Groups overlooked by AG developers? "Yes, boys 8 - 13."
 

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

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. :)

As a little followup thought, I think that all the marketing of adult culture,or late teen culture, to kids and early teens is actually very related to why I liked what I liked when I was younger. It's a hook that fills in the same hole, I guess?

I mean, ... wow this is hard to explain. I think kids are looking for answers, certain types of fulfillment, and they get that from.. feh. nevermind. That's not what I mean at all. I promise you there is some sort of connection though :)

Maybe I will be able to figure out what I'm trying to say but I doubt it. If I do, I'll post it here. Until then, please read my first post :)

Jake, the question of audience is important. You seem to be saying that pre-teens want stuff that's really for them, not for a mixed audience (like Harry Potter and much of what passes for "children's" culture these days is--a mishmash of innocuous stuff plus veiled jokes for adults--think of Robin Williams in Aladdin). But were the LucasArts games really for kids EITHER? It seems to me that that humor was as much or MORE adult, and maybe that's what you're saying. That we shouldn't pander to kids?

Just trying to help/figure out . . .

:confused:

I don't think that kids want to play games targetted at them. Not those who choose their own games, anyway. They want to play games that are fun, and that have a good story, and those are qualities that all gamers expect.

That said, young people look at games differently. My understanding of the Monkey Island games, for example, changed considerably as I grew up. When I was 6 or 7 I didn't get the humour, and liked them for the outlandish stories. Perhaps there IS something in that. Younger people appreciate the LucasArts kind of story more than those of 'serious' adventure games, and perhaps that's why they have a more diverse appeal.

Did that make any sense?

I agree, I think, RLacey. I'm not sure it's a question of finding a game that's precisely aimed AT children, because as the person Jake was quoting pointed out, the Nancy Drew games themselves have a huge CROSSOVER audience--adults and kids, but (intended to be) more female than male.

That said, I'm not sure I really see a kid playing TLJ or Syberia and loving it. Maybe I am wrong, but those seemed much more drama-y to me. As I kid I wanted either fantasy or humor--and preferrably both. :)

:confused:

Thoughts still evolving on this. Good question Jake. Of course, I was never an 8-13 year old boy, so my opinion may be of limited value.

I was 10 when I started playing adventure games. Granted, I'm not a boy, but the same kinds of games appealed to me at 10 that I'm sure did to some of the boys of my generation -- King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, etc., etc. If I'd known the Monkey Island games existed at the time, I'm sure I would have loved those too.

When I was home over Christmas I went shopping with my mom and a friend of hers, who has a 12 year old son. He'd just gotten a PC for Christmas because they hadn't been able to find good games for the Mac. He got Myst (or a Myst sequel, not sure) for Christmas too. (I was a little confused by this because Myst is available for the Mac, but I didn't get into it with her. Could be they got him Revelation and didn't have a DVD drive on their Mac.) Anyway, she asked me if I could recommend good non-violent games for him... and the first that came to mind were Tierra's King's Quest remakes. I liked them at that age, shouldn't he?!

But I couldn't think of any commercial games to recommend, and this is exactly why. THERE ARE NONE. As a kid I probably would have loved the Nancy Drew games, but would a boy be caught dead playing one of those? I actually think Future Boy would be a good game for "tween" boys (and girls), if they have a little patience for the reading. I'm actually planning to recommend it to my mom's friend. But I really can't think of other newish games that would be appropriate for / interesting to that age group.

-emily

Precisely. Look at the TV and films aimed at kids. If yours is the same as the imports we get in the UK, there are lots of OTT cartoons and obviously plotted films. I'm not complaining about this, as this is what appeals to younger children, but it goes some way to explaining why younger games enjoy Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle but not Syberia.

No I didn't say they want something that's for them and not other groups. That's definitely not what is needed. See the current terrible "tween" market for horrible examples of people trying to make products "just for 9-12 year olds." (google for "tween" if you're really curious).

I used Harry Potter as an example of something that was good but not a perfect fit, because it skews young on first glance but appeals to older people, wheras the things that drew me in when I was ~10-13ish were things that were maybe the other way around - they looked maybe a bit older but actually hit all the right buttons for me. I think that might be ideal.

Yar! I think Lacey's point about the stories of the Monkey Island games might be close, in that younger kids get something different out of it than, say, me, but he's wrong too. At least for me, I got a lot of the jokes as a kid, and loved the piratey story and exotic locales, but it wasn't until later replays that I picked up on the ongoing themes and respected the occasional surreal bit more.

