what is your opinion on market segmentation?

[foxmarta]

The major question for any company is the question of segmentation of consumers.

I'd like to get your opinion on ways and methods of segmentation of consumers applying by a small indie firms in practice.

I may be wrong but I have a feeling that market segmentation is not in favour in the *indie world*.:)

[Nikos Beck]

Yes and no. The game market has opened up to say, middle-aged women, whereas consoles are aimed at mid-twenties men. This has dropped the barrier to entry for indies. Middle-aged women aren't as willing to pay $80 for a game with killer graphics and physics, opting for a $20 game with entertaining gameplay.

But, markets solidify and they're starting to solidify with the likes of Yahoo, (I forget what it's called but the subscription service owned by Turner) and other subscription services. Publishers still have the money and they're trying to corral the market into their pockets. Many indies are making deals with publishers to get into subscription services as well as indie-friendly portals as well as indie-unfriendly portals as well as going on their own.

[foxmarta]

Yes and no. The game market has opened up to say, middle-aged women, whereas consoles are aimed at mid-twenties men. This has dropped the barrier to entry for indies. Middle-aged women aren't as willing to pay $80 for a game with killer graphics and physics, opting for a $20 game with entertaining gameplay.

But, markets solidify and they're starting to solidify with the likes of Yahoo, (I forget what it's called but the subscription service owned by Turner) and other subscription services. Publishers still have the money and they're trying to corral the market into their pockets. Many indies are making deals with publishers to get into subscription services as well as indie-friendly portals as well as indie-unfriendly portals as well as going on their own.

Of course publishers have a market power. They own a very good distribution channels that doesn't available for the most indie companies.

I can't say exactly that console game developing companies focused only at mid-twenties men. This is not a true. The share of women interested in games is increasing at the all market segments (I mean consoles, PCs, mobile platforms and MMOG).

Market segmentation is the process in marketing of dividing a market into distinct subsets (segments) that behave in the same way or have similar needs.

What you were talking here about is mostly demographical segmentation when people are divided according their demographical variables:
* age
* gender Male and Female
* sexual orientation
* family size
* family life cycle
* Education Primary, High School, Secondary, College, Universities.
* income
* occupation
* education
* etc.

I know that most of indie game developers continue to divide thair possible customers to *casual* and *hardcore* gamers.

I also know that there was some attempts to divide games into
*super casual*,
*casual*,
*hardcore*
and *extreme hardcore*
(of course I'm interpreting it simplistically).

I'd like to know does segmentation make any sense for indies?
Is there anyone who don't use casual/hardcore way of making segments?