I fucking apologized already people. Sorry. Could you fucking move on?
If it helps people move on, I promise (believe me, I PROMISE) never to bring up the subject of gender on this message board ever again. Can we now move on?
Woah, take it easy! People should be able to discuss demographics on a website dedicated to the videogames market (yes, this includes gender). I think the discussion has been quite civilized so far, no need to apologise if you ask me...
the_dark_lewd said: So yet more evidence that that "women are 50% of all gamers" thing is basically nonsense.
For home consoles/PC I always felt that was bunk anyway. Like we have a Switch, Wii U, 3DS, Vita, PS4, XB1 in the house, and my fiance tried to play Fast RMX and Playstation VR in the last year ... for probably a combined 20 minutes.
But if we did a survey on who plays in the household, it would come down to an even 50/50 split, even though 99% of any gaming in front of a TV is done by me.
For smartphone games, yeah I could buy women are 50% of the market though. They love their smartphone games. There is a group of console/PC gamers who are women, and they're cool and all, but it's more realistically like 10-20% and generally speaking that group plays the same types of games as the guys do.
Something 93% of Wii U eShop users were male for example, the ratio is probably pretty similar on Switch, PS4, and XB1 too.
The whole women, seniors, and parents are a central part of the Nintendo audience is a bunch of revisionist history anyway. Nintendo in the 80s was mainly played by young boys who were basically the hardcore gamers of the day. The only thing that's really changed today is those kids continued gaming into their teenage/20s/and even 30s so the industry expanded mainly because of that.
This is fairly accurate of what it was like back then.
Your parents didn't play Nintendo regularily, it was something that mom/dad maybe tried once, sucked at, you laughed at them, and didn't want you playing too much and that was it.
The Wii is the only system Nintendo has really ever made that was aimed expressly at those different non-gaming demographics, but that market is gone now because smart devices took that audience away. Switch is just Nintendo returning back to their roots if anything, a more gamer centric device that doesn't rely on casuals to drive adoption. The only main difference today is "kids" aren't the extent of the market anymore, you have kids who become teenagers and adults who maintain enthusiasm for video games for years and years, that was not really prevalant in the NES era, it was mainly kids.
This was largely in America though. Video games were just comming back into popularity, and they were largely seen as childeren's toys. The NES, unlike the Famicom was marketed almost exclusively to young boys, while it's Japanese counterpart had more broad appeal. Video Games have evolved since then, and simply saying casual gamers and women are forever Smartphone slaves is a gross oversimplification and completely oblivious to actual facts.
The Switch is Nintendo returning to its roots, but it's their fun for everyone broad appeal roots of the Famicom, Game Boy, DS, and yes, the Wii. It's not this hardcore gamer machine like you claim it is.
Well, that's not surprising, since men around that age have more buying power than teens/kids and the marketing was mostly catered to them. The real question is...why is the women percentage so low?
The whole women, seniors, and parents are a central part of the Nintendo audience is a bunch of revisionist history anyway. Nintendo in the 80s was mainly played by young boys who were basically the hardcore gamers of the day. The only thing that's really changed today is those kids continued gaming into their teenage/20s/and even 30s so the industry expanded mainly because of that.
This is fairly accurate of what it was like back then.
Your parents didn't play Nintendo regularily, it was something that mom/dad maybe tried once, sucked at, you laughed at them, and didn't want you playing too much and that was it.
The Wii is the only system Nintendo has really ever made that was aimed expressly at those different non-gaming demographics, but that market is gone now because smart devices took that audience away. Switch is just Nintendo returning back to their roots if anything, a more gamer centric device that doesn't rely on casuals to drive adoption. The only main difference today is "kids" aren't the extent of the market anymore, you have kids who become teenagers and adults who maintain enthusiasm for video games for years and years, that was not really prevalant in the NES era, it was mainly kids.
