1. Learning Objective One: How media producers define their target
Audience
The two main reasons Audience Research is done is to show the estimated
size of your audience, and also what the audience would like to see.
Researching into your chosen audience is critical to the Video Game industry
as without an idea of where your selling point is, then you will not know how
to market your product correctly and if the research was done in the first
place you could be advertising directly to the defined audience rather than
having a guess as to who may buy it. Another reason audience research is
vital is you could spend as much money as you like for e.g. selling your 18
rated game to primary school kids, but it won’t get your anyway because
these aren’t the age range who will be buying it. So no matter how much you
spent it will be a complete waste. Below I will be looking into different media
producers in the video game industry and how they define their audiences.
Quantitative research
“Quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena
via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques” –Wikipedia
This is data that is represented as statistics or numbers for example viewing records.
Barb: Barb, standing for Broadcasters Audience Research Board Is a website
that provides all of the official viewing figures for the UK. It uses companies
who specialise in research such as Ipsos MORI, Kantar Media and RSMB to
collect the data that it provides. Data sites such as this are great for
companies to use to determine what people are watching. For video game
companies sites like this that are able to determine what people are playing
and also details on the background of the audiences. I’ve found a great PDF
that gives statistics on all sorts of information that will give companies the
edge on who they should be focusing their advertising on. This contains
information such as the average age of gamers, what games are played most

2. often, top selling games and lots of other useful information. This is the
overall statistics for 2012, which could be a downside to information that
doesn’t come out as often as some companies may like. For e.g. this
document states that 53% of gamers in 2012 are males and 47% are female.
Though they are not far apart, a company could decide that they would
market their product in 2013 only to males. Information can change like this
at any time, especially over a year. Examples like this are where more up to
date information would be useful.
Qualitative Research
This is research from sources such as questionnaires, focus groups and face
to face interviews.
Research such as this can be done primary (when the company does the
research themselves) or secondary research where another company will do
the research and then post it somewhere where other companies can source
the information and use it. Benefits of primary research is you are able to
write the questions yourself, this can then get you the information you are
looking for and this is where secondary research can lack. Getting the
information secondarily (what you can find of it) online from different
sources won’t always be exactly what you’re looking for.
Socio-economic status
This is research done into different economic groups such as Upper, Middle
and Working class individuals. This then determines what each household is
watching, giving the company then a start to what area they should market
their game too. Whether to pick up the budget, because they know they can
sell for higher to a Upper Class group or whether to stick with what they’re

3. doing and bring it out to all markets. Below is a graph that shows what
information is checked in this research and what is taken into account.
Psychographics
Psychographics is a research tool
where they analysis the audiences
lifestyle and try to create a detailed
profile for that customer. They do
this y asking their customers to
agree or disagree with statements.
They put them into such lifestyle
groups in terms of their activates,
interests, pinions, emotions, values,
motivations and lifestyle. The aim of
psychographics is to uncover their
inner self that such consumer
groups, rather than merely the surface characteristics.
Geo-Demographics

4. This is research further into a country, when they look further in which
different parts of the U.K for example want and play what. These are split
into their regional identities (e.g. Cockney, Georgie, and Irish). This can then
give you where to market that game. Such as a new game called ‘Sim City 5’
is coming out, they can check where the previous Sim City games have sold
well such as London and down south and know that is where they should be
focussing on advertising their game rather then up in Scotland where they
really do not have a market for it.

5. Demographics
This is researchfurther into each individual rather than certain areas of a
country. This has to do with age, gender, sexual orientation etc. From this
they can gather whether males or females are playing games more just like
earlier in the PDF found here. Information will also tell how to decide which
age range your game is for, because if you use swearing or violence but only
10% of 18+ year olds are buying video games you may choose to remove
some of this so that so the 50% of gamer’s aged12+ gamers can play
bringing in a bigger market.
Size

6. Size e.g. the mainstream, alternative and niche market will decide on how
you decide to take a risk on your idea. You can concentrate on the
mainstream market such as Call of Duty but this is then something which
can be hated by the alternative or niche market and so will bring in people
that are not happy about what is being produced. Focusing on the niche and
alternative market will be greatly smaller than the mainstream market and
will generally find it passing over their heads but you will generally find
these smaller markets to be more passionate about the project. Mainstream
markets you need to have a higher concern for piracy (piracy is a concern for
all markets, but the more people the more piracy).