Digital Distribution market share

oh ... Impulse is my favorite definitely. Thank you Stardock!

I don't actually have to be on line to play my games ... or even be running Impulse! yay!

I hate Steam, love Impulse, and am OK with D2D. I've purchased several titles on each.

From me:

Theres that troll again, when will he learn?

From OsirisDawn:

@FutileEmotion Coming from an analyst background myself i must say that Nesrie has a strong point here.

It doesnt matter in this discussion tho, 'cause Frogboys point was something completly different, as i understand.

Nesrie's point is very valid, I would agree - but I was actually picking at Frogboy, who, instead of just trolling his typical anti-Stardock rhetoric, has moved on to point out Direct2Drive's flaws.

Quoting alibenbaba,

reply 20

If you would add links to critics reviews and user reviews, and options to browse for similar titles this would potentially add more sales, and it would be a feature to distinguish Impulse from Steam. For every game, let users discuss the game. Let users add reviews etc etc. Integrate the Impulse community features into the sales features.

Absolutely agree, 100%. When I was pondering the Demigod/SupCom+XP bundle that was on sale this past weekend (which I eventually purchased), I had to go elsewhere to other sites to get a sense of what people thought of the games. Although I did buy the bundle in the end, I would have bought it faster if Impulse had user reviews on the sales page for the individual games.

Chris

IMO that would just give some people leave to be jerks and Stardock would have to spend extra time moderating that.

I'm fine with consumer activism, but you know I really don't care if people hate copy protection. I want to know about the game itself.

BTW Brad the whole 'debate' is just funny. I spent a little time talkin on Shacknews about it, but there weren't many commentors so I'm guessing people agree with you on the 'silly' bit.

how is steam still better than Impulse, i thought they are both very similar. And on Impulse, you get accessed to tech support in real time. Okay, there are better multiplayer support in steam apparently. But if you are talking about just plain digital distribution of buying games, i say impulse is better. At least you get the game much faster compare with steam.

Steam has integrated voice chat and IM stuff, the blogs are seperate from the forums, reinstalling everything onto a new machine is a lot easier...IMO as far as usability it's got Impulse beat for a while yet, but I'd take Impulse anyday.

I really like how Steam is setup better. With the profiles, joining my friends for L4D is a no brainer. I haven't used it for a 3rd party game yet so I am not sure if it is as smooth. Steam even tells me they've started it... it just great for multiplayer. I hate the color scheme, and some of the UI for both of them screams we didn't even try to sell this to women but we'll sit back and take credit that women found their way here anyway. Neither one of these stores really caters to women gamers at all, the 2009 report pretty much backs that up. As for DRM, it might not be important to you, but it no. 1 on my list so I don't know what youare point was on that. I guess I could say that I don't really care that some people really don't care about DRM and that get's us nowhere fast.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 33

Neither one of these stores really caters to women gamers at all

Neither do most games.

Quoting Savyg,

reply 34

Quoting Nesrie,
reply 33
Neither one of these stores really caters to women gamers at all

Neither do most games.

Oh well that justifies it. After all two wrongs make a right.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 35

Quoting Savyg, reply 34

Quoting Nesrie,
reply 33
Neither one of these stores really caters to women gamers at all

Neither do most games.

Oh well that justifies it. After all two wrongs make a right.

I don't think he said anything about right or wrong, just how it is.

It's not WRONG to market only to men. It's simply a reasonable marketing decision.

Middle Aged Males with a high disposeable income are the largest demographic in the world. From a business perspective, aiming your product for this demographic ensures the highest probability that you will see a positive return on your investment.

40% of the market of the gaming market is women. 60% of the market is not white men, there are minorities in there too. it is interesting to see that group still claim so much though. A majority, yes, but a shrinking majority.

I'm not sure who you're addressing there Nesrie, but I can't see anyone mentioning White Males. I mentioned Middle-Aged Men, which is a blanket demographic made up of several sub-demographics, such as White Males, which all share similar points and thus enable broad advertising campaigns or products to be aimed at the entire Male demographic. However, as we all know, this usually just involves sticking some impossibly proportioned woman on the front cover and calling it 'marketing'.

The best advertisements are the ones which simply advertise the product - Nintendo's brand of marketing employed for the Wii is particularly effective.

