In part one of our exploration of the gaming audience landscape, we spoke with people from across the industry to establish some of the key characteristics of the different types of gamer – social, console and mobile - and where the power to engage and own these audiences lies. In this follow up piece, we use social media analytics to understand how and why gaming audiences engage with the games and platforms they use and craft some insights into how publishers, manufacturers and platforms can keep these gamers coming back for more.

1. Platform Games

2. Gaming Insights
In part one of our exploration of the gaming audience
landscape, we spoke with people from across the industry to
establish some of the key characteristics of the different types of
gamer – social, console and mobile - and where the power to
engage and own these audiences lies.
In this follow up piece, we use social media analytics to
understand how and why gaming audiences engage with the
games and platforms they use and craft some insights into how
publishers, manufacturers and platforms can keep these gamers
coming back for more.

3. Gaming Insights
Through our own interviews with developers, marketeers and
gamers within the industry, we’ve established four themes
around which we can characterise the differences between
social, mobile and console gamers:
• Convenience
• Quality
• Value
• Community
To create this piece, we have categorised and analysed social
media conversations around these four engagement themes to
begin to understand what drives decision-making and
engagement across the different gaming platforms.

4. Gaming Insights
Key Insights
• Gamers are seeking a single, unified title across every
platform.
• The gaming experience doesn’t have to be consistent across
social, mobile and console – it just has to be aware of the
different reasons people play.
• Certain tasks and scenes from titles could play out better in
the short, rapid, repetitive mobile environment.
• Social platforms can act as a Gaming Exchange mobile and
console games, allowing gamers to seek and connect with
people who can provide them with the elements they need
to progress.
• Gamers of all types still look to console titles for an
immersive narrative. Similarly, they look to the Facebook
timeline for the narrative of their daily lives. Linking game
progression to a Facebook timeline is a key opportunity.

5. Convenience

6. Gaming Insights
• Increasingly, console gamers see gaming as a way of getting
important physical exercise or an easier way of doing some
other physical activity.
• The ideal conditions in which to game are often seen as
mercurial – free evening, no boyfriend/wife, no commitments
– and therefore occasions that it is imperative to take
advantage of.
• For console gamers, ideas of convenience are driven by
escapism. An immersive experience that enables them to let
off steam and relieve stress is seen as providing convenience.
Console Gamers necessarily interpret convenience differently to
mobile and social gamers. It’s not about accessibility or ease of
gameplay, it’s more driven by ideas of personal empowerment:

7. Gaming Insights
Mobile Gamers value convenience above all. The ability to play a
game during those times of the day that are most ‘boring’ is crucial.
• The ability to think or hear of a game and be playing it within
minutes is a big driver of engagement and adoption.
• Convenience drives perceptions of gameplay more than
narrative or graphics – it’s more about repetition and quick
progression.
• Ideas of convenience are driven by gameplay occasions - a
quick 10 minutes on the train or while waiting for friends.
Moving the story along is not as important as
quick, repetitious bursts.

8. Gaming Insights
More so than for mobile gamers, for those that do their gaming
on social platforms the convenience of playing has to be
mitigated by a sense of time well spent.
• The ability to play several social games at the same time on
Facebook is seen as valuable and convenient .
• Crucially, users need to feel like they’ve got time to ‘burn’ to
play social games rather than just having ‘spare’ time.
• Social gaming is often seen as convenient when the Facebook
timeline isn’t delivering new or important content. The
preciousness of timeline content is a recurring feature in
conversations about social games.

9. Quality

10. Gaming Insights
Quality is the force in driving engagement for console gamers. Ideas of
quality are almost diametrically opposed to those of mobile gamers:
• Quality is often measured by console gamers in terms of how
long you can ‘lose’ yourself in a game. The longer you can
play a game without it feeling repetitive, the better it is.
• The gameplay and ability to connect with people often drives
quality comparisons between console devices.
• The gameplay experience is crucial– an immersive, multi-
sensory experience driven by a complex narrative and
enhanced by top of the range audio-visual technology
provides that essence of escapism that is so important.

11. Gaming Insights
The interpretation of quality is very different for mobile gamers. Graphics,
immersion and narrative are secondary to more functional ideas of quality.
• Mobile gamers understand the necessary gameplay trade-off
for convenience, but sound and graphics are increasingly
being measured against console games.
• Often the quality of a mobile game is linked to how easy it is
to play, which is directly opposed to console games. Ease of
play is defined both in terms of gameplay and physicality ie –
played with just a thumb on one hand.
• Popularity also drives perceptions of quality, with mobile
gaming trends influencing purchase decisions more so than
gameplay.
• Bad graphics often drive negative perceptions far more than
good graphics drive positive perceptions.

