Oct
25
Gamers Unite?! Better Game Developers Unite!
Posted by: marvinamm | October 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Hello Everyone,
As Christopher Matthew notices in his blog post Gamers Unite! some if not most of the experiences of gamers of different platforms can be extended well beyond these platforms and could actually extend into other genres of games as well. When I watched the posted video showing all these iconic characters in this epic storyline with the conclusion of the actual player being the real hero of countless battles I could not help but feel heroic, epic, mighty even and all of this although I have never played any of the shown games as I do not own a PlayStation and never did but I can still identify with the medium. Some of these characters are so iconic that many if not all gamers of regardless what platform have heard of them and have some positive association with these franchises.
When I watched it first I did not know that this is an ad for PS3 but rather regarded it as a general advertising for games in general. Maybe just maybe the targeting segment for future games developers should not be the platform that the games run on but rather some common trait that most/all gamers share alike. Successful cross-platform games developers such as Electronic Arts have known this for a long time and subsequently positioned their products in a way that appeal to common gamer characteristics without making the platform they are developing for a major segmentation basis. I personally think that this is the way to go for games developers because as focusing on only one platform undoubtedly has its advantages the disadvantage of a loss of a major(!) segment of the gaming industry for which the product in theory could easily cater to outweighs the advantages.
The take home point I want to convey here is that one has to be very careful in choosing the segmentation basis and use reasonable, effective and meaningful segmentation basis and in my opinion games platform does not fulfill these criteria thus it should not be used as a major segmentation basis.