I've recently sent out a customer satisfaction survey for 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, to about 1,000 people who purchased the game. I'm still analyzing the results, and will be publishing the information here. Let's start with a demographic question I asked: How Old Are You?
Surveys about gamer demographics produce many different results, but one I've seen often states that the average gamer is 29 years old. That does not appear to be the case with 1893: A World's Fair Mystery. The average age of my respondents? Try 48. The youngest respondent was 20 years old, the oldest, 80. Here's a pie chart that breaks down the audience in more detail:
Here is the same data again in a bar chart. The "bell curve" of respondents, peaking at middle age and older, is clearer here:
I have found no statistical correlation between age and liking or disliking the game. In other words, a 24 year old seems just as likely to enjoy, or not enjoy, 1893:AWFM as a 74 year old.
What does this information tell us? Here are some thoughts I have:
1. Advertising in traditional print computer game magazines probably won't provide a lot of value, as they target that 29 year-old age group that appears to be too busy playing first-person shooters to take the time to get absorbed in reading a game.
2. Adults who turn to computers late in life tend to trend towards the Mac. To really appeal to this group of users, then, the install and play of a game on a Mac should be easy and seamless. After all, most Mac buyers in this group purchased one instead of a PC because of the promise of ease of use, a promise which, due to the complicated nature of the install of 1893 on a Mac (classic mode using HyperTADS), I broke immediately upon the sale.
3. There is a large audience out there not being catered to by the mainstream gaming companies, but who will buy and play a game if the subject matter is interesting enough.
And so on...add your own additional observations.
Comments
Peter,
Interesting statistics on the demographics of your gamers. I'm 52 and it seems that the median age of your users includes those of us who enjoyed the text adventure (Infocom) games of the early 1980's. Playing 1893 combines the same challenging mental puzzles, engaging story lines, witty prose and fine detail as we enjoyed in Zork, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Holywood Hijinks and A Mind Forever Voyaging. I think the younger gamers who grew up on Xbox are used to a lot more visual action and miss the subtlties of a good text adventure game.
Posted by: Rick Kaiser | July 7, 2007 11:07 PM
Spot-on statistics and analysis.
Though I'm 33 and have not actually played commercial IF games in their heyday (busy playing the Nintendo and so on), I find myself today in an age valuing much more good literature than flashy graphics at the million-polygons-per-second figures. Written narrative is a complete different beast than objective scenes viewed from a camera: in literature, the author can be witty, sarcastic and funny in a way that no camera can ever really possibly convey... that's what draws me to it more than anything else.
Posted by: Ricardo Malafaia | July 15, 2007 02:17 AM
Surprisingly, I am 29 (exactly!) and I just barely had the opportunity to enjoy some pieces of the commercial era. :)
Posted by: David Garcia | October 9, 2007 03:42 PM