Steam Demographics

[Godsdemon 03]

I would like to know the average age of steam players. Is this possible? 99% of the games that the users seem to feel that are top 10 are of no interest to me and I'm curious if its my age or people are that bored and they'll buy anything ?

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Survey of ages? Kinda personal, huh?

[Start_Running]

Did you consider that you simply have a taste that is different, not neccessarily better, from other gamers?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

My personal guess is that the average age is probably between 20 and 35 years old.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

99% of the games that the users seem to feel that are top 10 are of no interest to me

I'm with you on this. The "mainstream" of the game industry hasn't really appealed to me since...the 1990s, frankly.

[Sir_0v3rk1ll]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

I would like to know the average age of steam players. Is this possible? 99% of the games that the users seem to feel that are top 10 are of no interest to me and I'm curious if its my age or people are that bored and they'll buy anything ?

Im 43 years old and I've always been very picky with the games I play. I've had many different friends that just play any garbage they get their hands on it. It's just you, your taste.

[*P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*]

Technicly STEAM users should all be at least 13 years old. That is for certain.

[Godsdemon 03]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

Did you consider that you simply have a taste that is different, not neccessarily better, from other gamers?

I would say more aged. For example- I grew up playing the atari 2600 and the Magnavox Oddessy as well as Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore vic20, and a few others I cant think of at this time. I have seen rotten looking games when that was all we had for our time period. I try not to play anything that rough. I do have a few games like it in my collection but not many. So that's an easy genre of game I wont play. (Minecraft type graphics)

Due to my age my expectation of graphics and what I feel may look good may be different from a 15 year old. Thus the reason why I asked about having age demographics.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

Did you consider that you simply have a taste that is different, not neccessarily better, from other gamers?

I would say more aged. For example- I grew up playing the atari 2600 and the Magnavox Oddessy as well as Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore vic20, and a few others I cant think of at this time. I have seen rotten looking games when that was all we had for our time period. I try not to play anything that rough. I do have a few games like it in my collection but not many. So that's an easy genre of game I wont play. (Minecraft type graphics)

Due to my age my expectation of graphics and what I feel may look good may be different from a 15 year old. Thus the reason why I asked about having age demographics.

Are you saying that you dislike voxel graphics because they're "kiddie", or that you have a greater appreciation for voxel graphics because you're older?

[peon]

Here is one way to look at it.

Most people who "game" will grow out of it at some point, losers like us (who have spent decades playing games) are not considered the normal.

Want proof? Just look how valve markets things like keys and skins, they arent aimed towards adults, its aimed to hook children. Its why valve added a royale battle mode to csgo instead of fixing the same ♥♥♥♥ thats been broke since cs source. Just follow the money and you will see what game companies target demographics are.

Were dinosaurs and there is less of us everyday, kids on the other hand.... there is a new sucker born every minute, and valve targets that by not fixing veteran requests, but by adding things they think will draw the kids in.

[peon]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

Did you consider that you simply have a taste that is different, not neccessarily better, from other gamers?

I would say more aged. For example- I grew up playing the atari 2600 and the Magnavox Oddessy as well as Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore vic20, and a few others I cant think of at this time. I have seen rotten looking games when that was all we had for our time period. I try not to play anything that rough. I do have a few games like it in my collection but not many. So that's an easy genre of game I wont play. (Minecraft type graphics)

Due to my age my expectation of graphics and what I feel may look good may be different from a 15 year old. Thus the reason why I asked about having age demographics.

This is because the average attention span is shortened quite dramatically compared to people from 30 or 50 years ago. People are legit becoming dumber, its why games keep getting simpler, and simpler, just another way to appeal to the younger generation as well. I realize your talking about graphics, but for me its about gameplay.

[Start_Running]

Początkowo opublikowane przez peon:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

I would say more aged. For example- I grew up playing the atari 2600 and the Magnavox Oddessy as well as Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore vic20, and a few others I cant think of at this time. I have seen rotten looking games when that was all we had for our time period. I try not to play anything that rough. I do have a few games like it in my collection but not many. So that's an easy genre of game I wont play. (Minecraft type graphics)

Due to my age my expectation of graphics and what I feel may look good may be different from a 15 year old. Thus the reason why I asked about having age demographics.

This is because the average attention span is shortened quite dramatically compared to people from 30 or 50 years ago. People are legit becoming dumber, its why games keep getting simpler, and simpler, just another way to appeal to the younger generation as well. I realize your talking about graphics, but for me its about gameplay.

Its not that people are getting dumber or that attention spans are shorter, its simply that they have more options available to them and they have very little reason to persist with a sub optimal option.

As for games getting simpler... well its trying to make sure that as many people as possible can extract the full utility from the game because as said.. they have more options. Let's put it this way. Steam sees more releases in a year than NES and FAmicom saw released in their entire product cycle. Worse there's way more access and availibility of these games.

