The World of Gaming – Who are the people in it? – Part 3

As promised, here I am telling you guys about the last and final segment of the people totally interested in Computer Gaming. In the previous posts, we have seen the 14 year olds and the college goers who have some very distinct defining characteristics of their own. Now we come to the segment which would be the permanent customers of any gaming company, till the moment they live (in the virtual world I mean).

The Veterans
This is the final stage of gaming and the ultimate upgrade (using the lingo so prevalent in this field) possible for any person even remotely interested in gaming. These people have, ideally, grown up playing games in one form or the other, possibly varying in genres but mostly never in the intensity. I have tried to capture a few of their characteristics in this post of mine.

Addicted
Harsh though it may sound, mostly you’ll find these veterans to be addicted to the whole concept of sitting in front of the idiot-box doing nothing but playing on it. Come to think of it, isn’t it obvious? They grew up playing games, and if they are still playing even though they have families, jobs and responsibilities, they will probably keep on playing the rest of their lives. What I don’t know is how many of them will actually buy original DVDs/CDs of games, but what I do know for sure is that there can be several uses of this information other than direct sales.

Forums
As we all know, there are several game specific/genre specific forums present on the web to facilitate interaction between likeminded souls across the world. Now what the killer thing is, that these veterans are mostly the ones who are respected the most in these kinds of forums. This respect is mostly due to their experience on the forum/game but sometimes it also exists due to their skill in the game.

Schedule
More often than not, these veterans have a fixed schedule in which they play. It could be as frequently as daily or rarely like once a week/month. This is again a logical conclusion as the rest of their day is more or less fixed as far as activities are concerned. Also, if the games played by that veteran are multi player in nature, the friends/clan mates of the veteran would also be fitting into his schedule (as it is necessary for all the members of the clan to be available at the same time to play simultaneously).

Cash Cash!!!
Believe it or not, these are probably the only set of people the gaming companies will ever find, other than professional players, who are always loaded with cash. This is again a very obvious thing to state, but none the less important for anyone planning to target this segment. All the other segments are mostly living off their parents who might or might not be giving them enough cash to buy the games of their choice. These independent gamers, aka veterans, are perfect targets as they can buy any game which manages to catch their fancy.