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Forums - Sales - Core or Casual: Which of the two markets are more important/desirable?

 

Core or Casual: Which of the two markets are more important/desirable?

The Core gamer market 50 25.77%
 
The Casual gamer market 35 18.04%
 
A healthy combination of both 77 39.69%
 
It varies from the big three 11 5.67%
 
Dunno 0 0%
 
Click me for results! 21 10.82%
 
Total:194
Antabus on 16 January 2011
RolStoppable said:

There is no clear distinction between a core and casual market, you can't really segregate the market as a whole, because whatever you do, there will always be some sort of overlap between various segments. Or does anyone believe that a core gamer would never buy a title like Wii Fit or Brain Training and that a casual gamer would never try out an RPG or FPS? When you think about it, it's pretty obvious that there is no clear cut way as the market consists of actual people and each one of them has their own individual preferences. Additionally, there are people who don't play video games at all yet, but could all be potential customers.

Maybe you should look at the bigger picture and focus less on small details. If 1000(0) out of million core/casual gamers slip out of their comfort zone, it is insignificant. There is a clear distinction.



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Antabus on 16 January 2011
RolStoppable said:

 And that's where once again the question has to be asked: Where do you draw the line, which games do you have to play to be considered a core gamer?

That depends on which console you are playing. Core demographics aren't the same on all of the consoles.



S.T.A.G.E. on 16 January 2011

Casuals- only important for the growth of the market. They buy usually out of interest in a novelty so they aren't that useful for the long run. They are the majority though.

Core- As is stated, these are the core or the stability of the market. They are what truly keeps the market going.



Icyedge on 16 January 2011

Casual is better for manufacturers that has important profit from hardware and accessories.



Mummelmann on 16 January 2011
RolStoppable said:
Mummelmann said:

A healthy combination of both is the obvious answer for me.

Edit; Rol: would the core gamer enjoy and spend a lot of time with Wii Fit (on average) and would the casual gamer enjoy and spend a lot of time with RPG's and FPS games (on average)? Likely not. People who only play Angry Birds on iPhone or Nintendogs will probably not be in the demographic of Portal 2 and someone who spends his entire life immersed in a MMO will probably care little for feebleminded mingames with no apparent objective and substance.

Gamers are very different (which you also state yourself) and I can easily see "core" and "casual" as two separate markets. Your grandparents' generation are unlikely to buy Gran Turismo 5 for instance, or do people still claim that casual games draw people into and drive them towards "heavier" stuff? Someone who is not quite taken with gaming as a hobby and time consumer will never ever sit down and start playing Neverwinter Nights 2 all of the sudden.

If you take extreme examples, then there will of course be quite a big discrepany between the type of gamers. The question is where exactly do you draw the line? And once you have done that, you will inevitably have people that switch from being core to casual and back to core within a short period of time or others who at all times fulfill some of the requirements for both categories and it's hard to put them in either. That's why all those "What are you, core or casual?" threads always resulted in people being unsure on what they are and definitions got updated constantly causing further confusion on the subject.

Towards the end of your post you once again try to use extreme examples. A better way to tackle this question would be to think of your own timeline as a gamer. I doubt that you jumped right into a highly complex game, but you eventually got there, because you love games. It's a gradual process to try out new types of games, but not everyone is willing to go to the highest level of complexity, most people stop (way) before that. And that's where once again the question has to be asked: Where do you draw the line, which games do you have to play to be considered a core gamer?

My own "career" as a gamer is hardly applicable to the overall population, I started gaming with Ultima Underworld, Warcraft and Zelda on the NES. I see your point though, where does one draw the line? What people seem to be most in disagreement with is whether they should categorize after how many hours one spends on games, how deeply one delves in games in terms of scores and achievements or simply by which type of game one prefers to play.

For me, a casual gamer is someone who picks up and plays for ten minutes on some facebook game or maybe half an hour on flash games online but then again; my mom plays bejeweled all the time, a game I would see as very casual in appeal and depth but she can sit for 3-4 hours at a time and is constantly chasing higher scores. Casual or hardcore? The definition is indeed tricky.

In my humble opinion, people like you and me are "hardcore" gamers, we discuss gaming, we spend a lot of time and money on it and we chase scores and/or better times in games. In short, it is a big part of our life and, at least for me, its the one major pasttime and entertainment channel to go to.



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9009pc on 16 January 2011

a healthy combination of both would suit my opinion better. I think it's better to start somewhere in the middle and work outwards.  slightly more to the core for stability and reliability but not ignoring the bigger causal market.



correct me if I am wrong
stop me if I am bias
I love a good civilised debate (but only if we can learn something).

 

Chrizum on 16 January 2011

Hardcore gamers < 5% of the market
Mainstream > 95% of the market

Enough said.



SvennoJ on 16 January 2011
Chrizum said:

Hardcore gamers < 5% of the market
Mainstream > 95% of the market

Enough said.


Depends how many games do casual gamers buy over the lifetime of the console, as opposed to the hardcore. I buy over 30 games a year. (including downloadable titles)

For the hardware manufacturer it's easy, get the casual crowd interested as soon as you make a profit on the console. For 3rd party developers it's a much bigger risk targeting the casual crowd. See kinect, a huge success, but only a few software titles benefit from the success.



S.T.A.G.E. on 16 January 2011
Chrizum said:

Hardcore gamers < 5% of the market
Mainstream > 95% of the market

Enough said.


I believe the core a little larger than 5% of the market. Core titles sell more than your giving credit.



Grimes on 16 January 2011

Most of the profit comes from the casual audience, that's what the numbers say.



Anyone can guess. It takes no effort to throw out lots of predictions and have some of them be correct. You are not and wiser or better for having your guesses be right. Even a blind man can hit the bullseye.