This was largely in America though. Video games were just comming back into popularity, and they were largely seen as childeren's toys. The NES, unlike the Famicom was marketed almost exclusively to young boys, while it's Japanese counterpart had more broad appeal. Video Games have evolved since then, and simply saying casual gamers and women are forever Smartphone slaves is a gross oversimplification and completely oblivious to actual facts.
The Switch is Nintendo returning to its roots, but it's their fun for everyone broad appeal roots of the Famicom, Game Boy, DS, and yes, the Wii. It's not this hardcore gamer machine like you claim it is.
Why is playing on a smartphone being a "slave"? As opposed to being a "Nintendo slave"?
Have you guys ever genuinely considered that smartphones do the whole "casual play" and "games the average woman might like" way better than even the Wii or DS ever could? The number of people who play smartphone games dwarfs even the DS total userbase. The games are simple and easy to play because they have to be, without buttons developers cannot make the games too complex, so a lack of buttons for that audience is actually a bonus. The platform is far more convienant as a smartphone is always with you. And the games are free .... can't beat that price.
The demographics of Switch sales don't support what you're saying either. It's older men clearly buying, also 1,2 Switch is not the driving software title as 75% of Switch owners are opting not to buy it, and Just Dance looks like a flop.
There are core gamers who are women and they like consoles, and that's cool, but they are not special snowflakes asking for totally different games be made for them for the most part. They like the same games the guys do.
I would agree targetting women who normally don't play wouldn't be a bad play if ... we are having this conversation in 2006. Unfortunately it's 2017 for that arguement, and smartphones have taken that market and made it into a red ocean, probably the reddest ocean imaginable actually. There are more smartphone games with more marketing than console games these days.
This was largely in America though. Video games were just comming back into popularity, and they were largely seen as childeren's toys. The NES, unlike the Famicom was marketed almost exclusively to young boys, while it's Japanese counterpart had more broad appeal. Video Games have evolved since then, and simply saying casual gamers and women are forever Smartphone slaves is a gross oversimplification and completely oblivious to actual facts.
The Switch is Nintendo returning to its roots, but it's their fun for everyone broad appeal roots of the Famicom, Game Boy, DS, and yes, the Wii. It's not this hardcore gamer machine like you claim it is.
Why is playing on a smartphone being a "slave"? As opposed to being a "Nintendo slave"?
Have you guys ever genuinely considered that smartphones do the whole "casual play" and "games the average woman might like" way better than even the Wii or DS ever could? More people play today than ever before because of smartphones. The games are simple and easy to play because they have to be, without buttons developers cannot make the games too complex, so a lack of buttons for that audience is actually a bonus. The platform is far more convienant as a smartphone is always with you. And the games are free .... can't beat that price.
The demographics of Switch sales don't support what you're saying either. It's older men clearly buying, also 1,2 Switch is not the driving software title as 75% of Switch owners are opting not to buy it, and Just Dance looks like a flop.
There are core gamers who are women and they like consoles, and that's cool, but they are not special snowflakes asking for totally different games be made for them for the most part. They like the same games the guys do.
From your posts though, you seem to think that casual gamers will only play on mobile and nothing else, when that's not true. There are plenty of casual gamers with a PS4 who play the occasional Sports or Indie game, and they even play games on PC, the home of strategy games, sims, and hidden object titles, 3 of the most casual friendly genres in gaming. I don't buy this narrative that core gamers are the only ones who play consoles, and casuals only play games on phones and nothing else. Do you ever think that maybe casual gamers can play games on both a console AND a phone?
Now yes, the Switch is being bought by young men primarily, but it's early in the Switch's life, and early adopters of gaming consoles typically tend to be those who knew about the product way before hand. Casual gamers don't start taking notice until a bit later. That's mostly how it's always worked. The great thing about the Switch is that it basically markets itself. You can pull out a Switch, prop it up with the stand, and hand a Joy-Con to someone who's never really played games before, and you two can easily play Mario Kart or Snipperclips instantly. It's simple, intuitive, and rather foward-thinking, so much so that it may also encourage those who don't have one to get one now that they got a taste of what it's like.
