Casual and Hardcore? How About Incidental

[Morfiend]

A new study came out to tell people what most of us here already know, there are more kinds of gamers than just casual or hardcore.

http://news.digitaltrends.com/article11205.html

They have split the gamer population in to 6 different catagories:

    *  Power gamers, accounting for 11 percent of the market but almost a third of retail and online game spending;
    * Social gamers who account for 13 percent of the market and play games as a way of interacting with friends;
    * Leisure gamers carry some 14 percent of the market, and spend nearly 60 hours a month playing—they spend time mainly on casual titles, but prefer challenging games and are interested in new gaming services;
    * Dormant gamers who account for a whopping 26 percent of the market and who don't play much because of family, work, or school, but like to play challenging games, and play with friends and family;
    * Incidental gamers account for 12 percent of the market and play games mainly out of boredom—but they're bored more than 20 hours a month;
    * and Occasional gamers, who play mainly word, board, and puzzle games annd account for a massive 24 percent of the market.

P.S. Stolen from /.

[Roac]

Hardcore vs casual just differentiates between those who play a lot (usually in order to "be good") and those who don't.  This just goes into more details as to why. 

*  Power gamers, accounting for 11 percent of the market but almost a third of retail and online game spending;

That's the point of the distinction.  Doesn't matter if there are 5 kinds of casual gamers, they are still only 66% of the spending but 89% of the market.  The hardcore (power) group is spending roughly four times as much money per person.  That group has both the money and time to do well; it is the difference between a Pro and an Amateur.  It doesn't matter so much to the gamer why you're in the second bracket, only that you are but still made to compete in the pro circuit.

[Dren]

How about they try different servers for different groups?

Hardcore/Open - Unlimited hours
Tier 3 - 30 hours/week limit on server
Tier 2 - 20 Hours/week limit on server
Tier 1 - 10 hours/week limit on server

Physically segregate the casuals from the harcore if they choose to do so.  If you don't like the competition getting more hours in per week than you, start up on a more casual server.

It certainly would be interesting to see the breakdown of population/popularity of each server.  Would people do it or would they all go for the open server?  I certainly would expect each side to shut their mouths about the matter at that point.

Yeah, that probably wouldn't happen, but you would now have the excuse to say, "Go to the newbie servers, you newbies! We be hardcore!"

[Sky]

Ooo...now I'm dormant.

[Roac]

Physically segregate the casuals from the harcore if they choose to do so.  If you don't like the competition getting more hours in per week than you, start up on a more casual server.

Hardcores would go to the newb servers, then just buy multiple accounts.

[Merusk]

Physically segregate the casuals from the harcore if they choose to do so.  If you don't like the competition getting more hours in per week than you, start up on a more casual server.

Hardcores would go to the newb servers, then just buy multiple accounts.

Curses, foiled again.

I didn't expect the spending differential to be that much higher, though.  Interesting.

[Xilren's Twin]

*  Power gamers, accounting for 11 percent of the market but almost a third of retail and online game spending;

That's the point of the distinction.  Doesn't matter if there are 5 kinds of casual gamers, they are still only 66% of the spending but 89% of the market.  The hardcore (power) group is spending roughly four times as much money per person.  That group has both the money and time to do well; it is the difference between a Pro and an Amateur.  It doesn't matter so much to the gamer why you're in the second bracket, only that you are but still made to compete in the pro circuit.

Two things; while I think that it is useful to get that sort of market breakdown, I still think they are approaching it from too high a level for the mmorpg genre.   I.e. if you're a mmorpg developer, would the "incidental" and "occasional" gamers even matter to you b/c it's not like you can impulse buy such a title?  Box purchase/digital purchase + monthly sub is not conducive to those two markets.  MMORPG are all about stickiness and long term retention.

That being said, you coud do that same survey among 2000 random mmorpg players and get a similar breakdown with lower percentages in leisure the above two, but that's hardly surprising.  Almost any entertainment activity you can think of has that same sort of "power gamer" segment who spend way more than their corresponding casual counterparts. 

