Springheel on 15/4/2013 at 15:25
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Not only for me personally, for most players and developers
According to ESA polling, the average age of game players in 2004 was 29. In 2012, it was 30. Some fluctuations here and there, but essentially no net difference in the last decade.
The average age of game
buyers is older, but they haven't changed significantly in the last 10 years either (36 then and 41 now).
So while individuals may have gotten older, the overall age of gamers has not.
Judith on 15/4/2013 at 15:30
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Who Plays Games?
Gaming is a behavior practiced widely across the US, with gamers representing nearly 50% of the US population while spending $10 billion annually on interactive entertainment.
The average gamer is 35 years old.
The average age of a video game purchaser is 38.
Only 31% of gamers are under age 18 and a full 25% are, in fact, over age 50.
So yeah, (
http://www.theeca.com/video_games_violence) they do. And I don't even have to back it up with anything, it's already happened in the technology and design approach. With consoles you can instantly fire up the dashboard, pop in the disc, play from checkpoint to checkpoint for a 10, 20 or 30 minutes and push the Power off button and do other stuff, like spend some quality time with your wife and kids.
Springheel on 15/4/2013 at 15:42
I'm not sure which part you think contradicts what I said. You're quoting figures from 2006. I already said there were fluctuations, but by 2012 (the most recent figures I can find) it was back down to 30.
Quote:
With consoles you can instantly fire up the dashboard, pop in the disc, play from checkpoint to checkpoint for a 10, 20 or 30 minutes
And you couldn't do this with consoles in 2004?
Judith on 15/4/2013 at 15:52
Quote Posted by Springheel
And you couldn't do this with consoles in 2004?
Sure, and this has changed the way we play games significantly. And there was a reason for this, as I said above. A lot of games today don't even have a manual save function. In the next generation it will probably change even further, as next-gen consoles will be sold as both a gaming systems and cable boxes or something in-between.
Springheel on 15/4/2013 at 16:14
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Sure, and this has changed the way we play games significantly. And there was a reason for this, as I said above
So far, you've claimed that the average gamer is older than they were 10 years ago, which my statistics show is not true, and that consoles play the same way now that they did 10 years ago.
If what you're actually trying to say is that gamers have less time to play games now than they used to, and that's what's "really different", then I'm open to statistics on that. According to "(
http://www.statista.com/statistics/195806/average-game-hours-per-day-of-video-gamers-in-selected-countries/) Statista", the average American gamer spent 1.48 hours per day playing games. The only study I could find from around 10 years ago was from the UK (2005), but the number of hours there was 11 hrs per week, or 1.5 hours per day.
Again, it seems like the difference is negligible.
One thing that
might be different is the number of games available, and how easy it is to access them, which might mean that players are more fickle and flip from one game to another during their 1.5 hours. I don't have any statistics on that, but I have a hard time believing it's really that different.
demagogue on 15/4/2013 at 16:29
I think games are more "polished" in the gameplay -- a lot more professionalized and thought-out in construction -- whereas 15 years ago it was still on the tail end of an almost hobbiest craft, like fellow gamers making games, and now it's more media professionals making an entertainment product. It seems there's a different design philosophy about how players should play levels generally in the same vein (people are paying for an entertainment experience).
Without having studied it, it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what the differences are in specifics, though. I think games are more content-rich today (more sensory material packed into less time). I think there's more sensitivity to keep people from getting "lost" in games, even if they're getting lost for rather dumb but predictable reasons. I think there's a bit more feeling of entitlement in the market for games meeting certain norms; achievements & pop-ups being the two big ones I can think of.
What I don't believe is that the actual psychology of game-playing, or even ability to carry a longer attention span, or things like that have fundamentally changed all that much. I think expectations and norms have evolved for cultural and economic reasons, and you can see it in how gameplay is designed differently today, and what consumers tend to demand more... But that's a little different than saying we're literally thinking differently about how we play them (or I guess I should say 15 year old players today vs. 15 year old players 10-15 years ago).
Judith on 15/4/2013 at 16:32
Well, why I should waste time on digging more detailed statistics exclusively for you, since you don't want to be convinced anyway?
The age difference isn't just a number, it's also a matter of client focus. The industry has changed a lot since current-gen consoles launch, and even more since Thief 1/2. If you had got X360 or PS3, you probably wouldn't ask those questions. But feel free to concentrate on what's negligible or not for you, and undermine what's already happened, if that's your thing :)
jtr7 on 15/4/2013 at 17:54
You have to be convincing, or rather, the facts should speak for themselves. It's not a matter of not wanting to be convinced.
Springheel on 15/4/2013 at 19:29
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Well, why I should waste time on digging more detailed statistics exclusively for you, since you don't want to be convinced anyway?
First, I never asked you to, and second, who said I didn't want to be convinced? What I said was that the statistics I've seen so far don't back up your claims. The average gamer is NOT significantly older than he/she was ten years ago, and he's not spending less time playing games. The average age of people who BUY games has not significantly increased either.
So if there has been a change in the way we play games, it must be coming from something other than those factors, despite what conventional wisdom might say.
Judith on 15/4/2013 at 20:26
Because you already read the statistics in such way that you conveniently omit important issues. First of all, the age of average gamer dropped from 37 to 30
in one year. Which is a bit strange isn't it? But, since it fits your theory better, you didn't investigate it further. Well, (
http://kotaku.com/5931077/the-average-age-of-a-gamer-just-dropped-by-seven-years-um-what) that's the reason.
Still, the most important thing IMO is that current-gen consoles popularized a lot of things that changed the way we play games. Checkpoint system being one of them, also things like streamlined controller scheme, or quality standards (also with the downside of lengthy and costly certification process). All the things that speed up our learning process, where the controller becomes an invisible artifact in our hands, and we can focus on a game only. Also, the things that Demagogue listed, where design is more of a science discipline now, borrowing a lot from psychology, architecture, sociology, game theory etc. With all the devices modern games employ, there's a bigger chance that games will be a meaningful experience, not only for devs and bunch of his basement colleagues, but also for his sister, mom, maybe grandparents too. At least there's much bigger chance they'll take the controller and get the language of a game in next minute or so, which wasn't possible not so long ago.
