SteamSpy - Your Target Audience Doesn't Exist

Silver

Silver

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SteamSpy has combed through its figures and come to some interesting conclusions.

...

The rise of INSERT_TERM_HERE

I get it. It makes for a good headline "The rise of MOBA". "The fall of core gamer". "The rise of China". And it's usually an interesting read, filled with data. Data that's both well-described and convincing, because if MOBA are on the rise and core gamers are no longer the majority, it makes sense to apply this knowledge somehow, right?

And of course you should, but don't target any new market or new audience just because you've suddenly realized it exists. Dota 2 audience exists, there are around 55 million gamers that have tried it and 9.5 million gamers have played it in the last two weeks.

Does it mean they're enjoying MOBA? Yes.

Does it mean they will even take a peek at yours? Nope, they're too busy.

And same goes for the lucrative Chinese mobile market, by the way.

[...]
Click to expand...
More information.
 
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An article about marketing that is particularly unhelpful to marketers. "Give up, you're not going to sell any games." Perhaps what it doesn't consider though is word of mouth effects. That small group of gamers that buy lots of games also talk to other gamers, if only through forums and review comments. Perhaps what they should be targeting then is user reviews and finding ways to improve their games for those people?
 
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Some interesting points were raised. Tnx for sharing Silver.
 
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Heh.
This justifies (again) the Eternal Wisdom, that is:
Nobody Knows Anything.
(thanks Mr W.G!)

Being an old sage in the industry, I often used to say, that success cannot be engineered, trends are often momentarily, and the only strategic choice you could make early on is this:
1 Hop on the bandwagon.
2 Or not.

Both have pro's and con's, so choose wisely, young padawan :)
 
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rjshae said:
An article about marketing that is particularly unhelpful to marketers. "Give up, you're not going to sell any games." Perhaps what it doesn't consider though is word of mouth effects. That small group of gamers that buy lots of games also talk to other gamers, if only through forums and review comments. Perhaps what they should be targeting then is user reviews and finding ways to improve their games for those people?
Click to expand...

I agree that word of mouth is pretty important. Most non AAA games which are successful have a very high average user rating on Steam. Games which release with only moderate or poor reviews are usually dead in the water. Also the number of positive reviews help. A lot of developers beg on their forum for reviews, because apparently the number of positive reviews can push a game up the Steam page.
 
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forgottenlor said:
A lot of developers beg on their forum for reviews, because apparently the number of positive reviews can push a game up the Steam page.
Click to expand...

...and here comes the Eternal Question: how to convert good reviews to sweet dollars? ;)
 
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Any type of reviews will push the game up, doesn't matter if it's thumb up or thumb down, it's generated buzz that matters.
How to convert reviews into dollars? Get a game reviewer job at IGN. Offers will start raining, you won't know which game to praise first and there will be so many of them you'll have to fastrun or completely ignore everything except the main story so you can at least have an idea what are you writing about.
 
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Interesting read, thanks Silver.
 
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Oh rats, I thought this was an update to the original article. I would be in the 1% now, but I wasn't back in 2015. Oh well.
 
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