Plus, there's also Nintendo's mobile initiatives, where they hope people will buy a Switch in addition to their phone. Which like I said, is possible and if you want proof that it's an effective strategy, Pokemon Go single handedly boosted 3DS sales for 2016, and helped made Pokemon Sun & Moon the best selling games in the series.
Casual gamers are important, and it's important that they grow to become hardcore gamers too. Simply saying "They're fine with mobile games, they don't need anything else" is like saying "Kids are fine with Dr. Seus books, they don't need to learn longer, more complex novels, just let them read Green Eggs and Ham forever."
Why is playing on a smartphone being a "slave"? As opposed to being a "Nintendo slave"?
Have you guys ever genuinely considered that smartphones do the whole "casual play" and "games the average woman might like" way better than even the Wii or DS ever could? More people play today than ever before because of smartphones. The games are simple and easy to play because they have to be, without buttons developers cannot make the games too complex, so a lack of buttons for that audience is actually a bonus. The platform is far more convienant as a smartphone is always with you. And the games are free .... can't beat that price.
The demographics of Switch sales don't support what you're saying either. It's older men clearly buying, also 1,2 Switch is not the driving software title as 75% of Switch owners are opting not to buy it, and Just Dance looks like a flop.
There are core gamers who are women and they like consoles, and that's cool, but they are not special snowflakes asking for totally different games be made for them for the most part. They like the same games the guys do.
From your posts though, you seem to think that casual gamers will only play on mobile and nothing else, when that's not true. There are plenty of casual gamers with a PS4 who play the occasional Sports or Indie game, and they even play games on PC, the home of strategy games, sims, and hidden object titles, 3 of the most casual friendly genres in gaming. I don't buy this narrative that core gamers are the only ones who play consoles, and casuals only play games on phones and nothing else. Do you ever think that maybe casual gamers can play games on both a console AND a phone?
Now yes, the Switch is being bought by young men primarily, but it's early in the Switch's life, and early adopters of gaming consoles typically tend to be those who knew about the product way before hand. Casual gamers don't start taking notice until a bit later. That's mostly how it's always worked. The great thing about the Switch is that it basically markets itself. You can pull out a Switch, prop it up with the stand, and hand a Joy-Con to someone who's never really played games before, and you two can easily play Mario Kart or Snipperclips instantly. It's simple, intuitive, and rather foward-thinking, so much so that it may also encourage those who don't have one to get one now that they got a taste of what it's like.
Plus, there's also Nintendo's mobile initiatives, where they hope people will buy a Switch in addition to their phone. Which like I said, is possible and if you want proof that it's an effective strategy, Pokemon Go single handedly boosted 3DS sales for 2016, and helped made Pokemon Sun & Moon the best selling games in the series.
Casual gamers are important, and it's important that they grow to become hardcore gamers too. Simply saying "They're fine with mobile games, they don't need anything else" is like saying "Kids are fine with Dr. Seus books, they don't need to learn longer, more complex novels, just let them read Green Eggs and Ham forever."
Well some people don't read books period. Playing video games is not a neccessity in life.
I don't think the average woman is magically going to buy a giant Switch system to go with her smartphone. Free games + free hardware (bascially, since everyone has a smartphone already) is too strong of a killer 1,2 punch to be stopped.
Who even cares, like I like the show Breaking Bad. Now likely the main demographic for that show is men. And my fiance likes Gossip Girl. Now the main demographic there is likely women (just taking wild shot in the dark here).
And that's fine. The people who make Gossip Girl or The 50 Shades of Grey movies don't need to go out of their way to try and get me to enjoy that product, it's just something I might watch for like 10 minutes, but I'm never going to be an enthusiast of. I'm never going get into knitting or arts & crafts either, doesn't matter what those industries do. And there's nothing wrong with that.
If Miyamoto can't even get his own wife to enjoy console games, and says that she prefers smartphone games, I think we are getting to the point where this is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Let them enjoy their smartphone games, in fact maybe give smartphones some credit here ... they do what the DS and Wii tried to do, but they simply do it much better. Way more games, easier to play in general, way more convienant, and way more ... free.
