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Customer expectation
Customer expectation
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You might be surprised to see 'Market & Audience' so early in this book, after all, isn't that where the game ends up last? But that is exactly why you need to be thinking about it now. This is especially true if you wish to sell your game. Knowing what market you're after will give you an advantage when deciding which features to cut or add later on. Just remember to keep yourself satisfied with it too; you can't make a great game if you don't like it.
In the illustration you can see a magician performing a trick before an amazed audience. Yet off in the distance there's someone who isn't feeling amazed. They may even be puzzled by the others' reaction. You see, magic tricks (at least the garden variety sort) are targeting a young age. When you get older you aren't impressed by a little rabbit being dropped out of a cage or the popcorn being 'magically' popped. To reach an older audience the magician must perform tricks that interest older people; in doing so they may lose their younger audience. Sawing a volunteer in two is an impressive feat; it can entertain mature audiences but a kid in that place would probably freak out. By studying your target audience you go from randomly choosing between rabbits and saws in your design to knowing exactly why you should choose one over the other.
Traditionally businesses tend to think about customer age, gender, income, and neighborhood/culture. These are bases you need to cover with some research; they're always changing. You should choose a specific group such as 12-20 year old males, then you can branch out and attempt to gain other audiences without alienating your main fan base.
But wait, there's more! As a game developer you have to look at two more groups: the casual...
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...t mean you can't enjoy or make hardcore games (or vice versa). Keep in mind that the reason for this is simply to make informed decisions in the future that will reach out to one of the groups consistently with your RPG.
Now that we've discussed the market we need to take a look at why these people are playing RPGs. The main one is easy, role-playing games are built around character development, so it makes sense that role development is a big reason to role-play. I'll talk about that in depth in the two chapters named for it later; for now we should look at the other reasons for people to play role-playing games. Basically, there are six of them, which can be broken down into more: problem solving, treasure hunting, story, showing off, exploring, and destruction.
Problem solving is a common element in games; in fact, it's arguably what makes a game.
In 2012, software and hardware sales in the video games industry raked up more than over $65 billion dollars in revenue in comparison to just $10 billion dollars seven years prior. These statistics indicate that the gaming industry is not only one of the largest and fastest growing businesses in the world, but showcase that it is also outperforming other similarly popular mediums of entertainment such as film, books, and music in terms of revenue and annual growth. In the short fifty years that video games have been around, they’ve quickly become an integral part of the lives of many and are only continuing to increasing in popularity. I’m sure that everyone can attest to knowing at least one or two people who engage in regular video game playing activity. However, despite being a common leisurely activity and hobby for many in today’s society, there is still a shocking level of stigma surrounding the medium. There are various stereotypes in place which attribute to the stigma - from the gaming community mainly consisting of young adolescent boys to gamers being socially inept individuals; these ideas and the way video games are unfairly scrutinized and misrepresented in the media (by those who
The primary target market for satellite radio should consist of adults ages 25-50. These are customers that make most money and will be willing to pay extra for the quality entertainment service. This target market can also be divided into the smaller segments. The key segments are:
Video games have now become a social event and people are starting to play in groups and pairs. Henry Jenkins stated that “sixty percent of frequent gamers play with friends, thirty five percent play with siblings, and twenty five percent play with spouses and parents “(Jenkins, 451). Video games have become a middle ground for people to come together and enjoy each others company. In our society today, video games have brought people together through the internet. Gaming community has developed on chat sites, YouTube, and even Facebook.
The competition amongst the key players of video game industry in the mid-1990s to the early-2000s is noteworthy, considering the fact that technological endeavors were deeply intertwined with competitiveness. Some of the key players of the video game industry namely, Sony and Microsoft had developed and released their exclusive video game consoles, the PS and the Xbox, respectively.
Demographics play a large role in aiding businesses with the adequate information to convince the viewers. The main demographics include gender, age, culture, race, and location. These are just a few of the many areas that help researchers study human behaviors. The research provided by these studies can be very specific to a certain community, age group, or ethnicity. This benefits marketers in their approach to presenting products to the right viewers (Sessom).