The Spider Man movies are probably another example, or the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. To a kid at least, those things look a bit older than them, but really they're exactly for them. Adults can get something out of them too but I don't really think that's who they're for, or who will benefit the most from them.

Obligatory sidebar: Some of that adult-benefit might come from the Alladin-esque two-layered humor, but that's not really it either. If it was, people would think Shrek is brilliant (some people find it funny, you know, because it contains jokes, but I don't think anyone would call it brilliant). I think the reason stories like the ones I mentioned (and Disney's Aladdin, even) appeal to everyone is just because they hit on important themes, situations, lessons, and human moments in a way that is very true. There's emotional passion behind them. That's another issue though.

I guess the backwards-Harry Potter appeal is the connection between Monkey Island 2 and dressing like you're older, too, but that's not quite right either :) Not what I was going for I mean, though I guess that's part of it.

Anyway that's not the point of this thread is it? Er maybe it is. I mainly wanted to say that I agree that there is room for adventure games marketed at pre-teen to early-teen kids, and that just because they might like something that isn't an adventure game, they might like adventure games too.

Gaming as a 'space' has become a lot more narrow thanks to loud marketing, hollywood tie ins, EA, console certification, and that sort of thing, but that doesn't mean people are different. They just don't know, because nobody is trying anymore.

Of course, it's arguable that you should instead be picking up budget versions of old LucasArts and Sierra games. However, the sad fact of the matter is that technology has advanced, and many younger people are blinkered as to the charms of these older games because they don't instantly look appealing. Which is why it's so important that the genre comes up with some 'killer' titles in the not-too-distant future.

Kids also typically identify with the age group that's one notch above them. So if something is targetted at a 13 year old, it'll probably be perfect for a 10 year old.

The problem with a lot of today's games is that they are too adult, even unconsciously, for a younger kid. Runaway would be great... except for that stripper part, the drag queens, and the pot references... Or am I underestimating what an 8-13 year old is exposed to in the media already?

That's why I suggested the remakes - they are slightly more appealing to the eye, they run on today's machines without tweaking, and they're free (so they can be tried out without any monetary investment). If it turns out he plays them and likes them (I intend to follow up and find out), I may suggest some of the originals for him to play. It's actually not too different from how many of us probably played our first adventure game -- without paying for it, either with a pirated copy (ack!) or at a friend's house -- it's just that the delivery method has changed. I never would have gone out and spent my very own money on King's Quest 1 if I hadn't first played a pirated copy of LSL with my dad, and I never would have known to buy Deja Vu 2 if I hadn't first played the original with a friend. In fact, this is probably why I never played a LucasArts game... I didn't have any friends who turned me onto them. By the time someone did try to get me into Full Throttle (my boyfriend in high school) I was too interested in doing... err... other things with him.

-emily

No, I think you're absolutely right, Emily. If someone asked me the same question, the best I could come up with would be the MI games. There's nothing I can think of NOW that would be interesting to a kid. Trep may want to weigh in on this because his nephew plays games, but I think he's playing RPGs, from what I can tell from that funny Fable thread.

I think Runaway would just be . . . puzzling (ouch!) for a 13 year old. Like even if he got the references, and some would be obvious, they wouldn't seem very funny. Who cares?

:confused:

False. Well, true, but the simply plotted animated kids stuff is the movie equipment of shovelware, and that's not the point. You can make cheap snackfood garbage and kids will eat it, yeah. But that's not real. I mean, that's exploiting a demographic, not really crafting a product for it. That's not, in my opinion, why people 8-13 liked Day of the Tentacle. Or at least, it's not the main reason, or the reason they'd want to play it a second time.


Well maybe it is, for really young (or stupid older) kids, like if you were a 7-8 year old who could somehow play DOTT... But a 12-13 year old? No way.

Exactly. But even if they come up with "killer" titles for adults, that doesn't necessarily transfer over. If you look at the hype-o-meter, how many of those games would you even think possible to recommend to a kid? MAYBE A Vampyre Story? (I don't have it open so I don't know). But a game like Dreamfall, whatever else we may think of it, isn't going to cut it, I don't think, nor Lost Paradise, Still Life, TMoS . . .

