So who exactly IS buying your games anyway?

[svero]

What do people believe is the demographic for most internet game purchasers?

Obviously it will vary greatly if your game is a strategy title of the napoleonic wars vs say Super collapse, but if we had to say who the average online indie purchaser is how would it break down?

[Sunshine]

I don't know this for a fact, but I have always heard that the Indie Game market was fuled by the so called 'Hard-Core' gamers.

They goto the shelf , find every title that interests them, then go online looking for more games.

I read that in a magazine so take it with a grain of salt :D

[Mike Boeh]

Guess again, Sunshine!

[Sunshine]

Uhhh...is it .....

Other Indies? Trying to spy on the competition? ;)

[Coyote]

They are all being bought by members of a religious "Cult of Pong" that is headquartered in Nebraska. The members are searching for "The One True Paddle," or so they claim. The paddle may take many forms, but most of the long-term members state vehemently that it will not be found in a first-person shooter (unless it includes a third-person view, according to some moderates). Nor will it be found in an RTS or similar product where "the questers consciousness and being is not focused into a single digital entity."

Weird stuff. But they have money.

[Jack Norton]

Svero that was an easy question ;)
The answer: women between 30-40 years old :D

...but apparently there are lot of old men boxing fans around too ;)

[lakibuk]

I second the experience that there is a high number of women (> 50% for sure). I have the impression that some of the customers are buying for their kids,too. Not sure about this.

[Mark Fassett]

Well - I think my game is being bought by people that are relatively well off. I say that because the only version that is selling is the mac version.

[Greg Squire]

Well - I think my game is being bought by people that are relatively well off. I say that because the only version that is selling is the mac version.

Could this be because there aren't as many games being made for the Mac? (Less sharks in the water) Even the big boys seem to ignore this platform a lot.

[Nemesis]

I say it's gamers between 20 - 40 that are tired of the same genres done to death by the big boys, or women that can't be bothered weilding a sniper rifle or BFG...

[Scorpio]

Here's some links to articles talking about how large the older-female demographic is (this is HipSoft's core audience and they do seem to buy a lot of games)

Online game sites find their lucrative market among middle-aged
“Baby boomers are emerging as the group most willing to spend time and money on Internet games, paying $15 to $20 a pop to purchase a downloadable title”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001804384_gaming01.html

Net games lure 'bored housewives
“Casual online gaming attracts around five times the volume of players involved in hardcore gaming.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3791983.stm

Women over 40 biggest online gamers
“U.S. women over the age of 40 spend nearly 50 percent more time each week playing online games than men and are more likely to play online games daily than men or teens.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4235270/

As far as we can tell, this market is still growing rapidly. :)
-Scorpio

[Valen]

For Brickster I think the audience is both men and women in the 20-45 age group (though as you get to younger ages it'll probably be mostly women), and maybe their kids. The game was mainly made to "test the waters" of shareware though, and from now on I'm planning on going in a totally different direction. My new target audience will be primarily men ages 20-35.

[Mark Fassett]

Could this be because there aren't as many games being made for the Mac? (Less sharks in the water) Even the big boys seem to ignore this platform a lot.

It sure seems to help. There aren't very many sites to find games on, so everybody that's looking for games finds it, or at least has a chance. Getting noticed seems to be much easier.

[svero]

Has anyone here actually surveyed their customers or done some kind of study regarding the audience they have? Like Scorpio, you say your audience is the older female demographic, but I'm curious... how do you actually know that? Is that just somehting you assume or can you tell by your registration process or some other means?

I guess I could always try to run a survey of my mailing list but that would just tell me who's buying the games I made in the past, and not necessarily who's buying the most games in general. Still I should do it. It's long overdue. It would be interesting to have the stats of realarcade's audience vs the audience one gets from random shareware sites vs. who buys on shockwave.com and see if they vary significantly.

[Matthew]

RealArcade has this info, quoted from http://gamedevs.realarcade.com/GameSubmission/RealArcade_factsheet.pdf:



RealArcade and GameHouse.com are focused on a broad market segment consisting of both male and female game players of all ages. More than 55% of RealArcade customers are female, more than 60% are over 40 and more than 50% are on a broadband connection. GameHouse.com customers are 70% female, and more than 60% are over 40.

[Chris Evans]

A few months ago, I was surprised to find out that very few game shareware developers (even experienced ones) know who actually buys their games. Reason I say "game" shareware developers because most "utility" shareware developers tend to have a much better idea who their target market/audience is.

Quite a few Independent developers have feedback surveys such as, "Did you like this game?" or "What do you think will make this game better?" But none that I'm aware, actually collect demographic information such as Age, Gender, and genre preference.

RealArcade's data is not going to be of much use to me because I know 40 year old women are probably not going to be my primary customers... Because of this, I decided to setup a optional post-purchase survey that has a few basic demographic questions. It'll collect the age range, and gender of who the game is intended for and ask their genre preference.

