Support NeoGAF

[cormack12]

So GAF, we've all dined out on a few failures recently. But what is important to the modern audience, does it even exist?

Chat GPT has the following input:

1. Convenience and Accessibility

Cross-platform Play: The modern audience expects games to be available across multiple platforms (PC, console, mobile) with features like cross-play and cross-save.

Pick-up-and-play Mechanics: Games that are easy to get into without lengthy tutorials or steep learning curves.

Cloud Gaming and Digital Downloads: Accessibility to games on-demand without requiring physical media.


2. Engagement and Replayability

Live-service Models: Games-as-a-service (GaaS) with ongoing updates, events, and content to keep players engaged long after launch.

Multiplayer Focus: A trend toward social experiences through cooperative or competitive multiplayer modes.

Seasonal Content and Battle Passes: Modern players often engage with games that provide continuous content updates, battle passes, or new challenges to stay fresh.


3. Diverse Representation and Inclusivity

Diverse Characters and Stories: Players expect a wider variety of characters in terms of race, gender, sexuality, and background.

Inclusive Gameplay Options: Features like customizable difficulty settings, accessibility settings for players with disabilities, and diverse character creation tools.


4. High Visual Fidelity and Realism

Cutting-edge Graphics: The modern audience often values games with high-quality graphics, realistic physics, and detailed environments.

Immersive Sound Design: Audio that enhances the game world, from surround sound to dynamic soundtracks.


5. Player Agency and Customization

Open Worlds and Sandbox Elements: Players now lean towards games that allow for freedom of exploration, emergent gameplay, and choice-driven narratives.

Deep Customization: Character, gear, and gameplay customization are often prioritized, allowing players to shape their experience.


6. Community and Social Interaction

Streaming and Shareability: Modern players expect games to be engaging for streamers and viewers, with easy options for sharing gameplay moments.

Community-building Tools: In-game clans, guilds, and player-driven markets that support social interaction.


7. Fast-paced and Rewarding Progression

Instant Gratification: Many modern players prefer shorter, more frequent rewards like daily challenges or quick match-based gameplay that delivers rapid progression or satisfaction.

Skill-based Systems: Games that reward skill development and mastery but without overwhelming complexity.


8. Mobile and On-the-go Gaming

Mobile-friendly Designs: Games or spinoffs designed to work well on mobile devices or have elements that sync with mobile companions.

Shorter, Snackable Gameplay: Games that can be played in shorter sessions to accommodate busier schedules.

 

[Madserb2023]

The modern audience does exist, met a couple of these aliens in person. The question is do they play games or spend all their time on Ticktock. My guess is the latter. It's like asking someone who can't drive what car you would like and designing a car them. That's what these developers are doing.

 

[StueyDuck]

it doesn't exist, there's just the audience, some will be RPG fans, some will be shooter fans, some will be kids and want Fortnite, some will be older and so on.

There is no magic thing that will pull in people from outside, and clearly, that wasn't getting genders confused and appealing to the latest hot topic political controversies.

The only thing developers can start doing is making good games again and trying to evolve and innovate again instead of splashing the same boring mush in front of us repeatedly.

There absolutely are Inventive people in gaming, but as you will see it's coming mostly from the indie/mod scene, and even then it's a dime a dozen. You fix issues by promoting the actual talent to the top, not the ones with the biggest victim complex

 

[Lorianus]

The young generation of like 6-15 does not play games like my generation did in that age group, atleast the people i know are on social media / youtube / or play mobile games on tablets, most of my younger family members own at most a switch and even that gets used like once a week or something.

 

[Saber]

In terms of gaming habits, modern doesn't exist. They are either these brainrot tiktok fellas or just your general twitter short attention syndrome people.
They just like games because its a trend or give them enought likes/attraction.

 

[Dane]

Modern audience is just a whistledog for: We want to ditch out critical old audience for a new one oblivious of the quality issues.

 

[Bojji]

I think "modern audience" consist of people that bought Concord at launch and that's... all of them.

 

[DeepEnigma]

The way they use "Modern Audience" is that of a propaganda catchphrase.

The market has and will always dictate, regardless if what they try and manipulate/psyop people with.

 

[RagnarokIV]

The same audience as always just wants good games I guess.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

One will think this is obvious... then again, if Publishers have been getting this wrong, its no wonder that even here some would too.

Right off the top of my head, here are some games that has sold over 10M copies released in the last 4 years

1. COD MW2
2. Elden Ring
3. FIFA
4. HZFW
5. SM:MM
6. SM2
7. GOW:R
8. Hogwarts
9. RE8
10. AC:V
11. Helldivers 2
12. BMW

And I am sure there are more, and that list gets even longer if we add games that also sold as much as 5M+.

