1. The Industry & The Player
Gaming has become big business and a major cultural force, the reasons for gaming are as varied as the motivations of people that do it. This presentation focuses on who is playing the game, why they are playing and what the public in general is playing.

2. Why Games? Entertainment Education Training Art? Therapy Advertainment
Why people play games?
Entertainment – The most obvious choice, it is a distraction like movies, books and sports.
Training – as an interactive platform, the use of games to train people in tasks is a natural fit. Games train doctors on in mechanical surgery, pilots in flying and the US Army has used games in training since Doom.
Education - Gaming has always had a lot of educational titles that promote reading and match skills for early students and history for later students. Jim’s Second Life work as an example.
Community – the MMOG and PSW has integrated the social aspects of the Internet into an interactive platform, creating complex societies on-line.
Advertainment – Popular games provide a very effective way to perform target marketing and establish brand loyalty. Axe body spray traveling game booth as an example. Very tightly linked in franchise games like Madden.
Therapy – Games have been used to gradually introduce stress in patients with PTSD and phobias.
Art? – Games can be presented as artistic creations, with the point being a deeper appreciation of the game as a whole rather than simple task-based entertainment play.
Art?
Therapy
Advertainment
Community

3. Why do we do it? Social Interaction Seclusion Competition Knowledge
Mastery
Escapism
Addiction
Maybe a cigar is just a cigar ...
The motivation behind gameplay:
Social Interaction – the gathering of people with shared interest in PSWs or MMOGs (distances often separating small cultural groups) . Social games such as Rock Band also count under this heading.
Seclusion – The isolation form other people in single player games can be a draw. Draw of anonymity.
Competition – The Xbox achievement system is an extension of the classic high score table, promoting gameplay as competition. New studies show competition a main draw for male gamers -
Knowledge – the motivation behind educational games, learning more about some subject or topic.
Mastery – The compulsive desire to complete all the actions in the game. Another Xbox achievement points example.
Escapism – The classic tabletop RPG motivation – desire to be absorbed in another world.
Addiction – Could be real (endorphin release like gambling), could be a side effect of other conditions – autism, OCD
Maybe a cigar – Maybe they are just fun.

4. Who's Playing? 60/40 Male/Female Average Age 35
56/44 Male/Female split for online games
Average Age 35
Under 18's no longer main demographic
Most have been playing 13 years
Selling to Millennials and Gen X
Targeting important for Advertainment
All figures from ESA study of
Players are slightly more male, but online games have more women: In fact there are more Women over 18 (33% of total players) the males under 17 (18% of total players)
Average age is high due to the maturing of the audience that went on during the Playstation revolution – More total players over 50 (26%) then players under 18 (25%).
Average game purchaser is 40
Average player has 13 years playing (15 years for males, 12 for females).
59% of players play with physical company.
Targeting is now at emerging purchasing class – Millennials ( just graduating college and getting careers) and Gen X ( maturing and achieving greater income. Advertainment is especially important for groups trying to leverage into games, where direct advertising has been missing.

5. The Market All Stats taken from ESA:
Video console sales growth outpacing computers – computer games are transitioning to the sports car model that can give superior performance and flexibility at greater cost.
A plateau effect signals the next gen console in 2000 and 2006
Distinct difference in genres between console and computer – More strategy/RPG/Shooters on computer (performance and flexibility) and wider interest on console (casual players).

6. The Social Factor
Game sales for 2007 show a real rise in social games.
Computer sales are dominated by WoW and multiplayer like CoD4, Orange Box, Battlefield. The rest are online capable strategy that work better under mouse control.
Consoles provide greater range but have major online multiplayer (Halo3 and CoD4) and a LOT of games intended to be played together in person: Wii Play, The Guitar Heros, Madden, Mario Party/Kart

7. Worldwide VG Market Japan's domestic market fuelled US
China and the Asian Market
Spread of cheap broadband
Censorship Issues
Germany
Japan US
South Koreans ... too good?
NES was started in Japan and has prompted a lot of imported styles – Katamari, Final Fantasy …
China’s global rise makes for a large market for a growing middle class in a huge country. Asian countries have also adopted a lot of technology heavy development projects that provide workers for targeted development.
Cheap broadband makes for a greater audience for online games and digital distribution.
Censorship issues make for trouble marketing games on a worldwide scale:
No guns, blood or Nazis in Germany
Fallout 3 had to take out the Mini-Nuke weapon to sell the game in Japan
Any explicit sexual content is off-limits in the US, original Indigo Prophesy had interactive sex scene in it that was taken out for US distribution.
South Korea is a good example of some of the advantages of certain markets, Cheap almost universal broadband and embracing of video gaming as legitimate pastime.