This document discusses research into defining the target audience for an online casual game. It analyzes data on player demographics, preferences, and popular existing games. The key findings are: - The target audience is mainly casual male gamers aged 12+ who prefer strategic adventure games that provide competition. - Females prefer more relaxed puzzle games while males prefer games with social and competitive elements like shooters. - Gamers are motivated by problem-solving, achievement, and escapism rather than storylines. - Input from a focus group suggested the game needs a unique quality, challenging objectives, and simple yet entertaining gameplay.

1. FMP Task 2
By Chris Munro

2. Viability
• Online game websites host hundreds, some even thousands of games that are free to play. So to
generate revenue ads are placed on the website. Miniclip is the largest an most profitable online
game websites. According to WorthofWeb.com they estimate Miniclip gets 1,346,015 Daily Visits
generating a Daily Revenue of $9,288, Monthly Revenue of $278,640 and $3,343,680 Annual
Earnings. They estimate Miniclips Overall net worth is $ 32,478,740
(http://www.worthofweb.com/website-value/miniclip.com)
• In an interview Rob Small (CEO and Co-Founder) said ‘Miniclip, which has been profitable from year
1, generated between 20 and 30 million euros in revenue in 2010, Small told us. Most of that
comes from advertising, but the company also sells subscriptions and virtual goods, and is betting
big on mobile, especially iPhone and Android.’ (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-01-
21/tech/29962467_1_social-games-facebook-miniclip-com)
• Thanks to Google we now have ‘AdSense’. AdSense works with millions of advertisers to help
deliver high quality relevant ads, resulting in more revenue for you. It works by you pasting ad code
on your site. In a real-time auction, advertisers bid to show in your ad spaces . The highest paying
ad will show on your site. AdSense then handle the process of billing all advertisers and networks
for the ads on your site, to make sure you receive your payments.

3. Audience Profiling
• BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) did research to improve understanding
of what players enjoy about video games and to explain their preferences for
particular games. I’ve pulled out some of the findings to help me define and target
my audience.
• Gender :
• Female - female gamers tend to play less first person shooters, sports and hack
and slash games, they seem to prefer more relaxed games such as puzzle’s or
games like ‘The Sims’ a ‘strategic life simulation’ game.
• Male – where as females stay calmer when gaming, males don’t they have this
drive for competition, for the social rewards the bragging rights, playing against
each other and help one another. Its fair to say that males are more inclined to
hack and slash, first person shooters and sports games.
• http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/Assets/documents/BBFCVideoGamesReport.pdf

4. Audience Profiling
• Competition – This bring an appeal to games, it’s a sense of achievement, they
want to win, get to the next level, or get the highest score. “Problem Resolution” is
key o progression in games. So gamers are continually confronted with another
little problem that opens the door to the next.
• Why Play Games? – Mainly gamers play games because they enjoy it. Games can
be rewarding in many ways. And is an easy absorbing way to pass the time that
compares well with the alternatives of chatting, reading, playing a board game,
watching TV or a film. Gamers are able to escape their everyday lives, into a
alternate environment that is structured by safe learnable, reliable rules. Gamers
are in control, and when something happens, they have made it happen it gives
them sense of achievement.
• Gameplay – Surprisingly storylines appear to be quite weak in the overall appeal
to the game. Gamers may have some curiosity about how the element within the
game will come together, but they are more concerned about solving problems
and making progression through the game. For example “Tomb Raider” gamers
steadily unlock the inevitable narrative they are not held by the story, but by the
problem solving.

5. Questionnaire Online Questionnaire

6. Questionnaire Results
Female , 2
Male, 16

7. Age Groups
6
5
4
3 Male
Female
2
1
0
15 - 17 18 - 20 21 - 24 25 +

8. How often do you Play Games?
7
6
5
4
Male
3
Female
2
1
0
All The time Often Sometimes Never

9. What type of games do you play?
9
8
7
6
5
4
Male
3
2 Female
1
0

10. Which do you prefer?
Games that …
6
5
4
3
Male
2 Female
1
0
Focus on High Follow Narrative Upgrade Games other
Scores

11. Focus Group
I held a focus group of 4 people to discuss what makes an
appealing online casual game, and what my game should
include. From this I was able to find out the name play a major
role in the appeal, if it doesn’t sound good it they wont play it.
They said the game needs to have a unique quality to it, and the
artistic style will make the game all the more worth while
playing. I then asked ‘what do you like to see in a short casual
game?’ They said it has to be different each time, it needs
challenging objectives and it has to be simple yet entertaining.

12. Audience Profiling
• Looking at the research from BBFC as well as my own I have been able to
narrow down and distinguish my target audience. My estimated age group
is 12+. My audience is going to be mainly casual male gamers, who like
strategic adventure games, that can stimulate Competition. When
designing my game I will take this information into consideration and
make it suitable for this audience.

13. Popular Arcade Games
For my research I decided to look at popular online games from various websites. However
most of the website I came across didn’t include game ratings and/or hits (number of times
played). They mainly just displayed there current ‘Popular Games’.
http://www.freewebarcade.com/
Site -
http://www.notdoppler.com/

14. Popular Arcade Games
I started off my research looking at popular arcade games from various platforms such
as Xbox and Mobile
http://www.reviewtrax.com/bestof2012/xbla https://play.google.com/store/apps/category/A
This shows Xbox’s most popular/downloaded RCADE?feature=category-nav
games of 2012 This is the top paid games on the ‘Google Play’
Market.

15. Sources
• http://www.eldergame.com/2008/05/define-
your-target-audience/
• http://www.sbbfc.co.uk/Assets/documents/B
BFCVideoGamesReport.pdf