Today I learnt about platforms and distribution. As a game designer, there are a number of things I need to know before building a game:
- Who is going to play the game , and how I am going to distribute the game to them (the person, platform, outlets and cost)
- What options are available regarding the level of production.
- What type of game I am making – Video game (high end, cutscenes – console, gaming PC) or computer game (includes mobile etc.)
- Pricing – It is actually cheaper to buy a physical copy of a game when taking into account the distribution costs (30%) that a company will add on so they do not lose money when digitally distributing.
- I need to know my game, audience and platform first of all.
After discussing these points and the pros and cons regarding them, I looked at the ESA Facts 2016 to see how they could influence my idea based on the information that was collected. After looking at the document, a number of things surprised me:
The first was how dramatically the percentage of male to female gamers had changed in a year. The percentage last year in the US had 49% Female to 51% Male. This year in US there were 41% Female gamers to 59% Male gamers. This is a very surprising and quite dramatic change for a year’s difference.
“The most frequent FEMALE GAME PLAYER is on average 44 years old and the average MALE GAME PLAYER is 35 years old”
This could have many causes. Inequality in the workplace is a viable cause based off what age the same level of expendable income will become available based on salary. Another may be prioritisation. Female game players may prioritise makeup over games for example, or the need for female sanitary items like tampons (these are taxed so can have an impact on where the money would be spent first). The same would be applied for cigarrettes, but that affects both males and females.
Most frequent purchases: 40% Female 60% Male
Parents buying games has a massive impact on this as it can skew the results if they are buying it for a child as a present.
“51% of the most frequent gamers play a multiplayer mode at least weekly”
This surprised me because of the percentage. I expected it to be closer to 60/70% given the fact that multiplayer is growing as a a primary feature in games.
The most surprising thing about these two top selling charts is the sheer number of Sims content that is in the “Top 20 Selling COMPUTER Games of 2015”
The most interesting thing I found out was how physical copies of games are usually cheaper than digital ones due to things like return fees.