Take golf; are you hardcore and buy the brand new expensive clubs to eek out every yard on your drive, pay for lessons, and join a country club? Do you play semi-regularly a few times a month with people from work? Or do you only play with your drinking buds once in a blue moon?

Take MtG: do you play a few games for fun with you buds, do you road trip once a month to PtQs in hope of cracking a pro tour invite, or are you a Mr Suitcase or Pro Tour regular?

The $64,000 question is "how do you let the existance of these market segments affect your game design?"

Xilren

[Koyasha]

    *  Power gamers, accounting for 11 percent of the market but almost a third of retail and online game spending;
    * Social gamers who account for 13 percent of the market and play games as a way of interacting with friends;
    * Leisure gamers carry some 14 percent of the market, and spend nearly 60 hours a month playing—they spend time mainly on casual titles, but prefer challenging games and are interested in new gaming services;
    * Dormant gamers who account for a whopping 26 percent of the market and who don't play much because of family, work, or school, but like to play challenging games, and play with friends and family;
    * Incidental gamers account for 12 percent of the market and play games mainly out of boredom—but they're bored more than 20 hours a month;
    * and Occasional gamers, who play mainly word, board, and puzzle games annd account for a massive 24 percent of the market.

I'm not sure I agree with this.  According to this, 11 + 14 + 26 percent, or 51% of gamers should "like to play challenging games" (one makes the assumption that power gamers like challenging games, though it's not explicitly stated).  Maybe that's what people wrote in a survey or something, but it doesn't seem like the reality, not when you consider the huge popularity of World of Warcraft vs. most other MMOG's, which are nowhere near as easy.  Perhaps that's a more general statement considering primarily single-player games or small-scale multiplayer games, but it doesn't seem to hold true for MMOG's.

[NowhereMan]

Also depends on what you mean by challenging, most MMORPGs aren't what I'd consider challenging in terms of gameplay but simply time investment. Maybe when you get on to raids the personnel management side of things gets tough but I don't really think of trying to get 30+ people in the same place ,at the same time as part of the gameplay either. WoW does better than most MMORPGs because it manages to take the same Diku gameplay elements and implement them in a fairly fun way, with the minimum of pointless timesinks.

In other words all these groups want challenging games but only a few of them would measure that solely in time required.

[Yegolev]

As a Dormant Gamer, I would just like to say that this shocking expose solves nothing.

[Dren]

Physically segregate the casuals from the harcore if they choose to do so.  If you don't like the competition getting more hours in per week than you, start up on a more casual server.

Hardcores would go to the newb servers, then just buy multiple accounts.

And how does that give your characters an advantage?  They will each still be limited to their progression just like everyone else.  Yeah, you could send each them items, etc., but that won't make that big of a difference, not in WoW at least.  While twinking helps, it doesn't add anything like 20% of an advantage.

If you are limited to 10 hours per week per account per server, twinking won't be a big enough advantage for the truely casual (10 or less per week) to cry.  Hell why would hardcores do this to themselves anyway?  What advantage would it get them?  I figured it would be a major PITA for them.  I think they'd just go for the open servers.

[schild]

Dormant, Casual.

Potato. Potato.

Whatever. Who cares. There's two types of gamers. People who spend money and people who pirate. Market to the ones that spend money.

For $10,000, I'll write up a white paper.

/weak

[Roac]

Hell why would hardcores do this to themselves anyway?  What advantage would it get them?  I figured it would be a major PITA for them.  I think they'd just go for the open servers.

They'll do it to win.  Seriously, they don't need another reason.  It's the same reason why people figure out how to beat hearts online, then spend DAYS of active gaming time getting and maintaining the top score by raping newbs.  If it's fun for people to play, some of those people will do whatever it takes to beat the rest of them. That's just how it goes.

[Azazel]

That's the point of the distinction.  Doesn't matter if there are 5 kinds of casual gamers, they are still only 66% of the spending but 89% of the market.  The hardcore (power) group is spending roughly four times as much money per person.  That group has both the money and time to do well;

Of course, in a monthly-subscription, MMOG setting, it doesn't matter if they'd pay more than the casual or whatnot, since it's a flat rate.

Unless you're selling additional aftermarket trinkets ingame.