Most of those games, aren't online-focused or are single-player. The modern audience has spoken.

 

[Bombolone]

It’s the WNBA all over again. They are making stuff for you, go and support it. *crickets*

 

[AmuroChan]

The modern audience isn't one person. And that's the biggest problem for these companies who think they can just group millions of people into a single bucket. Even within my own circle of friends, we may have some overlap of games that we all like, but for the most part we all have our own unique preferences in games. When you try to please everyone, you actually end up pleasing nobody.

 

[Esppiral]

As someone who has worked closely to a marking department, their detachment from reality is surreal, they often create target taudiences from their ass because they know the general public is basically retarded and will follow whatever shit you stick in to social media, also agendas, it sadly works most of the time.

 

[Wildebeest]

According to Steam stats, the "modern audience" play such new generation games as "Counter-Strike" and "Defense of the Ancients". The modern audience is also Chinese and likes games with no gameplay that are obviously very pathetic scams.

 

[xanaum]

I think there's a lot of confusion about what the entertainment industry thinks about this audience, which I believe are people between childhood and their early twenties, who aren't always consuming the same thing.

Your point 3 is being falsely pushed by consulting firms as the crown of modern audiences, and big business execs are buying into it because everyone else is saying the same thing. In reality, it's more about forcing it in a programmed way rather than something that grows organically.

Pleasing the modern audience is more about delivering whatever's hyped in that moment, always something super accessible, low complexity, a kind of "digital fast food" that gives you instant fun. And you need luck, a lot of luck, to build cultural loyalty that goes beyond the hype phase. Fortnite is a good example of this, just like MMORPGs, MOBAs, and Minecraft were at some point. Roblox and Gacha games are now.

At the end of the day, the conservative strategy of pleasing a solid, established audience is much smarter. But if you manage to create something within the hype that isn’t just a generic copy of what worked before, you might hit the jackpot and create something that defines a generation

 

[rm082e]

Here's a fun game to play: Go look up the Xbox/PlayStation/Steam account names for some of these activists pushing the "modern audience" (i.e. wokeism) narrative and see how many games are they playing, and what games are they playing. I started doing this after noticing one of the main writers at Kotaku many years ago barely had any achievements or trophies and didn't seem to have a Steam account.

 

[mdkirby]

One will think this is obvious... then again, if Publishers have been getting this wrong, its no wonder that even here some would too.

Right off the top of my head, here are some games that has sold over 10M copies released in the last 4 years

1. COD MW2
2. Elden Ring
3. FIFA
4. HZFW
5. SM:MM
6. SM2
7. GOW:R
8. Hogwarts
9. RE8
10. AC:V
11. Helldivers 2
12. BMW

And I am sure there are more, and that list gets even longer if we add games that also sold as much as 5M+.

Most of those games, aren't online-focused or are single-player. The modern audience has spoken.

Ironically the game there that I think best appeals to and was able to capture the modern audience, and retain the traditional audience, was Harry Potter. I know so so many people (mostly women) who played Harry Potter, and loved it, but would not typically play big games like that. Yet it’s also the very game that the purple place, that’s supposedly inhabited by all the “modern audience gamers” outright banned all discussion of and wanted to cancel, and would permanently ban anyone talking about it.

It had a lot of agency over your character,
It had very broad diversity of characters, genders, ethnicities, that didn’t feel overly forced.
It had lgbtq representation
It looked great,
It was vast but easy to pick up and play for bite sized chunks.
Pretty good progression.
It’s community was fractured tho as the very people it should have appealed to wanted it destroyed, which harmed any communities related to it.

 

[Wildebeest]

Here's a fun game to play: Go look up the Xbox/PlayStation/Steam account names for some of these activists pushing the "modern audience" narrative and see how many games are they playing, and what games are they playing. I started doing this after noticing one of the main writers at Kotaku many years ago barely had any achievements or trophies and didn't seem to have a Steam account.

The capitalised "Modern Audience" is a social media addict who never plays games. The other "modern audience" is the same sad ageing dude who was playing games 10 or 20 years ago.

 

[Zacfoldor]

I'm the modern audience and I don't like any of that shit. Here is what a modern audience wants:

1. 60 FPS
2. No predatory microtransactions designed to steal my real life money thru FOMO
3. No subscriptions or accounts
4. Quality gameplay above all else
5. No social engineering or brainwashing dystopian behavior control

That's it. Period. Full stop. That's the actual modern audience and they HATE that shit.