Most of the guys in this thread have also showed up in other threads saying they want to be catered to, as hardcore gamers, generally being unhappy that the mainstream games are supposedly, taking over... and yet hardcore gamers are the minority. Under that logic, stardock shouldn't even bother with their games, as it's not addressing the biggest market. The gaming industry catgers to young white males. It's not something i am making up. There are plenty of studies on this topic despite the fact that there young white men are not the largest demographic, and i've seen nothing that says that middle-aged men are either. But hey, i've seen people claim the majority rules plenty of times to know that won't stop them from saying the opposite when they become the minority.

I remember our discussion in another thread I made discussing the 'difficulty' of current games, and I eventually bowed to the point that hardcore gamers were simply no longer the majority in the gaming market. While this is true, and demographics as a whole are changing as gaming moves out of the basements and into the lounge rooms, Male gamers still remain the dominant force in the games industry.

It's not an absolute rule - companies can make games for other demographics and still be successful. Nintendo changed their entire mentality in two gaming generations and now basically have a licence to print money because they almost specifically aim for everyone other than the 'core demographic' that nearly all AAA titles via for. Games such as The Sims made gamers out of non-gamers, and thus essentially created an entirely new demographic. EA Games has seen the money in this and has begun moving it's entire production towards these non-core Demographics - part of this resulted in easier games, which is why I made my topic.

A quick read of this and that should help demonstrate what I mean. Middle-Aged Male gamers are still the primary demographic regardless of 'casual', 'hardcore', or whatever other labels you wish to use. Aiming Games for this Demographic ensures the highest probability of seeing a positive return on your investment - this is known as Risk Management, or 'Board Room Design'.

"The average age for a video game player is about 30^[1], a number slowly increasing as people who were children playing the first arcade, console and home computer games continue playing now on current systems^[2]. The gender distribution of gamers is reaching equilibrium, according to a 2005 study showing that 57% of gamers are male and 43% female^[1]."

All i want is for digital distributors to consider that women game too and might want to use their service so why not keep us in mind once in awhile when it comes to marketing and design. For some reason, that doesn't sit well with some guys probably because they aren't the ones that have to walk into a Gamestop and get hassled just trying to buy a game because stores that are fairly gender neutral, like Target and Walmart, don't carry the game, or because you want it now and not two weeks later when Amazon decides to ship it to me.

Apparently that's just asking too much.

And a quick read of those industry facts also points out that women are 40% of the market, middle age men are less than 60% of the rest that is not even close to a vast majority that justifies ignoring everyone else either.

I certainly understand your point, but looking at the Digital Distribution services currently dividing up the market, how would you suggest they change themselves to better suit their female demographic than the stereotypical, and not very realistic, 'Hello Kitty' skins and The Sims content?

If we broke down the Male and Female gender demographics into Age fragments, I believe we'd still see more Middle Aged Men then we would any other single fragment. And as I mentioned, the Middle Aged Male with a high disposable income is the target, not just Men in geneal. They target this group specifically because they simply have money to spend. Aiming all of your games for Tween Girls, for example, is aiming for a Demographic that simply doesn't have a lot of money because they're reliant on their parents for funding. It's about performance; aiming for finanically independant people will disposeable income is the safest way to ensure that someone is going to buy your product. However, as I mentioned above, the Demographics are changing - the focus demographic, or the 'core demographic', is rapidily shifting to people falling within the 'casual gamer' demographic which encompasses women, men, young, old, etc.

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 44

I certainly understand your point, but looking at the Digital Distribution services currently dividing up the market, how would you suggest they change themselves to better suit their female demographic than the stereotypical, and not very realistic, 'Hello Kitty' skins and The Sims content?

Right, it's comments like these that show just how sexist the gaming community can be. You think all women who plays games want pink games? I guess at this point, the conversation isn't even close to serious so I am done with it.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 45

Quoting ZehDon, reply 44I certainly understand your point, but looking at the Digital Distribution services currently dividing up the market, how would you suggest they change themselves to better suit their female demographic than the stereotypical, and not very realistic, 'Hello Kitty' skins and The Sims content?

Right, it's comments like these that show just how sexist the gaming community can be. You think all women who plays games want pink games? I guess at this point, the conversation isn't even close to serious so I am done with it.

Lol, you can't even tell when someones agreeing with you. They just said how the 'women gamers want pink games' is stereotypical and unrealistic, and you somehow take from that that they're saying the opposite?!

Quoting aeortar,

reply 46

Lol, you can't even tell when someones agreeing with you. They just said how the 'women gamers want pink games' is stereotypical and unrealistic, and you somehow take from that that they're saying the opposite?!

