To help me decide who my core audiences might be I conducted some research looking at statistics as well as some games reviews which were similar to my game to see the overall feedback that they received.
To start off I found that the top video game genres were the following:
Here was a run down for all platforms which was really handy to see however due to me choosing PC as my main platform I wanted to focus on what were the main genres.
Seeing that adventure games were in the top 3 was reassuring as my game is predominantly an adventure style game so knowing that it’s a popular genre within PC gamers is a good start. rocketbrush.com. (2024).
My next form of research was to see the different demographics that do play online games & to see which age bracket of the audience would be most likely to play my game.
To no surprise young teens to early adults were the main audience for playing online games, this is useful to know as I was aiming my game at 16+ so seeing that 83% players are between those ages fills me with confidence that I could reach a wide audience of players. Baker, N. (2023).
Here was the run down for gender over the past years with it becoming closer to 50/50 between both male and female gamers which is definitely an improvement. Baker, N. (2023).
Because I would deem my game to be more on the cosy side I also wanted to look at how much it would cost for players to have a decent set up.
On the BBC they mentioned that it can be anywhere from £200 to £4000, which is an expensive investment. However, within this article it mentioned how good cosy games were for peoples mental health so even though it could be an expensive investment it might be worth it for the mental health benefits that it can offer. Bowdidge, S. (2024).
Game Reviews
I’m going to look at some of the reviews for two games and see what the overall feedback for those were.
Before I Forget was the first game that I decided to look at as it had a similar type of feel to my own game False Front. Overall the reviews were positive with lots of people commenting on how touching it was and made them feel quite emotional. Although for some they didn’t like that it was only a 40-45 minute game, which when thinking of my own game I planned for it to be more on the shorter style type of game, so it might be that for some people the playing time might put them off.
Florence, I was first introduced to the game Florence in year 1 by my teacher Emma. It was a nice, simple game that had a touching story. Again the reviews were mostly similar saying it had a touching story and was simple to navigate but again the playing time was too short however due to the fact it had so many positive reviews I feel like it out ways the slightly critical ones.
Overall, I would say my targeted audience will be between the age demographic of 16-24, but in terms of gender even though it is a women’s story of dealing with autism I still believe that anyone could play this even if they don’t relate they will be able to learn.