Yeah, most of those games are made for older people. A lot of them are made for older people with no taste. Only young and stupid kids like bland things, and most overly-adult themes go over their head or don't interest them. Most adventure games these days are bland things, with adult themes.

It's true, and weird to think about, that very few things in the hype-o-meter (even Dreamfall) would appeal to me when I was 13ish. Maybe Vampyre Story, yeah. :(

To answer Jake's question, I was 10 y/o when I became a Monkey Island junkie. And like Jake, I still like those games. :rolleyes: Figures.

It's an interesting topic, though. Somehow Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, etc. were the game equivalents of Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies - something that looked like it was meant for a more mature audience yet found its most devoted fans in the boys entering their teen years. I think the "speaking down to" issue is important and that's something that these games avoided. Why? I dunno, perhaps because they were created by game enthusiasts who wanted to do something they loved and liked to see on the computer screen, rather than studying an assumed market segment and demographics of what might be marketable. :confused:

These thoughts just from the top of my head, I'll give it some time and get back if I think of something profound. :D

And why does a Vampyre Story appeal more?

I'm not disagreeing, but I'm trying to work out what it is. The setting? The graphical style? The fact that it doesn't feel the need to deal with 'adult' themes in a sexual/violent way? I suspect that it's a mixture of all of those, along with the comic potential where appropriate. Perhaps we're going the wrong way about making adventure games, then, and shouldn't be feeling the need to commit to the kind of themes prominent in other genres, thus alienating a large target audience?

I think, if you're going to be specific to Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle (or Nancy Drew even, maybe) is that they try to tell a genuine adventure story featuring genuine characters who actually fit, and want to be there. I mean, with Guybrush, Bernard, Indy, Luke Skywalker, and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, they all intentionally put themselves in those situations because they want to explore, do good, find the truth, go on an adventure.

These characters are, in essence, awesome. They make mistakes (Luke Skywalker, Nancy Drew are newbies, or at least underdogs, Guybrush is a bumbler, even Indy occasionally screws up and releases giant balls and spikes that nearly kill him, Captain Jack Sparrow is himself), but are guided by decently pure morals (generally) and a desire to be awesome in all the ways an awesome person should.

They're not full of BK Kids Club characters wearing retarded mirrored sunglasses who spend the entire game acting too cool to be there. You know, more imagination driven than badass driven...

Again, maybe not "The Reason," but I think it's another big part of it. Joonas' mentioning Star Wars and Indy reminded me of it.

I just want to point out that there is a lack of good humoristic games in all genres and I think there needs to be humour in the games to catch children of that age.

Suggesting that game companies and designers have somehow "lost" the 8-13 year old consumer demographic market is like saying that sales of vodka are suffering because companies aren't targeting more Mormons.


Despite the experiences of the members of this forum, when the concept of adventure gaming evolved, very few 8-13 year olds owned computers. Kids went to the arcade in the late 70's, then had Nintendo in the 80's. Home computers were owned almost exclusively by upper-middle class adults. Thus, that's who adventure games were designed for. It has only been in the last decade that this has changed, with half of all homes now having a PC. (I am speaking only of America; I simply don't know the European statistics.)

Why would companies have been designing games for consumers that didn't even own computers? Why try to sell vodka to people that don't drink?

It is true (as evidenced repeatedly in this forum) that the last 10 years have seen a huge shift in the PC marketplace. I have addressed this before in my oft-castigated editorial about how Nintendo did more than any other single factor to "kill" adventure games. But laying that aside for the moment, I will agree that relatively few companies have attempted to re-think adventure games and design them specifically for today's new younger consumer. Offhand, only HER Interactive, Tivola (Physicus et al) and Infogrames/Humongous (the Freddi Fish series) come to mind.

Of course, that might partly be because adventure games, at least those constructed using the traditional paradigm, simply don't appeal to the great majority of 8-13 year olds. Just maybe.

Hey, same here, I was also around 9-10 years old when I played Monkey Island for the first time and got hooked immediately.

There was one weird time when I was on my first year of english lessons in the third grade. I went to ask the teacher if skull means pääkallo in finnish... she was a bit amazed why did I come to ask her about such "strange" words... heh heh.

Thank you Ron Gilbert for teaching me english. ;)

I think those are all good points about why that game seems likely to appeal.

