Target Audience

When I came back to modelling my character in Term 3, I have realised that the design that I made was horrible and the model had many issues in the geometry. That is why I decided to remove all clothes and change the concept almost completely. Here is my new research for the target audience.

After I researched the Global Trends for this year in the game industry it was time for me to determine my target audience. In the post "Global Trends" I found out that current Trends are:

- realistic art style

- most players are between the age of 15 to 34, so the average age is 24

- the most popular genre is an action for men and casual for women

- males prefer consoles and women select smartphones for gaming in the mentioned age group

- diversity and inclusiveness are now being promoted in the game industry and half of the players acknowledge the importance of it

- the most frequently bought titles are destined for a 16+ audience

Having this information I would like to make a character attractive for 15-34 years olds, probably mostly for men as women are usually playing casual games on smartphones and I am aiming for consoles or PCs. I know from my findings that men are most likely enjoying action video games, so that is the genre that I want to pursue. 

I am intending to make my character diverse in comparison to most games, with his own culture based on history or already existing communities. The one that I am particularly interested in is shamanism. I would like to make him part of an open world. And according to Chris J Capel (2021), some of the best open-world games are Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013), Days Gone (Bend Studio, 2019) and Watch Dogs (Ubisoft, 2016). All these three titles are action-adventure genre, so I will choose the same one. 

In short:

Age: 15-34 years olds

Gender: Mostly men

Genre: Action-adventure

Themes: Adventure/ Story-based/ Historical

Art style: Realism

If my audience is 15-34-year-old I should categorise it to the proper age rating, so I can get clear cues from PEGI (2021). PEGI has only five age Labels: 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+, 18+. I will round the youngest age of my audience to 16, to allow my character to be destined for 16+. It grants the world my shaman would be in to be more realistic because it can contain graphic looking violence, sexual activity or the use of illegal substances (PEGI 2021).

I chose to create a realistic character because this style is the most popular in the world at the moment and also the most popular in PEGI 16 games (Will Freeman, 2017). At the same time according to Comic Book Artist (2018) characters for teens (12-17 years olds) should look believable, have realistic body proportions and more details. Shading should be used more intensively with cool and warm colours. And characters for adults should be the most realistic (Comic Book Artist, 2018).

To study the psychographics of my audience I read Richard Bartle's journal Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades (1996). According to him, there are four different gamer's profiles: Killers, Achievers, Socialisers and Explorers. I think that my audience would be Explorers because Explorers like to discover new things, interact with the world. I could support this argument with the fact that my character would be a shaman with historically accurate clothing, which would be interesting for Explorers who are curious about the world.

Bibliography:

Journals:

Richard Bartle, 1996. HEARTS, CLUBS, DIAMONDS, SPADES: PLAYERS WHO SUIT MUDS.

Video Games:

Bend Studio, 2019. Days Gone [CD], PlayStation 4. San Mateo: Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Rockstar North, 2013. Grand Theft Auto V [CD], PlayStation 3. New York City: Rockstar Games, Inc.

 Ubisoft, 2016. Watch Dogs 2 [CD]. PlayStation 4. Montreuil: Ubisoft Entertainment SA

Websites:

Chris J Capel, 2021. The best open-world games on PC [online]. . Available at: https://www.pcgamesn.com/best-open-world-games. [Accessed 23/06/2021]

Comic Book Artist, 2021. Character Planning – Genre, Audience, Aesthetic [online]. Available at: https://www.creativecomicart.com/character-creation-4---planning.html [Accessed 23/06/2021]

PEGI, 2021. What do the labels mean? [online]. . Available at: https://pegi.info/what-do-the-labels-mean. [Accessed 23/06/2021]

Will Freeman, 2017. Video Game Charts by PEGI Age Rating – Sept 16th [online]. . Available at: https://www.askaboutgames.com/video-game-charts-by-pegi-age-rating-sept-16th. [Accessed 23/06/2021]