A Response to Mr. Blow's Article

[yaustar]

Okay, lets look at Starcraft.

I doubt that if I put many of the Dads I know (over 40) in front of Starcraft, they would be able to pick up and play the game or even make the choice to buy the game in the first place regardless. So that cuts out the mature market.

Under 12's might be able to understand the game better but again, given the current market, would the PC be the first platform of choice for games? Wouldn't they prefer their brand name consoles? Goodbye children's market.

So that leaves the teens and young adults. Out of this group, again how many would have their PC as their platform of choice to play games on? If this was a cutting edge game, how many would even have the hardware to run the game well? Also, how many PC gamers would buy a RTS game especially if they are 'casual' gamers?

Immediately you see market shrink and predict that the most common players for Starcraft 2 would be teens/young adults who are PC RTS hardcore players.

[Crastin]

Yes, it's simple enough that any dad or adult for that matter can pick up and play. Categorically speaking though, it's so old there's no market for it anymore only those hardcore left are playing it because it came out a decade ago before many adults were even intrigued with video games so I think that's an unfair point.

Again, age is really hard to determine for this game because it is so old. Anyone around the age of 10 will probably not even know of its existence until Starcraft 2 is released. I also think most of your points so far are speculation but i'm trying not to assume anything. You're obviously more knowledgeable in this area of expertise but I don't feel the fact that it's not a console game does much to hinder it seeing that it plays on any computer due to the basic and rudementary graphics. If something like Ragnarok and Everquest which are both almost a decade old as well and only on PC can draw a crowd as versatile as ages 10 to 50 then so can any other pc based game.

Concerning young adults, a certain console doesn't have to be a players favorite in order to yeild results for sales. For instance, pc's are useable in many different ways than a simple console and generally a household will have more computers than console systems. Again I feel like the marketers are trying to break down these player markets too finely. Perhaps Starcraft wasn't a great example but I only mentioned it to acredit where the phrase was I stated earlier.

[yaustar]

My points were implying when Starcraft was first released and will still apply if we were referring to Starcraft 2.

Ragnarok and Everquest have different audience spectrum and you may find that they don't have such a large user base compared to other games outside of Asia.

A household may have more PCs then consoles but how many of them are being used for games? With consoles, it is simply plug in and play. PCs, you have deal with drivers and quality settings, upgrading, usually beyond the average PC user.

Yes, it's simple enough that any dad or adult for that matter can pick up and play.

I honestly don't believe that given the amount of management needed to play the game well. This is not taking account if they wanted to play the game in first place.

A game should always have a target audience just like any other creative product or marketing. Look at the vast range of games magazines and how they appeal to different age and/or type of gamers. Why are games any different?