Who says smartphone games are Dr. Seuss? There are plenty of smartphone games just as good as Wii Sports and better than 1,2 Switch. I played that Ellen party/trivia game at a party hosted by one of my female friends, and we had a lot of fun, and the total cost of that was $0. We had just as much fun as you would have with a Wii Sports type game, people were roaring with laughter and all that. Good luck competing with that, Switch.
Smartphone games are fun and can be deep and addictive too in their own way too. They only compare unfavorably if you are a core gamer who needs more complex gameplay and genre types ... but that isn't the typical fringe gamer to begin with, so that who argument is a contradiction right off the bat.
From your posts though, you seem to think that casual gamers will only play on mobile and nothing else, when that's not true. There are plenty of casual gamers with a PS4 who play the occasional Sports or Indie game, and they even play games on PC, the home of strategy games, sims, and hidden object titles, 3 of the most casual friendly genres in gaming. I don't buy this narrative that core gamers are the only ones who play consoles, and casuals only play games on phones and nothing else. Do you ever think that maybe casual gamers can play games on both a console AND a phone?
Now yes, the Switch is being bought by young men primarily, but it's early in the Switch's life, and early adopters of gaming consoles typically tend to be those who knew about the product way before hand. Casual gamers don't start taking notice until a bit later. That's mostly how it's always worked. The great thing about the Switch is that it basically markets itself. You can pull out a Switch, prop it up with the stand, and hand a Joy-Con to someone who's never really played games before, and you two can easily play Mario Kart or Snipperclips instantly. It's simple, intuitive, and rather foward-thinking, so much so that it may also encourage those who don't have one to get one now that they got a taste of what it's like.
Plus, there's also Nintendo's mobile initiatives, where they hope people will buy a Switch in addition to their phone. Which like I said, is possible and if you want proof that it's an effective strategy, Pokemon Go single handedly boosted 3DS sales for 2016, and helped made Pokemon Sun & Moon the best selling games in the series.
Casual gamers are important, and it's important that they grow to become hardcore gamers too. Simply saying "They're fine with mobile games, they don't need anything else" is like saying "Kids are fine with Dr. Seus books, they don't need to learn longer, more complex novels, just let them read Green Eggs and Ham forever."
Well some people don't read books period. Playing video games is not a neccessity in life.
I don't think the average woman is magically going to buy a giant Switch system to go with her smartphone. Free games + free hardware (bascially, since everyone has a smartphone already) is too strong of a killer 1,2 punch to be stopped.
Who even cares, like I like the show Breaking Bad. Now likely the main demographic for that show is men. And my fiance likes Gossip Girl. Now the main demographic there is likely women (just taking wild shot in the dark here).
And that's fine. The people who make Gossip Girl or The 50 Shades of Grey movies don't need to go out of their way to try and get me to enjoy that product, it's just something I might watch for like 10 minutes, but I'm never going to be an enthusiast of. I'm never going get into knitting or arts & crafts either, doesn't matter what those industries do. And there's nothing wrong with that.
If Miyamoto can't even get his own wife to enjoy console games, and says that she prefers smartphone games, I think we are getting to the point where this is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Let them enjoy their smartphone games, in fact maybe give smartphones some credit here ... they do what the DS and Wii tried to do, but they simply do it much better. Way more games, easier to play in general, way more convienant, and way more ... free.
Who says smartphone games are Dr. Seuss? There are plenty of smartphone games just as good as Wii Sports and better than 1,2 Switch. I played that Ellen party/trivia game at a party hosted by one of my female friends, and we had a lot of fun, and the total cost of that was $0. We had just as much fun as you would have with a Wii Sports type game, people were roaring with laughter and all that. Good luck competing with that, Switch.
Some people don't read many books, but they can at least read proficiently. Saying that people don't need to learn how to play games is exactly like saying people don't need to learn how to read. This video explains what I'm talking about.