 

[Ammogeddon]

Modern audiences are shallow, superficial activists that want “the message” in as much content as possible but don’t actually meaningfully consume said content. This was evident in a DA Veilguard video I saw yesterday where the person was more interested in petting and animal and playing rock paper scissors with a companion.

 

[BlackTron]

The way they use "Modern Audience" is that of a propaganda catchphrase.

I interpreted OP's intention to be asking what what we think the Oldspeak version in order to compare.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I interpreted OP's intention to be asking what what we think the Oldspeak version in order to compare.

Whatever the market dictates. The thing is, the market is made up of various tastes and preferences.

Like mentioned here,

The modern audience isn't one person. And that's the biggest problem for these companies who think they can just group millions of people into a single bucket. Even within my own circle of friends, we may have some overlap of games that we all like, but for the most part we all have our own unique preferences in games. When you try to please everyone, you actually end up pleasing nobody.

 

[BlackTron]

The thing is, the market is made up of various tastes and preferences.

While this is true, I don't think it's a fact that makes asking "what does the modern audience want" a pointless exercise. You could be as narrow or generic as necessary in the context. If the context was tell me everything they want so I can put it in one game that would be stupid. But that's not what we're doing here.

The tastes of 10 year old gamers and 40 year old gamers were always different. How those age groups' tastes and expectations change both in relation to their younger/older selves and in relation to each other (including overlap) is all part of the question of how has the modern audience changed from the old one as a whole. Analysts can make generally true statements about changes or trends, or things the market overall liked more then and less now.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Hmm let’s see… Suicide Squad, Zau, Flintlock, Dustborn, Concord, SW Outlaws all bombed.

Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, Black Myth Wukong, Space Marine 2 were all big hits.

Seems to me like what the modern audience wants is games that don’t have even the slightest stink of “made for Modern Audiences” about them.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The wacky anti-social loud crowd has always been around in any industry.

Problem for businesses catering to them is they are probably only 5% of the actual market. So cater a product to them is a death sentence, unless it's something that can be made dirt cheap and can get enough sales.

It's like eco-friendly products. Another loud crowd. Go into any grocery store, Walmart, etc.... and count how many are actually eco-friendly. Not that many. My copany makes some eco products too. Always among the worst sellers in the product line. But funny enough, pretty good profit wise since we jack up the price for them and they still buy it. Typically, eco products for us cost LESS than the mainstream product because we put in less chemicals or dyes in it and then stamp it eco with a green label. And they buy it. lol

I dont think the modern audience is even 5% of any industry's sales pie. But they sure can stink it up on social media being 95% of voice.

 

[GymWolf]

Hmm let’s see… Suicide Squad, Zau, Flintlock, Dustborn, Concord, SW Outlaws all bombed.

Helldivers 2, Astro Bot, Black Myth Wukong, Space Marine 2 were all big hits.

Seems to me like what the modern audience wants is games that don’t have even the slightest stink of “made for Modern Audiences” about them.

 

[DeepEnigma]

While this is true, I don't think it's a fact that makes asking "what does the modern audience want" a pointless exercise. You could be as narrow or generic as necessary in the context. If the context was tell me everything they want so I can put it in one game that would be stupid. But that's not what we're doing here.

The tastes of 10 year old gamers and 40 year old gamers were always different. How those age groups' tastes and expectations change both in relation to their younger/older selves and in relation to each other (including overlap) is all part of the question of how has the modern audience changed from the old one as a whole. Analysts can make generally true statements about changes or trends, or things the market overall liked more then and less now.

Here's the thing though. At no point in entertainment history, did they ever parrot that catchphrase in unison. An agenda driven one.

 

[BlackTron]

Here's the thing though. At no point in entertainment history, did they ever parrot that catchphrase in unison. An agenda driven one.

There should be some way to have a conversation about what the modern gaming audience likes without getting dragged away from the task with a discussion on Orwellian dystopia.

 

[DeepEnigma]

There should be some way to have a conversation about what the modern gaming audience likes without getting dragged away from the task with a discussion on Orwellian dystopia.

The collectivism "modern audience" doesn't exist. That's the whole point.

There are consumers of various tastes and interests. There is no "modern audience."

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

comply to the hivemind or else, your kids belong to us

 

[BlackTron]

The collectivism "modern audience" doesn't exist. That's the whole point.

There are consumers of various tastes and interests. There is no "modern audience."

It doesn't really matter that the whole audience is of various tastes and interests. "What does the modern audience like" is still an answerable question (OP's question).