I wouldn't go overboard here--no offense, but I like some of the other games on the list too! I mean, what Carolyn Goodwin was talking about in that thread--and let's please not lose sight of that--was the success they had had at NICHE marketing. I know, I know, the idea of marketing games makes some people here want to be sick.

But their point in the article was that yes, there should be some games that those gamers can play, because as those developers said, they are (at least half of them ;) ) potentially the AGers of the future. That doesn't mean that the rest of us have to put away our adult-themed games forever and only play funny games, because (though I love humor as much as the next person), that's not all there is in the world.

As for kids, my personal view is that they hate being talked down to. But I don't have any, so what do I know. And also, the definition of what "talking down to them" means is different for different people . . . what is condescension? Is it when you try to be cute? Definitely. They can pick up trying too hard a mile away. Hard again to put your finger on what it is. Hm. I have no idea what the BK Kids Club is and now is not the day for me to look it up, but I have a sense of what Jake means, and I think he's probably right. :)

Quote:

Thank you Ron Gilbert for teaching me english.

This is AWESOME.

What I was trying to communicate was that those games reached the 8-13 year old boys even though they had been mainly designed (?) for adult gamers. I'm not sure whether the attendees in the Ask the Designer feature were talking about consciously creating games that appealed first and foremost to that demographic group or games that appealed also to that group, but my personal opinion is that Monkey Island et cetera didn't try to be too cool or adult in their own right, and that is why they succeeded. Kids can smell wooing.

From those games you listed, you completely missed the point of the thread, and, as proven by earlier bits in your post, you have no real point of reference. Almost everything in your post could be construed as correct, but only from a point of view that is completely irrellevant to this discussion.

Real quick:

That is the most idiotic assumption I have ever heard. Your point of reference is so skewed... I can't even put my thoughts on this into words. The idiocy at work here in your "logical reasoning" is actually hurting me physically.

Err, BacardiJim ... are you saying that all those many people who played adventure games when they were kids (like me, and clearly many others) are some kind of statistical error? Maybe you should ask around with some 18-25 year old gamers and ask what they know about adventure games. You might be surprised (or not, since you'd deny it apparently). It's beyond doubt that a bigpart of that demographic played adventure games when they were kids. Yeah, so they're not the people you necesserily hang out with, but that doesn't mean they don't exist in our shared universe. It seems to me you are once again trying to construct arguments around your personal beliefs on this issue and are, in the process, being a giant troll.

You also completely miss Jake's point by mentioning a string of "made for kids" edutainment titles that are the polar opposite of what Jake is talking about in this thread. What is your contribution to this thread?

Whatever. You're not making much sense at all, and I wish you'd post more constructive material when other people are having a real conversation.

And I'm the "troll?" I'm the one being personally insulted while two youngsters from Scandanavia inform me that despite my managing a retail outlet that sold PC adventure games, I didn't know who was buying them here in the USA? That I'm an "idiot" with no frame of reference? That despite my years writing for an online AG, I had no clue as to who was playing it?

And I'm the troll.

Hell, if either of you bothered to actually read the last half of what I said, I was, in effect, agreeing in part with Jake's original comment. I was merely questioning the underlying reasoning... from a historical (and Americentric) point of view.

I freely admitted that I couldn't speak about European trends, only those in the USA. But about those, I think my experience and point of reference is possibly more informed than that of two Scandanavian youths.

Everybody of my age knows LucasArts adventure games in Finland - at least they've tried some of them because a friend has recommended them those games. Many people born in 1985, including me, got their first PC in 1991 or 1992, around the time MI was released, and pirated copies were distributed with diskettes. Before that Amigas were very popular. And if you didn't own a PC, your friend did. Then again, Finland has always been a total tech-nerd country.

I'll agree that, for the most part, 15-20 years ago the demographic of who owned computers was very different than it is now (although I think it's ridiculous to assume that the kids were only playing Nintendo and never touched their "parents'" computers... having been a kid at the time, I can tell you that's not how it worked in my house!) But what does the demographic of 15 years ago have to do with the market being untapped today? Whether or not games were being designed for 8-13 year old boys in the 80s (and apparently it didn't matter, because plenty of boys in that age group were happy with the games being developed "for adults"), it is still an untapped market today... maybe even more so because the adult games have gotten more adult and nothing has moved in to fill the void for the kids.