I'm not saying you'll get everyone to become more involved gamers, nor am I saying that you necesarily need to get every Candy Crush player into Dark Souls. But if we have no window of opprotunity, no way for people to at least take an interest in more traditional style games, then we have a huge problem. This isn't even about women anymore, it's about people who are new to games and or don't really play a lot of games at all, which include both men and women. You do realize there are plenty of male casual gamers too do you? It's not like every guy on the planet is a hardcore gaming junkie. This is why I say it's important to at least make an effort to get casual gamers to take an interest in non-mobile games. And don't tell me that's not possible because mobile games are free. If people can spend $15+ on Movie Tickets or buy expensive Starbucks coffee, they can spend $40-60 on a game as long as it's good. Like I said, if your product is desirable, people will buy it. The Switch is selling well because it's a desirable product.
Casual gamers aren't just women who play smartphone games exclusively. They're simply people who play games, but don't play a lot of games, and aren't as enriched in gaming culture as hardcore gamers. For example, a casual gamer may not be a fan of most console games, but can probably pour hundereds of hours into Breath of the Wild. There are casual fans of every medium. Movies for example, have people who don't really go to summer blockbusters, but will always be willing to go see say, a period piece. It's the same with games.
Saying Consoles must be for this demographic only is oversimplication and doesn't really help games grow as a medium. True, not every game is for everyone, but we shouldn't shut off demographics from an entire ecosystem, just because they play phone games.
When I was still working at GameZone, I wrote an article about the female population being inflated, and how the "52% of gamers are female" misconception came about. I revisited the topic recently, due to the ESA's horrribly biased information, and said we needed real numbers on the demographic. "Certain people" acted like I was trying to start a freakin holocaust by asking for factual information that would help improve the gaming industry's reception of female gamers.
When I said Switch was the new big competitor for the PS4, Sony fans acted like I had attacked their wives and forced myself upon their cats and dogs. It struck me as weird, because I thought XB1 fans would be most defensive over it since the platform is in a bad place and asking the MS equivalent of a Steam Machine to save it, but they were relatively nonchallant. I thought Sony fans would be the relaxed ones, what with their console of choice being 60M units ahead of the Switch. I know sometimes people get into console wars like sports, with personl investments, but does being at the top make them act like jerks because they're getting big egos, or are they experiencing the same deeply rooted fear sports fans feel when someone starts to mount a late game comeback? (Falcons fans can tell you all about it.)
They kept screaming the switch was a different market, nintendo is kids only, they only appeal to casuals, etc. Armed with this information I tried to quash that myth, but when you're dealinng with fans that have become actiual fanatics, no amount of well thought out, logical discusion will reach them. Please note I'm not talking about all fans, I'm specifically talking about -those- types of fanatical platform warriors.
Well some people don't read books period. Playing video games is not a neccessity in life.
I don't think the average woman is magically going to buy a giant Switch system to go with her smartphone. Free games + free hardware (bascially, since everyone has a smartphone already) is too strong of a killer 1,2 punch to be stopped.
Who even cares, like I like the show Breaking Bad. Now likely the main demographic for that show is men. And my fiance likes Gossip Girl. Now the main demographic there is likely women (just taking wild shot in the dark here).
And that's fine. The people who make Gossip Girl or The 50 Shades of Grey movies don't need to go out of their way to try and get me to enjoy that product, it's just something I might watch for like 10 minutes, but I'm never going to be an enthusiast of. I'm never going get into knitting or arts & crafts either, doesn't matter what those industries do. And there's nothing wrong with that.
If Miyamoto can't even get his own wife to enjoy console games, and says that she prefers smartphone games, I think we are getting to the point where this is trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Let them enjoy their smartphone games, in fact maybe give smartphones some credit here ... they do what the DS and Wii tried to do, but they simply do it much better. Way more games, easier to play in general, way more convienant, and way more ... free.