He's not agreeing with me. He's doing what a lot of men do. Lumping a stereotypical game, a pink game, which is basically Japan's barbie and linking it with the Sims. This rejection of the Sims series by the so called hardcore gamers is right up there with the rejection of the Wii. Women like the Wii and the Sims series disproportionately, I suspect, than the other consoles and many other series. For one thing, the marketers of those games and hardware actually gave a damn and tried to market to women, except the difference between the Sims series and the Wii to most the crap games that come out with glitter and pink on it, is the Sims series is a quality game, and the Wii console has a lot to offer.

So yeah, when women say that want to be acknowledged in the marketplace, that is not a call to bash games some of us like and try to lump every game that might remotely interest women and/ or girls into one giant pile and label it all stereotypical. It's going to take actual effort to appeal to women gamers not just some half-assed attempts at guessing as to what it means to appeal to women gamers.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 45

Right, it's comments like these that show just how sexist the gaming community can be. You think all women who plays games want pink games? I guess at this point, the conversation isn't even close to serious so I am done with it.

Hardly, and I'm sorry if my comment came across like this. What I was trying - and obviously failed - to do was ask how can Digital Distribution services accomodate their female customers? As it stands, they hand out a few stereotypical skins and games and call it a day, which obviously isn't actually accomodating their female customers at all because female gamers don't want pink skins and The Sims - this is merely the 'corporate thinking' of how to deal with females gamers. Since we know what female gamers don't want, what do you suggest instead?

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 47

He's not agreeing with me. He's doing what a lot of men do. Lumping a stereotypical game, a pink game, which is basically Japan's barbie and linking it with the Sims. This rejection of the Sims series by the so called hardcore gamers is right up there with the rejection of the Wii.

Actually I was using The Sims has an example of the stereotypically perceived 'Female Game' which I thought I had shown was an example of the incorrect assumptions in play. I know as many guys as girls who own The Sims and I don't consider it a strickly 'female' game - however a lot of companies do and consider having The Sims on their catalogue as catering to their female demographic, which we both know is bullshit.

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 47

So yeah, when women say that want to be acknowledged in the marketplace, that is not a call to bash games some of us like and try to lump every game that might remotely interest women and/ or girls into one giant pile and label it all stereotypical. It's going to take actual effort to appeal to women gamers not just some half-assed attempts at guessing as to what it means to appeal to women gamers.

If you look at the market shifts over the last few years, it's easy to see why this happens - the rise in female gamers is coupled with the rise in 'casual' games, or 'non-games' as Nintendo calls them. Nintendogs, Brain Age, etc. As I asked above, what would you consider to be the best method for appealing to the female demographic? I'm not trying to be rude or sexist - I'm simply asking the question to a female gamer who is in a better position to answer it than a male gamer like myself.

What has to change in marketing games to female's? I mean a FPS is still a FPS and nothing changes about it if a guy or gal play it. Same with just about any other game. I think the difference really is in the *type* of game that is available that appeals to women and has nothing really to do with marketing on the part of a Steam or Impulse.

My wife likes to play games. "Back in the day" we used to play Doom and Quake deathmatches against each other. If she likes a FPS like Doom I don't see how any type of marketing can be directed right at women, it doesn't make sense. You either like those types of games or you don't.

The problem my wife has now is that her tastes have changed to games that are more puzzles and mysteries. CSI, Nancy Drew and games like that. The problem is that there aren't that many of those types of games out there. Not the marketing. We were both excited to see the latest CSI game on Impulse as she finally got a game thru the service. I've asked for Stardock to make a deal with Her Interactive to get the Nancy Drew games on here, she buys every single one but is a couple behind. So if they don't get it soon on Impulse we'll be getting them at Best Buy.

So I guess I'm confused like others, what different should be done for marketing to the female gamer? Again, in my eyes as well as my wife's when I asked her this question, you either like thetype of game in question or you don't. Marketing is marketing, right?

At the moment the only thing Impulse does better than steam is that you can actually choose where to install the software.

This can also be seen as an advantage of Steam. It's a matter of taste, probably.

Impulse creates files all over the place. There is an archive file location, a temporary files location, a software applications location and a games applications location. With Steam everything is in one place and you always only have to save/copy your Steam folder, if you want to backup or transfer your games, without having to redownload them. You don't even have to reinstall Steam for that.

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