The factual definition of "modern audience" is what everyone in the market likes and is motivated by, in modern times. Figuring out what it actually is, is an exercise.

I might make some overall statement about the toy market. Then say more kids overall like construction toys than before, with more girls playing with them than the 90's, and an additional market for adults. I'm not just gonna say "there is no modern audience" because different groups in it have different tastes. The point of asking what does modern want is to contrast with what old wanted. If there wasn't an iota of difference in the core market (young boys) I'd say the modern market changed by wanting more girly and adult construction sets, they don't know to make it unless they do the research. Of course boys changed too and this whole thing is made up/simplified (inspired by reality).

 

[Londo]

There's a strong possibility that these "modern audiences" aren't that much into videogames, given the results of recent titles.
Or they are too small of a crowd to be measured with normal statistics and/or pollings.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Reality is the average player doesn't care one way or another, in fact i've seen a fair share of "modern audience" type of developers who are quite competent at making games and found relative success (Lunacid, Unsighted, Potionomics, etc).

The main issue here is when large companies try to push DEI in a corporativist fashion, that type of uninspired, obnoxious checkbox "diversity". Or alternatively when people who don't have any talent in making games are instead trying to wield them as a hammer, a tool to shape culture in the way they see fit. Those will almost always make terrible games since they're essentially making propaganda.

 

[Shiny Pepe]

Here is your modern audience person

 

[Shodai]

Modern audience is a myth.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I think there's a lot of confusion about what the entertainment industry thinks about this audience, which I believe are people between childhood and their early twenties, who aren't always consuming the same thing.

Considering how the Western world is aging it’s incredibly shortsighted to target a group that is small and will o Ly get smaller - people in their 30s and older are much more numerous and have much more disposable income. Also, they don’t care about 80hrs games, their most precious commodity is time, not money.

 

[marquimvfs]

I was talking about this with my wife yesterday and she said the same thing, we agreeed to disagree. My educated guess was that they already tried and it didn't worked as intended. Both as a worker inside a dev company trying to sell an idea that got scrapped and as an independent creator, then the product with the idea didn't sell. The white male is the main target audience at the industry, the same white male that don't touch their products (to put in the garbage bin) without gloves. Having said that, they are in the right direction, they founded companies that are trying to change the tastes of the main audience, so the products they want to create could have a chance. But the core audience mindset change strategy is wrong, they're forcing all the ideas (not the good ones, like a respectable creator) in an abrupt way, paying no attention to the details in the core of the works they're messing with and taking advantage of an almost collapsing industry, promising a supposed raise in sells that could come with a "new audience". But this audience doesn't exist (at least yet), and they also threats the marketing team with cancelation if they don't embrace their standards fully.
The way they operate is a house of cards, a recipe for disaster. They're promising a thing they cannot deliver, which is a better product that will sell to a broader audience. But the product is worse than the original, and the "new" audience is non existent, is something they're trying to create in order to consume the products they like, the way they like. That will only work while they are somehow new at the market, bring some money to the table (with third party financing) and are arguing with a director/marketing table desperate to sell more copies (some products don't need this, some will learn the hard way that it won't work as intended). They could be a novelty in the market if they stayed in the shadows for the final consumer for more time, that's why that Steam list was a threat for them. When they collapse, they'll blame the white male, call retirement from the "toxic" industry and focus their energy on lectures teaching the new generation on how to be as inclusive as they were, without never looking at their mistakes.

My 2 cents on the topic, months ago, replying to a member who asked why sweetbaby didn't try to make their own games instead of shitting on someone else's.

 

[Frwrd]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Considering how the Western world is aging it’s incredibly shortsighted to target a group that is small and will o Ly get smaller - people in their 30s and older are much more numerous and have much more disposable income. Also, they don’t care about 80hrs games, their most precious commodity is time, not money.

Top Gun Maverick made $1.5B at the box office. The plot was as predictable as can be. And with older folks, as you said they got money. And at this stage in life probably know what they like. So to lets say turn Top Gun into a blatant DEI project or spoofy jetfighting comedy movie to make younger people happy as it resembles Tik Tok would be insane.

The movie studio and writers figured out not screwing up the formula. Cant be that hard.

 

[Kacho]

The industry collectively thought they would expand the market by brute forcing DEI crap in their games. All that ended up doing was creating unwanted controversy and reduced sales.