12. Gaming Insights
Social gamers look for social currency amongst friends and family as a driver
for quality, as opposed to the individual motivations that drives mobile and
console gaming.
• Friends and family being regular players of the same game
drive repeat play and perceptions of quality.
• Increasingly, perceptions of quality are linked to a perception
of time being used productively on social games.
• A social game needs to be seen to improve the quality of time
spent on Facebook. Daily Facebook time is immutable, so
social games need to provide better value for time than the
timeline or ‘stalking’ friends.

13. Value

14. Gaming Insights
Console gamers base their interpretations of value for money entirely
around the games themselves rather than the hardware, which is seen as a
fundamental part of everyday life.
• Concepts of value are linked with graphics, scale and storyline
within individual games and, sometimes, whole genres.
• However, capacity for multi-player and enabling new
connections are seen as positive and valuable assets of
consoles.
• Because of the much higher cost of games, the question of
value for money plays a much more significant role for
console gamers and games are constantly questioned as a
game narrative unfolds. At any point, a game may be seen as
poor value and this perception is easy to gain and very hard
to lose.

15. Gaming Insights
Proliferation of choice is a key driver of perceptions of value for mobile
gamers, with mobile gamers often having different games for different
moods and occasions.
• Mobile games are often seen as value for money because of
the sheer volume of games. However, it can be thought that
mobile technology cannot capacitate the necessary graphics
and experience to justify paying more than £3/4. The
perceived homogeny that drives choice also creates a cost
ceiling
• Nostalgia is also a big driver of perceptions of value – with
mobile being seen as the ideal way to reconnect with old
console games you used to play in former years. Mobile
versions of classic games are often seen as being worth the
money purely for the sake of nostalgia.
• Graphics, again, are not a driving force here. Often it is about
immersion in terms of mobile games fitting into a users
lifestyle that drive perceptions of value.

16. Gaming Insights
For social gamers, value is perceived in terms of value for time rather than
value for money.
• The size of the gaming community is often seen as the cost of
playing. The more friends a user has playing the same
game, the more valuable it is.
• The Facebook timeline is seen as important and content on
the timeline is a precious commodity. Social games are often
seen as ‘spamming’ timelines with information that is not of
sufficient importance to warrant being on there.
• The free to play, pay to progress model of a lot of social
games is tolerated if the trade off provides social media
currency in terms of bragging rights or unique, personalised
content that can be used across social platforms.

17. community

18. Gaming Insights
A sense of community for console gamers tends to be defined by a network of
weaker ties that enable a user to ‘get away’ from their everyday environment.
• While console gaming is seen as a method of escapism, it is
also seen as a unique way to connect to people for a
single, powerful reason – gaming.
• Unlike social media, where connections are built on sharing of
personal content, it is often the case that console gamers
thrive on the anonymity of their gaming communities.
• Gaming also adds a new and often more compelling dynamic
to existing friendships. Competitive gameplay often becomes
a foundation of existing friendships.

19. Gaming Insights
For mobile gamers, a sense of community is often provided through a games’
integration with other platforms.
• Connecting with other players is driven by wi-fi access which
is not as available for mobile gamers as it is console or social.
• Community manifests itself largely in sharing post-game
scoring though, in Candy Crush, there is a deeper level of
social integration that inspires community game play.
• Community is also present in purchase decisions, with
competition with friends and family playing a large role in
repeat playing. Also, watching other people play mobile
games also drives curiosity in mobile gaming.

20. Gaming Insights
Perhaps obviously, community is a fundamental component of social gaming with
gamers’ perceptions of quality, value and convenience inextricably linked to a sense
of a wider gamer community playing the same game.
• The volume of other gamers playing a social game is critical
to it’s success. Social gamers are not as interested in adopting
non-mainstream games as ensuring that their network shares
the same game experience.
• There is a growing expectation amongst social gamers that
games provide social media currency in exchange for playing,
this currency is often content that can be used inside and
outside of the game itself.
• Asking friends for ‘help’ in gameplay by lending elements that
help progression is almost exclusively done on social
platforms.

21. This is meant as a thought-starter. It is
by no means definitive. We’d love to
hear your ideas and opinions on what
we’ve touched on…