Are Boy Games Even Necessary? Nicole Lazzaro
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Chapter 13 Are Boy Games Even Necessary? Nicole Lazzaro Why are boy games even necessary? They are violent. They chase an increasingly narrow demographic. They require a lot of energy and skill to learn how to play and offer a limited range of emotions. They copy each other and hog shelf space, limiting new types of player experiences. While they are also enjoyed by millions of players around the globe and rival Hollywood for revenue and media attention; their narrow range of offerings attracts a smaller audience. In an industry driven by novelty, publishers find themselves pursuing the extreme end of a single demographic. If a game does not involve war, sports or Tolkien, it is hard to find at retail. Last year the top twenty selling titles made most of the money for PC, console as well as hand held games (NPD, 2006). In these best sellers there were essentially four types of games for sale: fighting games, war simulation games, racing games and sports games. Why are there so many very 'boy" play pattern games with very mature themes? Why are there so few games for women? Or for men who are bored with playing Rambo? Not only have games targeted the tastes and interests of a narrow range of potential players, games have tapped out the creative possibilities of their main themes of fighting, warfare, sports and racing. This is like walking into a toy store that only offered cops and robbers, RISK, fantasy foot ball, and Hot Wheels. It is a paradox why video games target this narrow segment of an aging population when younger players whom have grown up playing games. This raises the question. Are boy’s games necessary? Only the top titles sell in enough volume for retailers to stock them. The ones that do sell cater to extremely male tastes. Games offer a narrow range of adult themes mapped onto children’s games treated with child-like boyish simplicity. Such “boy games” offer a narrow range of options, saturate industry’s early adopter market and limit the industry’s growth potential. In competing for the top selling spots, the industry has been misled by inaccurate market preferences tied to gender identification rather than playstyle (what type of activities they enjoy in a game.) To make matters worse traditional, outdated 168 notions of gender identity heavily influence the conclusions drawn from such market research. Yet this is the data used by designers to create new titles, as well as the data used to green-light projects. Table 1 The top 20 best-selling games in each of 3 platforms in 2005 are really just the same four games. More imitation = less novelty; more sequels, more licenses = less fun. Type # of Titles Percent Definition Example Games Games where the primary Worlds of Warcraft (WOW),Guild interaction is fighting one- Wars, Star Wars: Battlefront II on-one or in small groups Fighting 31 52% with a gun or fists Games that simulate Age of Empires, Civilization IV, warfare where the player Rome: Total War War manages a whole Strategy 5 8% battlefield of fighters Games that simulate a Madden NFL, NCAA Football, real-world sport such as NBA Live Sports 9 9% basketball or football Games where players Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, compete by driving or Mario Kart Racing 5 5% flying Games where player The Sims 2, Roller Coaster builds or manages people Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon and their relationships or runs a business such as a Other 10 10% theme park or zoo 60 100% Source: NPD FunWorld, Top 60 Selling PC, Console, and Hand Held Games 2005 At its formation, the games industry used traditional market research data to understand and segment the market. They came up with their target customer: a 23-year-old, single, technophile. The vast majority of computer games still focus on the tastes and preferences of the industry’s first adopter, chasing him as he gets older. Because the average game player is now 33-year-old (Entertainment Software Association, 2006) games offer ever more mature themes, lifting experiences from R-rated movies like Rambo. Televised sports spawn sequels that are ever more realistic. Of course, this niche is still financially successful. But growth in the market is slowing as publishers rely on imitating 169 past successes instead of broadening the customer base. A lot of money is left on the table by an industry obsessed with a narrow emotional range of extremely male-type play patterns. But gamers of either gender and all ages just want to have fun. Why Games Use Demographics Games use demographic data to segment the market simply because it is easier to do. Sorting survey responses by gender is cheaper than analyzing behavioral data. Plus there is a fifty-year tradition of advertising that offers techniques to measure taste and preference for different slices of the American population. Segmenting the market targets specific groups’ interests and tastes. This works in advertising and marketing. Because such data contains no information on playstyles it does little to inform game design. That is because none of this research focuses on understanding gamers and their behavior. Rather than understanding what is unique about gamers and why they play, marketing segmentation efforts rest on identifying their age and income demographics, and making assumptions about their gaming preferences based on the interests and tastes of a stereotype. Unlike other consumer products games are used for the experience of play. Soap manufacturers can target half the market because everyone still gets clean in roughly the same way. With games, not everyone enjoys the same gameplay or the same themes. Another example of demographic segmentation influencing design is the trend to identify the most important concerns of a particular age group and create content that targets this. People have shared concerns at different stages of their lives, or share interests surrounding a hobby like photography or hunting. Magazine content geared to a certain gender, age, lifestyle or hobby works because magazines provide communication through print and photo. This does not succeed as well for games. Topics that pop to the top of an age category, like "planning for retirement" for 50-55 year-old men, or "researching consumer information" for 30-35 year-old women, do not necessarily map to great gameplay. Traditional marketing research does not make great games, it makes great marketing. Game designers need a different approach to segmentation to find out what makes great games. Highly Gendered Design Ignores What Makes Games Fun To expand the industry, games need to attract more players, have them make bigger purchases and have them buy more often. The current approach to demographic design reduces market size. Demographic design fails when it does 170 not pick up a majority of people in the smaller segment. Making games for early adopters (hard core gamers share these early adopter traits) with customer information that is out of date ignores the tastes and preferences of the mass market (Moore, 1991). For instance, it bypasses the motivators of young gamers who have more time to play, and female gamers who have been playing Solitaire since it first shipped on Windows. Design that emphasizes gender-based preferences ignores what people like the most about play. What players find the most fun about games spans genders. To segment the market along gender stereotypes, results in creating only martial or marital games. Figure 1. Designing for a strong gender identity excludes half the market for a game. This leaves on the table what boys, and girls, find the most fun, because what appeals to players most about games spans gender preferences (Lazzaro, 2004). In comparing what boys and girls find most fun in games, the distribution curves overlap more than they are separate. 171 Figure 2. Play preferences for both genders often overlap more than they separate Therefore, to maximize the number of potential players, the area under the curves matters more than the mid point. Finding play patterns that appeal to both groups maximizes the market. By marketing to only one gender can reduce the market for a game by 30-40%. Two of the most successful games of all time, The Sims and Myst, offered things to do in the game that had strong cross-gender appeal. Few Connections between Demographic Data and Playstyles Today's gamers have a wide variety of tastes and playstyles that traditional market research can neither touch nor see. What is more important than gamers' age and income demographics is why they like to play games. Copying the features of last year's hit game plus one innovation does not copy the fun. Not all innovations make better games. To succeed, developers need to know which innovations their customers think are more fun to play. 172 Figure 3. Best-selling games capture more players by maximizing the area under both curves appealing to both genders Designing a better game is often about making it more fun. Instead of making more boy games, the industry needs a deeper understanding of its customer and why they play. The proper customer insight, vocabulary and tools broaden the audience and deepen the appeal. Those who understand the player's response gain control over it and can innovate with less risk. For example, only part of Halo and WOW's success comes from what is easy to see from a focus group or survey. Direct observation of new types of play leads to more innovations than rehashing old ideas designed to appeal to a certain demographic. Women Play a Wider Variety of Roles The 1903 handbook “The Child Housekeeper” offered play activities for girls to increase interest in domestic tasks, thereby increasing their skills and chances to become wives, mothers and housekeepers.