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Old 01-24-2005, 11:59 AM   #1
Jake
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Default Groups overlooked by AG developers? "Yes, boys 8 - 13."

Okay so I just finally read Ask the Developers. This bit totally caught my eye:

Quote:
Are there specific groups that are interested in adventure gaming that have been overlooked by developers?

Carolyn: Yes, boys 8 - 13.
Holy crap how right is she? How old was I when I was hooked on adventure gaming (how old were you?)... I was 11. The games? Monkey Island 2, Day of the Tentacle. I think LucasArts thought they were selling those games to an older audience but I bet 8-13 year old boys were their bread and butter.

Sidebar: It is probably a sad sign that those same games appeal to me now (or maybe its a sign of their timeless quality ) but the fact that this audience (and that type of game) is ignored is, as usual, baffling to me.

Later in that same question Tony mentions Harry Potter, which is a good example, but I don't think its quite the same as what appealed to me. Harry Potter is something that at first glance looks like its for a very very young audience but at close examinination appeals to older people too, but the stuff I liked when I was 10-13 (or whatever) was stuff that maybe at first glance looked, to me, like it was targeted at people exactly my age, or possibly a bit older. The LucasArts games didn't talk down to me, they didn't try to be cooler than they were (or more innocent than they were). They just tried to be interesting, by being adventurous, fantastic(al), and loaded with comedy, clever storytelling, striking artwork, weird sci fi and mysticism.

Sidebar: For more on this subject matter see: good comic books.

I think marketeers are under the impression that they've lost the 8-13 year old demographic to kids obsessed with being cool late teenagers and not interested in the stuff kids that age used to be interested in... but that's a huge load of bullshit. Kids may dress slightly more trendily and listen to different music, but far as I can tell they still like cheezy action adventure cartoons on the WB and crap like that. Many of them probably have spider man posters on their wall and that sort of thing too. I don't know.

When it comes to games, these kids might be playing Grand Theft Auto and other games where you shoot and blow people up (Mercenaries? heh), but I don't think that, to them, it's that much different from my friends and I playing Contra, or Double Dragon or something. There aren't prostitutes that you run over in Contra, but it's still a lot of slightly abstracted mowing down a billion guys. GTA and the like are just the evolution of that genre of game. I played that kind of game all the time, but that doesn't mean I didn't also play silly platformers, fantasy adventure games, or graphic adventures.

Just because you do one (eg: play violent action games) doesn't mean you don't do the other (eg: play adventure games). That was the case when I was a kid/early teen, and I don't think the way human beings and their minds are constructed has changed that much in ten years, so it's probably the same now.

Sidebar: Adults and late teens are like that too. You know, capable of liking many kinds of games. Some people here don't seem to grasp that idea either, so maybe that's where the problem lies.
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Last edited by Jake; 01-24-2005 at 12:04 PM.
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