Hardcore games are from Mars, casual games are from Venus. That seems to be the attitude of mega-publisher THQ, who recently announced that it will no longer be pursuing a corporate strategy of "port everything to every platform." Rather, the publisher of such IPs as Saint's Row, Destroy All Humans and Company of Heroes is choosing to embrace a new direction based on the 'segmentation' of two separate gaming audiences: the core (as in hardcore) demographic, and the casual or 'mainstream' gamer. Clarification of this new direction came up during the course of an ongoing series of interviews with THQ boss Brian Farrell over at GamesIndustry.biz.
"As we look out and reforecast", continues Farrell, "it looks like a three-way split. I don't mean to be politically correct here, but that's not a bad way to be thinking about it. Something could change tomorrow, but it's going to be a really interesting race. I can't remember when three platforms co-existed like this. [...] It's clear that you've got three well capitalised competitors who are not going to go quietly into the night, which for a games publisher is nirvana." When asked about whether THQ would be favoring any particular market segment with its patronage, Farrell replied that the Wii had a slight advantage thanks to THQ's traditionally strong relationship with Pixar, Nickelodeon, and WWE. "These games belong on Wii", he said.
Finally, when asked whether THQ favors Sony or Microsoft to with the ultimate battle for the 'core' gaming demographic? "[W]e can bet a beer on it. At the end of the day, if it's 60/40, PS3/360 or vice versa, we really don't care." THQ is not alone in its assessment of the current gaming landscape. Many other developers and publishers are also beginning to segment their production and marketing strategies to accommodate the diverging, but parallel, development realities of "hardcore" and "mainstream." From the sounds of things, the company has very different approaches in mind for wooing over consumers from both camps.
Expect "core" titles -- Farrell's "high cost, high return" PS3/360 investments -- to continue down the path of increasingly infrequent releases of increasingly high production quality. Casual-track titles (surprise, surprise) will capitalize on the familiarity of their licensed IPs and awareness in the mass-market mindshare for their sales.
"In the past" says Farrell "a lot of publishers -- including us -- would say, 'Okay, let's make a game and get it across every system.' That's not our strategy going forward; there are going to be different gamers for the different systems. So our strategy is different types of content, segmented on who the users of the systems are." "The way we're looking at the market over the next five years is that it's going to be more segmented. Not fragmented, segmented. What I mean by that is 360 and PS3 are very powerful machines, with very robust online components, and they're more targeted at the core gamer.
The mass market will always be, when you get to the right price point, the biggest. The Wii has a great opportunity, but does that mean it's going to be the largest platform in this generation? It's hard to say initially."
THQ feels that Microsoft currently holds an early lead with the hardcore gamer, but admitted that Sony was "ramping up" quickly, particularly in Europe, where "trying to erode Sony's market leadership is going to be very difficult."The mass market will always be, when you get to the right price point, the biggest. The Wii has a great opportunity, but does that mean it's going to be the largest platform in this generation? It's hard to say initially."
"As we look out and reforecast", continues Farrell, "it looks like a three-way split. I don't mean to be politically correct here, but that's not a bad way to be thinking about it. Something could change tomorrow, but it's going to be a really interesting race. I can't remember when three platforms co-existed like this. [...] It's clear that you've got three well capitalised competitors who are not going to go quietly into the night, which for a games publisher is nirvana." When asked about whether THQ would be favoring any particular market segment with its patronage, Farrell replied that the Wii had a slight advantage thanks to THQ's traditionally strong relationship with Pixar, Nickelodeon, and WWE. "These games belong on Wii", he said.
Finally, when asked whether THQ favors Sony or Microsoft to with the ultimate battle for the 'core' gaming demographic? "[W]e can bet a beer on it. At the end of the day, if it's 60/40, PS3/360 or vice versa, we really don't care." THQ is not alone in its assessment of the current gaming landscape. Many other developers and publishers are also beginning to segment their production and marketing strategies to accommodate the diverging, but parallel, development realities of "hardcore" and "mainstream." From the sounds of things, the company has very different approaches in mind for wooing over consumers from both camps.
Expect "core" titles -- Farrell's "high cost, high return" PS3/360 investments -- to continue down the path of increasingly infrequent releases of increasingly high production quality. Casual-track titles (surprise, surprise) will capitalize on the familiarity of their licensed IPs and awareness in the mass-market mindshare for their sales.
