Soundwave said:
That can be literally 95% of the industry, lol.
There's a difference between a soccer mom who's extent of gaming ability is Angry Birds on a phone or Just Dance, and she'd never be able to complete a game even like Mario 64, and someone who can play Mario 64 just fine, for instance.
Drawing a dilineation there isn't incorrect, because it's significant, those two audiences are not one and the same. I would more accurately the industry falls into 3 rough pools with some overlap but not a ton ...
Pool 1 - A person who doesn't really care that much about gaming, likes to play once in a while to burn 10-15 minutes at most a day except for that one time they got hooked on Candy Crush and played for 4 straight hours and thought that was an impressive feat. Mostly plays on smartphones/Facebook browser, doesn't like complex games, virtually any type of 3D game is beyond their abilities or interest. Even after 6 years of having a Wii that they played intermittenly, they still wouldn't be able to get even 1/4 of the way through a game like Ocarina of Time even with a gun to their head.
Pool 2 - This person can basically play any type of game you put in front of them, generally have been playing games since childhood, but they prefer the 'mainstream' games that appeal to their specific real life interests like Call of Duty, NBA, Madden NFL, GTA, Forza, Halo, etc. They prefer to play with friends too. They don't follow the industry closely or at all in most cases. Just wanna have fun, but have a relatively high level of skill, given enough time/practice they would be good at any type of game. Gaming is more "wish fulfillment" for this crowd (I wanna be a sports star, gangster, super soldier, X-Wing pilot, that's cool).
Pool 3 - Hardcore gamer, they understand industry nuances like the difference between Japanese and American games, keep track of developers and even know the designers of games. They are the wine connosieurs of gaming and early adopters for most/all platforms, they are quite picky in what they will and won't play. Oddly this crowd inadvertantly often becomes the actual buying audience for games like Splatoon because only they can appreciate certain aspects of that game, whereas Pool 1 will shun the game for being too complex and Pool 2 will shun the game because it doesn't allign with their "I just want badass fantasy fullfilment in my games".
And then you have Pool 4 which is kids ... they are drawn to just about any type of video game like a fly to a light (especially boys). But by age 8/9/10 or they go into either pool 2 or 3 (ie: wanting to play GTA because the older kids at school think it's cool, or loving games so much that they become Pool 3).
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