Who is included in video games and gambling audience?
How many times have you heard a statement that video games are for kids or that only bad guys go to casino? How many times have you been judged looking at games you play in your free time, or looking at the fact you play games at all? Is it really so unusual for adults to enjoy video games? Read on to see what are the age groups of players and what kind of games are played by each group.
Who plays video games?
Everyone. Surprised? Studies, performed by companies from the gaming industry, have shown that the average age of people playing video games is 30 years old. These people have responsibilities, mortgages, duties, work and children of their own, yet they are the ones who are most likely to enjoy video game during their pastime than anything else. Let us take a closer look at each age group and what kind of games are chosen by them.
Children
Most of the kids nowadays were born in the digital era of video games, and all kind of games are part of their lives. They even encounter games at school as a way to deliver information to them. Children are surrounded by games, and it is harder and harder for parents to keep up what they kids are playing and if this is appropriate for them. This might be especially hard, when parents are not familiar with the gaming industry and titles on the market. Kids often reach for productions that are not designated for their age.
Such behaviour results in bad name for gaming industry around parents, because they claim, their child became violent because of the certain game, even if symbols and description simply state that this game is designated for more mature players. Abuse of age limits leads to negative influence on kids that may encounter themes such as violence, sex, death and criminal activity earlier than they suppose to.
Teenagers
Another age group, teenagers, are also ones who grew up in the era of highly developed video games, and they are familiar with all shades of them, from the violent Grand Theft Auto series to the more peaceful Animal Crossing. Teenagers enjoy video games, they treat those as social interactions playing online, on friend’s servers and sharing the experience and achievements.
They are also the group, that is the most tested and monitored by the gaming industry, especially the gambling one, because these people are going to be their main audience in the future, so in planning investments for years ahead, companies needs to know what are the expectations of this particular group. Teenagers are flexible and keen on trying new games, new technologies on new devices, so they are the perfect target group to introduce projects and beta-versions of games and consoles.
The great limitation of aiming to teenagers as main audience is their budget, since they can only buy things using their pocket money, some low-income part-time jobs or via their parents as gifts. Having limited resources, teenagers are more picky concerning the choice of video games to play, so the producer need to really impress this group by making their production viral and wanted on the market.
Young adults
People, who remember one of the first, modern console generations such as Xbox, PlayStation 2 or Nintendo Wii. These people have been observing the growth of gaming market and the introduction of every new gadget, game and technology. What is a difference between this group and teenagers is that young adults have more money to spend on whatever they want, so producers can target this group with more expensive titles.
This is also a first group, that can be chosen as audience for gambling games. As they are familiar with almost all new technologies, young adults are keen to play on mobile devices, consoles and PCs. They are the most flexible group, but also one of the most demanding one as they are familiar with all games, so it is harder to impress them. They are also more aware of the dangers on the Internet and not so easily scammed as older part of the society. Furthermore, they seek for safe connection and gaming environment that will not endanger their devices to be attacked by malware and viruses.
Adults
In this group, there are more people who play occasionally, rather than spending all free time to do so. Adults are familiar with some games, and they like to stick with the classics, and it is hard to implement new technologies and game titles to get their attention. They have higher budget than groups above, but less time to dedicate to gaming, and gambling activities since they need to divide it between work, family, all responsibilities connected with running a household and sleep.
They are open to pay more for their entertainment, but they are expecting a certain level of quality to be content that they spent their time to play a particular game. So the main target for video games producers should be customers’ satisfaction, and the worst feedback they can get from this group is that they’ve wasted their time playing the game.
Seniors
Elder people might not be familiar with digital games, but they are more keen on gambling in its traditional form. They are not treating casino games as a source of money, or even entertainment, but more as a social event in which they can have a nice conversation over the match of chess, backgammon or a card game with friends. Casinos are getting more and more modern, with loud slot machines, and digital versions of games that are inconvenient for elders to play. Seniors remember the old “fruit machines” with manual lever and pennies instead of chips.
They are not the best target group for an online casino/kasyno internetowe with a modern approach, but more and more seniors are using smartphones, often taught by their grandkids how to use those devices. Online casinos, and game makers who would like to aim for senior clientele, should create their games to have simple UX, old school, familiar design and classic rules. Adding online competition experience might be an additional feature, but need to be transparent and easy to understand.
Conclusion
It would be a perfect situation for game makers if they could create a universal game, that is enjoyable for all the age groups. It is extremely high, and the most they can get by trying to please everyone, are individuals from each group playing this game, not the majority. That is why producers typically target one, or two groups (often the ones that are next to each other, so kids and teenagers, or teenagers and young adults). They tailor their game to satisfy these groups and hope for the game to become popular, and the word is spread by itself within the society.