*Via Raph Koster.
http://boesky.blogspot.com/2009/03/game-business-is-year-from.html
(...)
...this past week I saw some slides for an ESA speech indicating the average age of a gamer has risen to 35, or roughly, the median age of the US population. I suppose reaching this point was inevitable, but in the back of my mind, I always thought the aging would slow down. At some point it would have to reflect the disproportionate number of people under 25 playing games. After all, our consumer used to be younger than the median age of the population, and you would think, like the movie business with an average age a full 3 years younger, our product would appeal disproportionately to the demographic universally recognized as more likely to spend money.
Those of us who have aged out of the 18 to 35 focus of media can appreciate the dwindling selection of interesting product coming from savvy media channels who know how to make laser focused offerings for the most lucrative segment of the market. We are relegated to the "Bye Bye Birdie" lament of "Kids these days" when considering the most popular content in every media but our own. I know its an old reference, that's how our kids feel about our stuff. It would be great to say we are not "our father's games" but when looking at the most recent offerings to my thirteen year old son and the upcoming blockbusters - Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, Tom Clancy's latest kill the foreigners, The Godfather 2, WWE Smackdown 286, Final Fantasy 15 or so, even Guitar Hero with Metallica and other songs that were old when I tried to find a dance partner in junior high, followed by this year's big excitement The Beatles - I realize they ARE his father's games.
Over the course of twenty-five years we got really good at making games for gamers. We taught them how to play and what they should pay and then followed them through the market. Our planning stages focus on what they will buy, and if we can't confirm they will buy it with a high degree of certainty, we don't make the product. The games are so tailor made to the desires and skills of these gamers, they are about as easy for mainstream consumers of entertainment to crack as ancient Mandarin dialect. No one wants to work for their entertainment. There was a time, not so long ago - last cycle - when this audience was enough. A one million seller was extremely profitable. Two million had publishers doing cart wheels. Anything more had them taking money out in wheelbarrows. Today, two million is break even. Before it was nice to tap into a little itty bitty corner of the mainstream with something like GTA, Halo or Tomb Raider. Now it is imperative for our own survival. Our aging consumer, steady tie ratio, and consistent unit sales numbers across generations of console indicates our business is not really growing the way it could, should or has to. The initial ship of this year's Street Fighter IV was the same size as the initial ship of Tomb Raider 2 eleven years ago. In other words, we are not exceeding the patterns established by prior console generations. Like the movie industry touting box office growth when all they do is raise ticket prices, we are enjoying relative unit growth as a function of generation growth in the installed base, rather than growth in the number of game consumers. Worse yet, our audience is aging. An aging audience means less dollars spent. The Wii has the lowest number of consumers in the 18 to 24 demographic, and it also has the lowest tie ratio among the platforms....
