type of game.

It also potentially allows the developer to greatly expand a game far beyond what a pay once model can do if the game is successful. Although not all developers take advantage of that, some do. Warframe, for example, has a mind bogglingly large amount of content in it. All of which is 100% accessible for absolutely no money. But for people with extremely limited time for games, they can spend money to experience what other people with more time can experience. I'm one of those rare people that feel that if I derive any enjoyment out of a game, it behooves me to reward the developer in some way. So, while I have spent hundreds of USD in a game like Warframe, I have maybe spent about 5-10 USD of that on in game cosmetics, and gotten everything else through actually playing the game, since I enjoy the gameplay. I could easily have done it all for 0 USD (I'd have skipped the cosmetics), but the developers deserve to make money for making such a fantastic game and supporting it so well.

I know many people who do not have the time to play traditional pay once games fully to their end. And those people are extremely grateful that there are games they can play where they can just spend more money to shorten the game experience such that they can experience all of most of a game fully.

So I don't really get that argument either. I just find it extremely childish that some people feel and express derision for other people purely based on what type of game they like to play (whether casual or core) as well as how much they spend on the game (whether time or money). And that makes meaningful discussion of the concept of "core" or "casual" game experiences and the people who partake of one or the other, difficult to have.

Regards,
SB

 

[baten]

It reminds me of my favourite definition for what a smoker is: "A smoker is that person who buys his cigarettes"
My take is that it also applies to core gamers - people who pay for their gaming habit.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The chart says absolutely zero about console hardware sales (or install base) and doesn't say much about console software sales. Not unexpected as it's a chart of profitability and not sales. While linked, there is no direct correlation between sales and profitability.

The business of those publishers comes mainly from the consoles/PC, the platforms some of us call core gaming. They do have mobile games also and perhaps in the future their mobile side grows more, but today they are still small minority and thus that chart shows that the core market is healthy enough to provide profits (on the rise) to many large publishers, not just the platform holders.

While it doesn't tell directly hardware unit sales, it says they are at a level where such profits are possible, If only the core is left, it clearly is enough for this market to do well.

 

[tuna]

I know many people who do not have the time to play traditional pay once games fully to their end. And those people are extremely grateful that there are games they can play where they can just spend more money to shorten the game experience such that they can experience all of most of a game fully.

If you want to pay to "shorten the game experience" then it is a crap game. If you do not have fun playing the game then it is not worth playing.

 

[milk]

If you want to pay to "shorten the game experience" then it is a crap game. If you do not have fun playing the game then it is not worth playing.

I pictured a guy going to a F2B prostitute, where the standard affair is free, but premium users can pay to come sooner.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If you want to pay to "shorten the game experience" then it is a crap game. If you do not have fun playing the game then it is not worth playing.

And that's the whole point fun is all in the eye of the beholder.

For them, it's either that or just don't play games period. They value other things far more than games (family, outdoor activities, home renovation, car renovation, tinkering, model building, sewing, crocheting, fishing, hunting, sports, tabletop gaming, the list goes on and on), but do enjoy gaming when they get a chance, even if it's abbreviated compared to what "core" gamers think is fun.

IMO, it's both elitist and snobbish to think that the games X demographic prefers are the only games worth playing. And that the pay model that X demographic prefers is better than another other pay model. And it's downright offensive when X demographic looks down on another demographic just because they get their enjoyment from something they themselves don't find enjoyable. And that extends to the games that another demographic decides provides them the best enjoyment possible within the budget (time or money) they can afford.

Core gamers are quite obviously in the minority here when it comes to determining what is the most fun way to spend ones time, but they are also the least capable of accepting that other people do NOT find their "core" games to be fun experiences for the time invested.

Regards,
SB