We always had a computer in my house. This may not have been the norm (and I did grow up in an upper-middle class household), but it's shortsighted to ignore the fact that there were computers in the schools, which is where many people were first introduced to adventure games, and that even if someone didn't have a computer at their house, a friend of theirs probably did. I can think of three or four different people, at different points in my childhood, who came over *exclusively* to play adventure games. I'd go to their houses to play Nintendo (because we didn't have one); they'd come to mine to play King's Quest or 7th Guest.

I'm getting off topic though. It's absolutely true that more homes have computers now than ever before. Shouldn't that be even more of a reason to try to make games for an untapped market?

-emily

Yes Jim, I stand by what I said. Maybe with the exception of the Nancy Drew games, which you seem to have listed by accident with a handful of edutainment/early learning titles, you really don't seem to understand what this thread is trying to say.

I'm not sure who the other "youngster from Scandanavia[sic]" is, but I wasn't judging the validity of your post - I was simply clarifying my own point. Having said that, I don't think there's a one-to-one connection between who buys a game and who plays a game. Most of my friends as a kid had played a Leisure Suit Larry game before they hit their teens, and I doubt many of them had bought the game from a store. :D My own adventure games as a teen, from Monkey Island 2 up to Sam & Max Hit the Road, were bought from game stores by my parents or other relatives.

My apologies: Jake isn't Scandanavian. I screwed up and confused his location with Deadsie's. My apologies to you both.

Ensuing flamewar notwithsnding, IMO, the key to the 8-13 boy demographic is the characters. This is at a time where kids are exercising their last little bits of imagination before they become boring, self-aware teenagers. Kids at that age still feel helpless and identify with the underdog, putting themselves into the situations, which is why movies like Star Wars, Indy or POTC are popular in that age group. When I played the Monkey Island games for the first time, I loved Guybrush because he had no real talent but still ended up saving the day.

The other factor at work is the badass factor, but thats more prevalent in action games.

Puberty --> boring self-awareness. So true. :D

BJ: you can make a point about historical perspective or whatever you please but can you do it without taking a dump on the whole spirit of this thread? If you really do have a some real points to offer then do so in a wording and phrasing that doesn't make me think that you secretly wished that we (that is to say people of my age group and history with adventure games) didn't in fact sit in front of personal computers in the late 80ies or early 90ies, were never acknowledged on internet forums and have no right to express their ideas and wishes for these games. In case you hadn't figured this out yet (you've had a lot of time on this forum to find out) this hardly leads to productive discussions.

While allowing staff members to call people "idiots" is contructive?

I wasn't suggesting (or certainly didn't mean to suggest) that there weren't kids playing adventure games in the 80's, I was suggesting that, at least in the USA, such kids made up a small minority of the American adventure game marketplace. This fact is commonly overlooked in this forum whenever there are age-related marketing issues discussed, and I feel it appropriate to point it out from time to time to give a wider "historical" perspective. This seemed like one of those times. I had no intention of starting a flamewar. I didn't expected the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course you didn't, nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion.






Sorry, couldn't help myself. :devil:

I think the focus here has been more on the 1990s, not 1980s... (Monkey Island was released in 1990).

Back ON topic, I wonder if this is the same for boys as for girls. I don't think I identified with underdogs . . . that is, anymore than I do now. ;) It seems to me that a compelling character really is one at any age. I mean, if you look at classics of children's literature (which is what I know best, sorry), the characters there tend to be sort of quirky outsiders, and perhaps that's what you mean. But they're not necessarily underdogs--they're actually pretty empowered, in the sense that they overcome obstacles through the course of the story (the adventure game is for that reason a really good format for a story like this). And adults and children find appeal in the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, books by Roald Dahl, fairy tales, and on and on.

That "fact" is overlooked because it's not a fact. Where is your proof? All I have to go by personally is my memories of being a kid when these games were new, and many if not most of my friends having played and enjoyed at least one adventure game, of not a heaping handful of current releases.

The things you're quoting as "facts" -- without any proof aside from your insisting louder and louder -- go 100% against what I actually remembered, did and experienced personally with adventure games at the age in question, so I'm going to have to side with myself more than your unsubstantiated, repeated insisting.



PS: And stop playing the sad-eyed puppy "how dare a staff member make a comment like that" card. You were a huge wanker when you were on staff, too. We're posting in a public forum, this isn't an article I'm writing for Adventure Gamers. If I'm not mistaken there's even a disclaimer at the bottom stating as much, so maybe you can shut up about that once and for all.