So Developers have to balance being McDOnalds and being Chez Curry Pot.

Many veer towards mcDOnalds since larger audience means (for the most part) higher revenue. However niches offer an advantage that there's less competition, and those in the niche are typically willing to pay a little more to get that itch scratch. Of course you have to understand the niche in order to capitalize on it and that is hard.

I mean Bullet Hell shooters are still a thing in this day and age and the genre uis still very much active. These are games that no one would call easy..


ALso worth noting that the difficulty of older games min part stemmed from designers applying arcade game design logic to console game design. and minds you arcade games were deliberately designed to milk you of money It was the original MTX scheme. They applied those same philosophies to console games (and then sold strategy guides or created By the minute tip hotlines).

[Godsdemon 03]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

I would say more aged. For example- I grew up playing the atari 2600 and the Magnavox Oddessy as well as Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore vic20, and a few others I cant think of at this time. I have seen rotten looking games when that was all we had for our time period. I try not to play anything that rough. I do have a few games like it in my collection but not many. So that's an easy genre of game I wont play. (Minecraft type graphics)

Due to my age my expectation of graphics and what I feel may look good may be different from a 15 year old. Thus the reason why I asked about having age demographics.

Are you saying that you dislike voxel graphics because they're "kiddie", or that you have a greater appreciation for voxel graphics because you're older?

More that I have outgrown them due to my video game progression in my lifetime. Same with fighting games. Mortal Kombat and that kind of thing. RTS strategies I have outgrown but I either have to have a nostalgia scratch to take care of or the story interests me with current similar games. The games I grew up playing I tried to sit down and let my kid play and he said , " those graphics were horrible" but then he goes to play minecraft which is equally trash but has no excuse since its 30 years after what I played when I was a kid. I took him to an arcade to play Golden Axe, I explained it to him and all he wanted to do was fight me instead of the mobs. (kids these days!)

Shooters are boring unless its an MMO and that has exceptions as to who figures out the exploits and cheats first and gets away with them before the bugs are fixed or the player is banned. . Duke Nukem and DOOM , System Shock were the thing in my youth. We now have Regurgitated remakes. Never cared for anything past Diablo 2. I was all in on Diablo 1.

I would love to see them modernize a few of the older SSI games, Car Wars, or Roadwar 2000. I did some research and tried to contact Ubisoft. (they own the rights to Roadwar) It was a fail, The online menus for trying to contact them didnt allow me to give positive feedback or a positive suggestion about a game they bought the IP to many years ago.

[Kargor]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

I would like to know the average age of steam players. Is this possible? 99% of the games that the users seem to feel that are top 10 are of no interest to me and I'm curious if its my age or people are that bored and they'll buy anything ?

I've never played any of the current top-9, except for Warframe (which is #10 right now). I'm 50.

Unless I missed something when I was quickly reading over the list, the entire top-100 only has 2 games that I've played in the past -- Warframe as mentioned, and Path of Exile. The latter didn't last long, though.

[Godsdemon 03]

I did Warframe when it first came out and lost interest quick. PoE was to me a diablo clone and hardly kept my interest.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Godsdemon 03:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Are you saying that you dislike voxel graphics because they're "kiddie", or that you have a greater appreciation for voxel graphics because you're older?

More that I have outgrown them due to my video game progression in my lifetime. Same with fighting games. Mortal Kombat and that kind of thing. RTS strategies I have outgrown but I either have to have a nostalgia scratch to take care of or the story interests me with current similar games. The games I grew up playing I tried to sit down and let my kid play and he said , " those graphics were horrible" but then he goes to play minecraft which is equally trash but has no excuse since its 30 years after what I played when I was a kid.

Ah, I see.

Though, to be fair, systems today can do much more with manipulating voxels (and in true 3D) than systems 30 years ago. The SNES had barely become a thing in 1990, and back then we had some good 2D pixel graphics but 3D was either pseudo-3D in the form of isometric projections or very pixelated real-3D. The graphics of 3D SNES or even PS1 games haven't exactly aged well (though they do obviously generally have a certain minimum level of quality that allows them to be properly appreciated, particularly if coupled with some creative graphical design to take advantage of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses).

But yeah, I've heard some other people say they got over 2D pixel art graphics many years ago, given how long they've been gaming. Meanwhile, I'm part of the crowd that didn't -- and if anything, I never really left them, as I continued playing 2D stuff throughout the 90s and 00s myself. (Maybe it's because my parents didn't have the money to buy me an N64, so instead I just stuck with playing what I had? during my formative years that in turn influenced my tastes.)

I never grew up on voxel stuff, though, heh.

[Godsdemon 03]

I'm 49 years old and was curious regarding the demographics if others around my age felt the same way or if it was just my tastes or lack of interest for a "been there done that" and don't want to repeat.