I think more will play if quickly trying out games was easy. E.g. I wanted to try out Doom Eternal yesterday without having to buy it first in case I didn't like it; couldn't find how to do that and gave up after 20 mins.
Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
221–230 of 378 posts
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#222There is always this disconnect when I read stuff like this 3 billion people is 30% or of 3 people. Ok, we go on OkCupid, we find the question "Do you enjoy playing video games" and we set that as a criteria for matches. Your matches will drop to > 1% of the population, at least as a male looking for female. Checking another dating site that has things people like. The site claims 10 million users, only 200k have sel…
Likely because they count mobile games in these figures but people don't count them when talking about gaming on a dating profile.
Virtually everyone you know probably tried Candy Crush, Pokemon Go, or flappy bird. Most of them probably have at least one game like that installed on their phone today that they play on the toilet or whatever. But they don't consider themselves gamers.
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#223Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#224Ghosts of Tsushima may be the best Playstation game I have played EVER. It's a testament to how late in the console release cycle, developers are just now mastering internals. It's the ideal video game: open world, 13-century feudal Japan, Age of the Samurai. High contrast "Kurosawa" mode, 4K HDR is cinematically photoreal. I really hope it remains a Major IP for many years to come ;) https://blog.selfshadow.com/publ…
Detroit: Become Human.... another visually stunning game came from a tech demo called Project Kara on the PS3.
It's a short story but WOW, what a visual (interactive)novel!!
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#225I think more will play if quickly trying out games was easy. E.g. I wanted to try out Doom Eternal yesterday without having to buy it first in case I didn't like it; couldn't find how to do that and gave up after 20 mins.
I did some research into this when I worked for Improbable a few years ago, and back then it was remarkably difficult to try out games without going through a full purchase and refund cycle, which in many cases was hit-and-miss and could actually get your account suspended in some stores which has tremendous impact since this is also tied to your online gaming persona. Since then I know some stores have loosened their policies and allow for a certain number of hours of game play within which you can get a full refund, and others have a time-since-purchase kind of limit.
Back in the day when shareware was a thing it was much more prevalent with game demos, but that was also before game consoles really took over. Then physical stores made a difference, where you could go and try out a game before purchase, but of course those aren't really much of a thing anymore.
My conclusion of the research then was that most games are simply not built with a demo in mind. It's more common these days for games to front load the introduction part of the game, often a tutorial, so that you can start playing before the game is fully downloaded, but back then it wasn't very common. This could work as a stand-alone demo and I know a few games that does this – Tomb Raider for example – from which you could then unlock the full game and download the rest. But it was (and might still be) an exception to the norm.
My opinion is that online stores can and should put pressure on game devs (and engine makers in particular) to enable customers to play a demo of a game before committing to a purchase. It might not work for all kinds of games (particularly ones without single player elements) but I reckon it ought to work for a majority of them.
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#226As someone who doesn't play any games at all and looking for a new hobby, would you recommend picking this up as one? if so, which platform/games would you recommend? (something light/fun) some background: I'm 45, I don't think I can handle anything too intense (even watching TV gets my heart pounding, I get too immersed and don't exactly enjoy too much adrenaline); I used to enjoy the Atari console in the 80s and th…
There are tons of non-intense video games! It's not all shooters, thankfully. Especially building/management style games, turn-based games, and role-playing games can be calm. Personal favorites: FTL: Faster Than Light. Not turn-based, so can get a little heated every now and then but generally pretty calm ime. https://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Li... The Civilization series is all turn based a…
>Prison Architect
Oh yes, what a game!! Love it!
I want also to recommend Broken Sword 1 2 and 5
And "The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief" And most of the Goldbox Games,
and my Favorite:
The Longest Journey with ResidualVM and the HD patches.
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#227Anything good on Linux these days?
Steam. Many native AAA games such as Total War Three Kingdoms, Age of Wonders 3, Civilization 6 and you can play most Windows-only games with Steam's Proton.
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#228Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#229Ghosts of Tsushima may be the best Playstation game I have played EVER. It's a testament to how late in the console release cycle, developers are just now mastering internals. It's the ideal video game: open world, 13-century feudal Japan, Age of the Samurai. High contrast "Kurosawa" mode, 4K HDR is cinematically photoreal. I really hope it remains a Major IP for many years to come ;) https://blog.selfshadow.com/publ…
I can't believe I've never heard of this before. Am I really going to have to buy a PlayStation just to play this? Hmm
You can also wait until the emulators catch up. I recently played Breath of the Wild in 4K 75 FPS on the PC.
Re: Over three billion people worldwide now play video games, study reports
#230I talked to an executive at Skillz a few years ago and she told me that one of their main growth strategies was actually to target prospective women that could be gamers. The way it worked was that a few of Skillz executives were in this market, women who loved video gaming but businesses at the time refused to recognize it.
Imagine a woman who plays mobile games just to kill time at the bus stop, etc. Exec told me that she had friends like this and she has really easily gotten them to adopt all sorts of gaming and knew how easy it was to do this.
So when they looked at it like that, the market for people who were ignored was massive and that's one of the reasons why they grew so fast.
I think another underserved video game niche is our elderly... but maybe that's a separate discussion