Why you need to target a new audience, and not make games for everyone

I was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in Ukraine, which means I was brought up in different cultural traditions than most of those reading these lines. The post-Soviet culture was patriarchal, the young and healthy were considered better than the disabled by default. And anyway, it was the post-Soviet developers who were among the first to see that there is also life outside of the Dudbro audience, and they began to make different games for different people.

Girly MMO with stars based on the mega-popular clone of The Big Brother? “Dom 3” (not to be confused with “Doom 3”), which started in 2006 and still lives, albeit under a different name. Time management about prison for poorer men, aged and with a history of five grades of elementary school? We have such a whole separate subgenre, including games for social networks and mobile.

The usual prisoner simulator
In the former CIS countries, almost every audience had its own game.

Some of them have failed – but not because their creators did a bad job. Some bring millions of dollars.

The most famous example is World of Tanks. A game for daddies burdened with a full-time job, family, children and responsibility. You know, those who read the news and write letters from the computer at most, and turn to their children for technical support.

You can go on for hours about post-Soviet developers, but it is important to note two main points:

• post-Soviet culture is not about gender equality or tolerance of minorities. It’s about healthy young men. And this is not just a cultural feature, it is such an economic situation in the former CIS countries. Losing a job sometimes literally means death;
• post-Soviet developers, however, make games for women and minorities. And not only for geek girls, but also for pensioners in the area of 60.

It’s all about the money, you fool

Let’s figure out why post-Soviet developers are not so patriarchal and picky when it comes to the gaming audience. A woman or a man in the area of 50 is unlikely to be happily hired to work in a game studio, but when it comes to games for them, the industry is much more hospitable.

“House 3” is an online game of 2006. It is aimed at a young female audience interested in reality TV shows
All because the post-Soviet game developers lost in the battle for a typical gamer – an 18-35-year-old man.

This audience is about the same all over the world, so the average Ukrainian college graduate plays “Assassin’s Creed: Another Cool Location”, just like his American or German peer.

Having a small budget and an inexperienced team, it is very difficult to create a game for such an audience. It’s not impossible, mind you (Metro 2033 and Warface are examples of this), but it’s not easy at all.

You may not be Ukrainian, Russian or Lithuanian, but if you focus on a typical gamer, then your rivals are the same Ubisoft, Activision and other cool companies. Even a student, if he plays 24 hours a day, will play a limited number of games. And your game is unlikely to be among them.

I think that’s why Nintendo creates games for “non-gamers”. It makes no sense for them to fight for “dudbro”, and why, if there are those who will buy Nintendogs, Brain Training and Wii Fit.

The simple truth is that everyone loves to play games. Most are happy to spend money on hobbies.

It is clear that creating games for people of different ages (and even more so genders) is still a task. But this is just a great reason to form teams out of them.

And don’t talk about the fact that there is no access to this audience. Since the 2000s, everyone has computers in developed countries. Everyone has smartphones. So what if your gamer grandpa doesn’t have a Steam account? This did not stop Wargaming.

Yes, many developers have already thought of this and are making billions on games for those audiences that did not exist before. For example, King or Supercell. But these new niches are much larger than the classic audience of 18-35-year-old gamers. There is still enough room for small teams.

The difference between games for everyone and games for the target audience

I’m not saying that you need to redesign your platformer or first-person shooter so that it’s suitable for everyone. It won’t work, you can’t add milk to vodka and say that it is now possible for children.

I’m talking about the fact that a new audience needs completely new genres. This audience loves to play, wants to spend money on your games. You just need to meet her halfway and come up with something specifically for her.

Here’s an example: World of Tanks is an excruciatingly slow game. Does Wargaming really not learn from its mistakes and does not read the gaming press, which has been whining since the release of WoT that the game lacks speed? Reads, of course. And that’s why World of Warships is even slower.

If you are 50-something and your reactions are slow, but you like to think about everything properly, then you have an advantage over an 18-year-old who has everything in order with reflexes and hormones are raging. Yes, he may try to escape from under your artillery strike or shoot your IS-2 at point-blank range. But in the end, the one with the best strategy will win.

Compare with Call of Duty. No one forbids a 50-year-old to play SoD, but it will be difficult to enjoy the game when the guys are flying around in their stupid jetpacks. You can add female characters or pensioners to the game, but it won’t change the fact that the game is made for young men.

If the game is for women, then women should have an advantage over men in it.

One example is games in the hidden-object genre (women are usually better at finding stuff). But in general, the female audience is as heterogeneous as the male one. So this area is full of possibilities and genres. Do you want to make a game for 40-year-old car mechanics? Make sure that there are things in the gameplay that they like, and 20-year-old hipsters will not play this game.

And since you’re doing this, file another Nintendogs
I’m not saying that games shouldn’t be for everyone – I’m saying that it won’t help them win over a new audience.

Tomb Raider is a game for everyone, but it’s still played mostly by young men. Gameplay is the main limitation when it comes to attracting non-gamers to the game.

A simple task. Remember a relative who is much younger or older – mom, grandfather or niece. And now imagine a game (perhaps non-existent in reality) in which this person will understand better than you. Describe it in the comments.

A source: medium.com/@galyonkin/