Every company and/or organization starts and operates to achieve a single major goal, which is normally included in the company’s mission statement. Setting a goal, however, does not translate into success on its own; it is only the fist step. Understanding market segmentation is the second most important aspect of doing business. “Sellers and advertisers want to be able to determine what the potential market is for their product or service, as well as the best ways to reach potential consumers” (Terrell, 2013). Once a goal is set, an organization first must decide if it wants to operate locally, regionally, nationally, and/or internationally, as the size of the geographic coverage has a large influence on demographic coverage. It is crucial for a business to understand what it is meant by demographic coverage; it is to understand people’s age, gender, culture, social norms and beliefs, and income in a given geographical size (Grewal & Levy, 2010). Let’s take a high class and luxury bar as an example to explain the importance of these key factors. If the bar is located in an area where the average age is 60, it will be safe to assume that the business will have difficulties finding many customers. Similarly, the business will not be able to survive if it is located in an area that has a lot of Mormon or Muslim residents as drinking alcoholic beverages is prohibited by these religious practices. On the other hand, if the said bar is located in an area such as San Francisco where the average age is around 38 years old, the median income is ~$70,000, and the culture is a melting pot of many races with many beliefs and behaviors, it will most likely thrive to its full potential (city-data.com, 201...
Video games have come a long way. They have evolved from the simple game of Pong into a complex, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-billion dollar industry.
The video gaming industry has come a long way from the first home based gaming system since the Magnavox Odyssey. Through the decades, the video game industry has rapidly improved the technology to home gaming, and made arcades nonexistence. The major video gaming titans of today are Nintendo, Microsoft Xbox, and Sony Playstation. These three have been in war with each other the past ten years, and neither show signs of defeat. However the two leading competitors of high sales in the gaming industry are Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation. Both developers have been head to head on technological advancements and consumer marketing. Sony uses their advanced design of game console and their secrecy of their project to entice consumers. Microsoft however tries to direct their marketing strategy towards consumers themselves. With different marketing planning, both companies still show success. Sony and Microsoft’s entire production unit were sold out when they were released at their release date.
The pace of the industry, where customer demands of a wider range of games is increasing and the threat of Sony’s leadership by a company like Nintendo, will definitively be interesting to follow as new technological features are unveiled to enhance customer experience. These features are the key to success within this sector.
Choose a product and niche with a small but sufficient market size. Avoid niches that are too small with low keyword searches. For example, a product that caters to pregnant females between 25-40 years old is probably good. But a product that caters to pregnant females between 25-40 years old who like punk rock music will likely be too narrow. It will be harder to find customers, more expensive to acquire them and the small market size will limit your potential growth substantially.
... It really all depends on your target market. Marketing is always geared towards the customer. Without the customer, your business will not be successful.
In writing the business plan, I determined our target market and our marketing strategy to gain a share of the market. I also had t...
People suspect the growth of this competitive scene is due to the gambling aspect of gaming. In 1994, the Kiplinger Washington Letter stated, “Gambling will be the fastest growing industry of the Nineties.” This statement is very true and applies to competitive gaming as well. As soon as you enter the world of competitive gaming, it's nearly impossible to leave. The industry of competitive video gaming has been up and coming, but now it is at it's peek. The world around us is changing every day, similar to the world of competitive sports, but the world of competitive gaming is here to stay.
"Interest In Gaming Grows With Focus On Competitiveness, Engagement And Critical Thinking. (Cover Story)." Electronic Education Report 14.12 (2007): 1-3.
Linear-active groups involve those groups that have linear agendas, are always preplanning, links processes, and aim to achieve clearly stated goals with utmost prejudice (Lewis, 2012). On the other hand, multi-active groups characteristically have the pleasure of multi-tasking. Moreover, multi-active groups in an organizational culture improve the relationship within and among multi-national corporations.