Who are casual gamers?

Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Who are casual gamers?

Grey Alien
 #1
Hi, I just wrote an article on http://www.binaryjoy.co.uk about a Popcap survey of casual gamers. The stats are pretty interesting if you didn't know them, and even if you had some idea already it's nice to have some hard figures back up what you've heard.

Check it out:

http://www.binaryjoy.co.uk/games/features/who-are-casual-gamers/

sonicfactory
 #2
Some interesting survey questions they've asked, and some more interesting results.

I could have guessed at the age stats, but the female % is certainly interesting. I'm guessing it's the psychological style of these games that draws a certain demographic in. Most puzzle games are about clearing, which is a logical 'cleaning' process. I hate most match-3 and puzzle games, but others such as tetris I really enjoy, to the point of just buying a GBA and an old copy of tetris to play it. I have no idea why.

Try playing tetris for half an hour, then cleaning your room :)

Grey Alien
 #3
Yeah Tetris is about "clearing". A friend of mine's mum is well into my match-3 games, she says it's about "tidying up" so feels the same way. I like them too, I'm into completing things so games where I tidy up and complete things (levels) make me feel good. Think about tidying up "aliens" on a shooting game until none are left and you picked up all the treasure/power ups etc.

sonicfactory
 #4
Wait - so games like Doom 3 are simply glorified, violent versions of Match 3 games!

SculptureOfSoul
 #5
While I don't doubt that the female % is fairly accurate, I'm less inclined to believe the stat that said 89% are 30 or older. While I know this isn't really representative, I knew a lot of girls in college that were into the occasional bursts of casual games. I definitely think that the survey is self selecting in this regard, as few college aged people have the time or patience to fill out a survey.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. It doesn't do me a lot of good yet - my game is definitely not aimed at the casual market - but my next one might be. ;)

Neuro
 #6
Well the fact that my mom and all her old friends (well late 40s-50s) are all casual gammer freaks is enough to convince me that most of them are female and older...

Grey Alien
 #7
Wait - so games like Doom 3 are simply glorified, violent versions of Match 3 games!
Well yeah! In the tidying up sense, but not in the skill/violence/scariness sense.

Perhaps the college girls into games are still just 11% as there is a huge number of older women out there buying games? You are no doubt right about college aged people not wanting to fill out surveys though (probably).

FlameDuck
 #8
The stats are pretty interesting if you didn't know them
Actually they're not really that interesting, because casual gamers is a useless label for several different market segments. In the imortal words of Geoffrey A. Moore.

Of course, talking this way about marketing merely throws the burden of definition onto market, which we will define, for the purpose of high-tech, as

* a set of actual or potential customers
* for a given set of products or services
* who have a common set of needs or wants, and
* who reference each other when making a buying descision.

People intuitively understand every part of this definition, except the last.

Also the notion that the majority of popcap sales go to casual gamers is absurd. Until they where linked on (and later advertised on) Penny Arcade, a hard core gamer site by anyones definition, nobody had even heard of popcap games.