Entry 6: Local Co-op Games Genre Market Analysis, Target Audience, Key Industry Players and Competitor (24 June 2018)

Things that this entry will be analyzing on will be co-op games genre popularity and its target audience.

Target Audiences and Co-Op Games Market Analysis

MO-3 & KEV 7 is an arcade game which hardcore PC or console players will not fancy getting to that specific location to play this game unless they are willingly to play this game and that will occur if marketing of this game is sufficiently effective to create the sense of hype.

This game is likely to be targeting the players who are 25 years old or older. The reason behind it is that the players who in that age would most likely to engage local cooperative games instead of online competitive games. With that information, I take this game as a market opportunity to gain more players to play this game.

According to Kaleb Embaugh's findings on "Local Co-Op is The Most Consistently Appealing Mode of Social Gaming Across Gender and Age", co-op games are tend to attract friends whether it's co-located or online. Competitive plays aren't valued as much as co-op games because the desire to play competitive games declines with age.

Enjoyment rating between two genders in 6 different aspects, 2016  -Embaugh, Quantic Foundry

"...average age of the gamers being 35 and increasing each year, and knowing that the enjoyment of competitive gaming declines with age, the stable appeal of local co-op points to a growing opportunity."         -Embaugh, 2016

According to ESA's Essential Facts About The Computer and Video Game Industry 2015, friends are most likely to engage video games which they think it will connect with friends and even family members.

According to Reflextions, couch co-op genre are dying due to few factors :-

- Performance issue in split-screen due to hardware limitations to render two times more.

- Online feature have better market value than offline multiplayer thus causing most big developers to produce online games instead.

The declining of couch co-op support games. 2007-2016   -Reflextions, 2017

Number of game titles have co-op supported. 2007-2016    -Reflextions, 2017

Google Trends Analysis of Local Coop Games and Online Coop Games Interest

Key Industry Players

Marco Roccetti, Gustavo Marfia and Angelo Semeraro’s Preparing Fresh Pasta game (2012).

- Roccetti et al developed this game for experimentation of AR game and hand gestures controls in public spaces. Their game requires player to prepare fresh pasta with motion tracking technology. Players must perform specific gestures to have the result, such as cracking an egg.

Leap Motion’s Cat Explorer

- Leap Motion developed an educational game to study a feline’s biology that requires VR headset.The intuitive interaction made this game easy to understand and beneficial for those interested in biology.

CherryPie’s Hollow

- CherryPie created a VR horror game where players must perform certain gestures to control the horse.

Competitor
Competitors for MO-3 & KEV-7 are almost non-existence because it lacks the general genre of these specific cooperative game, but if compared with arcade machine, Namco’s Time Crisis 4 arcade machine might be the relevant competitor. Namco’s Time Crisis 4 is a relevant competitor because of its straightforward cooperative, action-packed gameplay and well-built controllers.

References:-

Embaugh, K. (2016). Local Co-Op is The Most Consistently Appealing Mode of Social Gaming Across Gender and Age. [online] Quantic Foundry. Available at: https://quanticfoundry.com/2016/07/21/social-gaming/ [Accessed 13 Aug. 2018].

ESA (2015). Essential Facts About The Computer and Video Game Industry 2015. [online]. Available at: http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf [Accessed 13 Aug 2018].

Reflextions (2017). Is Couch Co-Op Dying?. [online]. Available at: http://reflextionsdev.com/split-screen/ [Accessed 13 Aug 2018].

Roccetti, M., Marfia, G. and Semeraro, A. (2012). Playing into the wild: A gesture-based interface for gaming in public spaces. Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, 23(3), pp.426-440.