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PHASE FOUR - Audience


When researching audience I really struggled with narrowing down a niche for Maive. During the feedback for our first pitch of the game, much of the class was disinterested, and those that were thought that the game should be marketed to children. As a group, our instinct was to believe other people, but we all felt that this wasn't right. It was really difficult to determine who this game would be popular with when the first audience we presented to is comprised mainly of 20-year-old white males.


Research

I started doing research into video games generally, and the sort of people who play certain games. Immediately it became clear that the stereotype of young men playing action games is true, which explained their inherent disinterest in our idea. However, research showed that the audience for our game was far greater than the suggested "8-12 girls" bracket Maive had been squeezed into by the people on our course.


A 2018 investigation into gaming demographics by Earnest showed that most gamers are 18 or over. The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) published their 2019 report on the gaming industry, which betrayed an almost equal distribution of male and female gamers. It also showed that the average age of the gamer is 33 years old.


To give credit to the initial audience, I knew that our idea would be appealing to younger audiences. I did some research into the author Enid Blyton, renowned for her Famous Five and The Magic Faraway Tree series. Her audience is children (research suggests between 8 and 13), but gender does not commonly factor into parents choosing this book for their children to read. There is also a large audience of adults who read the books as children, and still enjoy them to this day. The stories and characters still entertain them. This is reflected in the ESA's 2019 report, where they state that 57% of gamers are influenced to buy a game by a good story. A report by Quantic Foundry supports this, too, showing female motivation for playing games being fantasy at 16.2% and story at 8.5%.


I knew that such a limited audience as 8-12-year-old girls wasn't fair to the idea of Maive. Books are different beasts to video games, and the success of the Animal Crossing franchise demonstrates the reach video games can have that books of similar genres might not. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's former president, revealed that 56% of Animal Crossing: New Leaf's audience was female, and most were between 19 and 24. Whilst my research had revealed that our game would have more success with females than males, the age bracket was way off, but I didn't know what the correct age bracket was.


To help with this conundrum, I started researching into casual games, defined as mass-marketed rather than tailored to a niche audience. But they are also classified by the intensity of play, with simpler rules and less required skill to play. Under this definition, I believe that Maive can be classed as a casual game. Casual games are popular across ages and genders, but become decreasingly popular with those over 55.


Conclusion

From this research I reached the conclusion that Maive is a casual game, and has a broad audience age between 8-50. I believe that Maive would sell best with females, millennials specifically, but will be appropriate for children. Due to its roots as a fable, Maive will appeal to people of all ages, genders and experiences. I do believe, though, that a more discerning adult audience will enjoy the game. I also think it will not be successful with male millennials.

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