A Whole New World – David Rosenberg (JWT)
What is driving the widespread adoption of video gaming and online worlds? What cultural shift is video gaming defining?
I work with Dave on a day-to-day basis, so it was interesting to see what he had to say about a space we donlt spend too much time discussing at work.
- Games were social activities. The modern era started with arcades, buildings where people gathered to play games.
- Video consoles spread into the home; we have the PC, PS3, Wii, XBox360; portables such as PSP, Nintendo DS, the mobile. Andthey are connected, online, wifi enabled. The playing firled has increased outside the home.
- everyone has access to games.
- Personalisation is becoming more important. Avatars increase
- The average gamer is aged 33, has played for 12 years. 35% od US families play games together. 38% of gamers are female, 42% of online gamers, playing and average of 7.4 hrs/week. 25% are over 50. 68%Boomers, 52% GenX wanted technology for Christmas.
- Connectivity has led to expansion; online is a meeting place. XBox live has 2 million conversations/day. Always on, always ready.
- World of Warcraft- very social, has a strong team aspect. You win together and it always looks great. There are 8m paying customers, 2m in the US. China has 3m.
- casual, coffee break games are huge. 21m impressions in jan on Yahoo games. These promote mobile gaming, predicted to be a $10b business by 2009.
- Huge cultural impact; music and peripherals are exploding ie dance, dance, guitar hero. It’s all about control – controlling what you want to do, when you want it.
- Moving foreard, download distribution will grow; it will become mainstream. Credit cards could give you in-game points instead of miles. The Wii has serious moved the console into ‘mainstream’
This was a very fast walk through the space; Dave culd probably talk all day on it. Key takeaways – it’s mainstream, you have to be aware of it; you can play in the space but play nicely. Add value, don’t exploit.