The only thing I'm stuck on is how to determine if someone is a hardcore or casual gamer, or somewhere in the middle. I don't want a long elaborate survey just 3-4 questions at the most. Anybody know a pointed question where you could extract whether someone is a hardcore or casual gamer?

"How many games you bought this year?"
"What's the most you've spent on a game?"
"Have you heard of Doom 3?" ;)

I don't know...any ideas?

[Scorpio]

Like Scorpio, you say your audience is the older female demographic, but I'm curious... how do you actually know that?
Of course, we'll never know exactly for sure...but here's some of the input we've used to reach this conclusion:

1) Looking at the names on the order emails (granted, could just be the name on the spouses credit card--but that can go both ways). We see a lot of names that are "grandma" type names (i.e., names that are not "in style" when choosing baby names today (I just had baby #2 on Wednesday, so I'm caught up on the hot baby names :)

2) Support emails are mostly from women (granted, maybe the older women who are less technical have more trouble with reg-codes...but Flip Words has been out long enough now that we get a lot of "I just bought a new computer and need to re-install the game" emails). After we help them, we often get a little story that gives clues that they're a grandma, or they're older with health condition...sometimes their email is "grandmatokevin@aol.com" and stuff like that--sometimes they just say "I'm 62 and I love playing these games at night when I can't sleep".

3) We don't get a ton of support phone calls, but 80% are from women usually older.

4) Talking with our partners...they have the same stories we do.

Basically, we communicate a lot with our customers...via support emails, beta tests, surveys and our newsletter. Maybe it's just the older female demographic that tends to communicate back with us more (one lady wants to be an honorary grandma to my newly born son, for example).

To further clarify, our core market really seems to be everybody except hardcore gamers. It's seems to be a majority of females (maybe 60/40, not necessarily 90/10) and probably 35+ (and by "plus" I mean all the way up to 90 (that we know of...although the 90 year-old was actually a male))
-Scorpio

[Andy]

...I just had baby #2 on Wednesday...
-Scorpio

Another little Scorpio? :) - Congrats!!! :D


> Maybe it's just the older female demographic that TENDS TO COMMUNICATE back with us

Basicaly I strongly believe so. That's why I suppose that this is just a myth the "every" 30-40 woman plays and buys online games...

[Diodor Bitan]

All I know is 95% of my customers (Risk-like strategy game == a bunch of numbers on the screen) are male.

What would interesting you as questions for a demographics survey?

How often do they play other games? What their favorite games/genres are? Do they usually buy on the net or in retail? What are their favorite 20 years old classical games? Occupation?

[terin]

You could ask demographic questions to whomever purchases your game as an optional thing. It may take many months to collect enough information that is statistically significant.

Here are a few concerns you may have about the survey results that can cause error:

1) Self Selection: Sample surveys always have the risk that the users will self-select to take the survey. This means that certain people may simply be more prone to filling out demographic questions. This can cause severe bias in some cases, but I don't think it will be a big deal in this case.

2) Loaded Questions: Make sure that you aren't asking any loaded questions or pre-bias questions. These don't apply to demographics but do apply to any questions like "What do you think about the game?" Since we're only talking about demographics this isn't a big deal either

3) Open Ended Questions: Avoid them at all costs. Dont have them type their age. Have set options for them to pick... it will just make your life easier.

4) Ranged questions: When at all possible, don't ask specific demographic questions. For instance: Age 21-24 is better than just asking them to pick their age. Psychologists have done a lot of studies on this one and people are far less likely to fill out a survey that asks specific questions about age, weight, and similar things. They are far more likely to answer when they can give a range that they fall into... stupid I know, but there you have it. Obviously sex and race are not capable of this, so use them only if you really think they are going to be important (Sex probably is... race may be.)

Thats about all I can think of right now that would threaten validity of any tests anyone wants to run.

Good luck :-)

[terin]

The demographic information of buyers IS important, it tells you a LOT about the people you can target as your group to sell to.

Perhaps more important is that it is a gateway to telling you much more: If you can compare those results with the results of a "who is downloading the game" survey you may learn that the people most often downloading the game are not the same as those who buy it. This may cause you to rethink your selling methods and try to target the group that is downloading more often.

Just one of many examples knowing your market can lead to.

[super_e]

If you want to do a survey from your customer base, another option is to give them incentives like 50% off from one of your products or probably a FREE copy of any of your products in exchange for the information that you're asking. I've had experience with this (on handheld software) and it has worked for me in gathering customer data.

[Chris Evans]

4) Ranged questions:


Yeah definitely. I was planning to have a drop down list where the user could select their age range, 14--17, 18 - 21, and etc. I know I'm personally less likely to put my exact age on a form, but if it asks for a range I usually don't think twice about it. As you said, it's a strange psychological thing. I guess when you're asked to give an exact age, it feels you're divulging private information. But giving an age range feels less invasive.


Also, keep your survey short and sweet. The longer it is, the less likely they will finish it.