 

[Robb]

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Top Gun Maverick made $1.5B at the box office. The plot was as predictable as can be. And with older folks, as you said they got money. And at this stage in life probably know what they like. So to lets say turn Top Gun into a blatant DEI project or spoofy jetfighting comedy movie to make younger people happy as it resembles Tik Tok would be insane.

The movie studio and writers figured out not screwing up the formula. Cant be that hard.

Not to mention Maverick was exactly a movie older folks needed - the main hero is experienced professional and absolutely destroys younglings because of that. Them being smart they figure out he knows his shit and they should learn from him.

Compared that to Indiana Jones which is just pathetic exercise of character assassination.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Compared that to Indiana Jones which is just pathetic exercise of character assassination.

Didnt watch the recent Indy movie. Seen all the rest. Already didnt like Crystal Skull as Ford was already old and feeble trying to run around like he's 40.

I heard about the movie being a slap in the face as the female co-star takes the reins. Yikes.

 

[Luc2010]

Continue with the modern audience non-sense and continue to see shitty sales!

Nobody wants to see the following in their games:

1. Excessive Micro-Transactions

2. Require Always Online (You can allow campaign for offline)

3. Installing a trigger warning screen upon startup of the game (It is a game, don't need a safe space)

4. Censoring remasters/remakes

5. Pandering (DEI)

6. Non-Binary (Stick with male/female)

7. Changing the model's in game character and beating it with an ugly stick. Looking at you Star Wars Outlaw.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I heard about the movie being a slap in the face as the female co-star takes the reins.

That is not the problem, it would be kinda cool to have the IP continue with a female lead since we don’t seem to be getting Lara Croft. It’s just absolutely disgusting how they treated the character.

 

[Kacho]

Like why is this a thing? Why does it even need to be said in their marketing? Who do they think they’re appealing to specifically?

Will this make more people interested in Indiana Jones? Absolutely not. People just want a good game. Proudly declaring your game is made to appeal to modern audiences immediately turns your game into an internet punching bag.

God help Machinegames if their game has heavy handed social commentary after New Colossus and Youngblood.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

The industry collectively thought they would expand the market by brute forcing DEI crap in their games. All that ended up doing was creating unwanted controversy and reduced sales.

“It’s mostly straight white males playing our games… just imagine how much we could expand our audience by appealing to other demographics as well!!”

- try to “fix” some franchise/genre without having a damn clue what attracted people to it in the first place

- have DEI department/consultants to make sure you meet all your quotas and make sure you portray “under-represented” identities (aka everyone except straight white men and attractive women) in the most sympathetic, stereotype-defying, flawless, and boring as fuck way possible

- attract a bunch of activists who hate their audience, and think it’s their life’s mission to overthrow the patriarchy and re-educate gamers

- silence all dissent by hurling accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia at anybody who objects to propagandistic messaging

- act surprised and blame gamers when it turns out that neither the existing audience nor your imaginary “Modern Audience” buys your game

- keep doubling down on the same strategy until the studio goes bankrupt



AAA western game industry in a nutshell

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Like why is this a thing? Why does it even need to be said in their marketing? Who do they think they’re appealing to specifically?

Will this make more people interested in Indiana Jones? Absolutely not. People just want a good game. Proudly declaring your game is made to appeal to modern audiences immediately turns your game into an internet punching bag.

God help Machinegames if their game has heavy handed social commentary after New Colossus and Youngblood.

Yup.

Think of all the popular gadgets or everyday products people buy...... high end stuff are TVs, smartphones and cars, boring stuff are bananas, toilet paper, or a new pair of jeans you saw an ad for. Nothing stops these companies from injecting some politics into their product or marketing. But they typically dont.

It's funny how media companies (in particular gaming and movies/tv) have such an odd array of employees, social media loudmouths, marketing messages, and adjusting their products to fit a political narrative.

While the rest just try promoting their products the normal way, where the biggest politics they do might be changing their logo on Linkedin to rainbow for Pride month. And then change it back in July.

It's a strange thing. But no doubt interesting when it comes to employee mindset and business strategy.

 

[lughnasadh123]

No idea who the modern audience is or what they want but find it fascinating the vacillating between "let devs make what they want" and point to high selling games as what they should be doing depending on whether they like the product or not. Ideally for a studio it'll be a mixture of both.

 

[killatopak]

I just went to a coffee shop near a school earlier this afternoon. The shop was practically filled with students. Boys and girls a couple bringing guitars and playing. I was the only one that was not aside from the barista.

They were talking about a lot of stuff. I honed in when they talked about games. You know what they talked about in length? Roblox. These were senior high students.

I don’t know where these modern audience are but they’re definitely not them.