Who says smartphone games are Dr. Seuss? There are plenty of smartphone games just as good as Wii Sports and better than 1,2 Switch. I played that Ellen party/trivia game at a party hosted by one of my female friends, and we had a lot of fun, and the total cost of that was $0. We had just as much fun as you would have with a Wii Sports type game, people were roaring with laughter and all that. Good luck competing with that, Switch.
Some people don't read many books, but they can at least read proficiently. Saying that people don't need to learn how to play games is exactly like saying people don't need to learn how to read. This video explains what I'm talking about.
I'm not saying you'll get everyone to become more involved gamers, nor am I saying that you necesarily need to get every Candy Crush player into Dark Souls. But if we have no window of opprotunity, no way for people to at least take an interest in more traditional style games, then we have a huge problem. This isn't even about women anymore, it's about people who are new to games and or don't really play a lot of games at all, which include both men and women. You do realize there are plenty of male casual gamers too do you? It's not like every guy on the planet is a hardcore gaming junkie. This is why I say it's important to at least make an effort to get casual gamers to take an interest in non-mobile games. And don't tell me that's not possible because mobile games are free. If people can spend $15+ on Movie Tickets or buy expensive Starbucks coffee, they can spend $40-60 on a game as long as it's good. Like I said, if your product is desirable, people will buy it. The Switch is selling well because it's a desirable product.
Casual gamers aren't just women who play smartphone games exclusively. They're simply people who play games, but don't play a lot of games, and aren't as enriched in gaming culture as hardcore gamers. For example, a casual gamer may not be a fan of most console games, but can probably pour hundereds of hours into Breath of the Wild. There are casual fans of every medium. Movies for example, have people who don't really go to summer blockbusters, but will always be willing to go see say, a period piece. It's the same with games.
Saying Consoles must be for this demographic only is oversimplication and doesn't really help games grow as a medium. True, not every game is for everyone, but we shouldn't shut off demographics from an entire ecosystem, just because they play phone games.
I don't really buy that it's a "huge problem" though.
First of all, there are new gamers coming into the industry constantly. That's because there are kids being born constantly, so like lol, there's never really a danger of gaming not having new customers. Sony's game division just had their highest profit since 1998, this shouldn't be possible if the market for more complex games has declined.
$15 for a movie ticket and $60 for a game is still huge whopping difference. I would never pay $60 for a concert I only kinda/sorta was interested in. I would need really strong motivation to spend $60 on anything. That's not a trivial throw away amount of money for most people. $15 ... ok, yeah that's more reasonable.
What's wrong with people playing on smartphones? It's not that consoles have to be just for one demographic, it's that smartphones simply are better than consoles at delivering games to the casual/non-gamer type. You're not giving them smartphone enough credit. They've kicked the console's ass at that, and that's fine.
Once upon a time everyone had to have a stereo player in their living room because it was basically the only way to listen to music. Then technology changed and you had the WalkMan, which became the DiscMan, which became the iPod, which is now the smartphone. Not very many people have a dedicated music stereo system in their house anymore, and that's fine. If someone just wants to listen on their phone, that's fine. Technology advances and it gives people more personalized options. Same with a PC ... plenty of homes these days don't have a big fat tower PC anymore, but 15 years ago you basically had no choice but to own one. Well tech changed, and the same thing has happened with gaming, and quite frankly maybe that's a good thing.
We are so quick to label it a bad thing, but why should someone pay $300 + $60/game if they just want to have 30-90 minutes of fun a week? Why shouldn't there be a better option for people like that? Consoles don't need to be all things for all people, and quite frankly they're not even very good for casuals to begin with.
Maybe also we should be more secure in what our medium is? I'm a fan of the NHL (that's ice hockey). I recoginize the NHL is never going to be like the no.1 sport globally. And you know what? I don't give a shit. Who cares. As long as the league makes a good amount of money, that's good enough. I don't get less enjoyment out of it because I need to have some grandma like the sport to validate it as something worthwhile to me. Games have always had this huge chip on their shoulder and always tried to chase the movie industry, and quite frankly maybe it's time to just say what we have is good enough. Plenty of people and enjoy video games every day and they're not going anywhere.
