Hello everyone, I thought many of you, especially game developers, might be interested to know what the audio games community had to say regarding the marketing survey posted yesterday. The results are pretty interesting, and gives a good idea of where gamer's interests are as well as what hardware and software they have. Here is the early results of the survey thus far.
Age: The youngest person polled was 11-years old and the oldest member was 55-years old. The average age of our target market is between 18 and 31. Operating Systems: The number one operating system prefered by our target market is Windows XP followed by Windows Vista. The least amount of votes was for Mac OS. Although, nearly everyone surveyed liked the idea of games being created for Mac or Linux using Cider or Cedega as long as they got the same features as on Windows, but most prefered to stick with Windows XP themselves. Input Devices: The most popular input device is the keyboard with a few requesting better joystick support. Nearly everyone polled felt that adding a joystick with force feedback support would be a good selling point for the game, and something they'd like to see done. Especially, in the case of a racing game or flight game where force feedback enabled stearing wheels and flightsticks adds extra realism for the game. Speech Output: Regarding speech out put the survey was split pretty equally between those that wanted prerecorded speech and those who would rather have Sapi support. All of those in favor of prerecorded speech mentioned they'd like to see more human voices, voice acting, etc rather than just prerecorded clips of TTS voices. Those in favor of Sapi were less concerned about speech quality and were in favor of the ability to select a voice, speed, volume, and customize the voice using their favorite Sapi speech engine/voice. A couple were in favor of using their screen reader instead, but weren't enough to really consider that an option compared to the other two alternatives. Game Genres: The number one response to wwhich type of game people liked to play was all of the above which included: arcade, side-scroller, first person, sports, and text adventure. Several expressed an interest in arcade games. Many also expressed an interest in side-scrollers, and wanted to see more games like Mysteries of the Ancients. A few specifically mentioned an interest in first person as well, but not as many as the other two catagories. Conclusion: So far what the survey results show is that a commercial developers largest market is users running Windows XP, between the ages of 18 and 31, and they would like to see features such as force feedback that are really only supported through DirectX. Many would like to have Sapi support so they can have control over the speech settings, and others want more realistic human voices if it is possible. As far as any specific genre of game any type of game will do, will find a market, but arcade games and side-scrollers seam to have the most specific interest at the moment. On behalf of USA Games Interactive I want to thank everyone who filled out the survey, and wish you all the best. The survey is officially continuing, but I think we now have a pretty good idea of where the market is, and what people are interested in. Sincerely, Thomas Ward USA Games Interactive http://www.usagamesinteractive.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.