Gamers... your new target market?

This handsome devil could very well be your new demographic when reaching out to any male (and an increasing amount of females) from say ages 12-39. Of course, when you're actually reaching out to him, he'll more likely look something like this:

Despite somehow remaining a distinctly nerdy hobby while also providing America with a convenient scapegoat when anyone gets shot, anywhere, video games and the gaming industry as a whole are potentially one of the most powerful and influential markets around. Thanks to the vast majority of the demographic having exceptional buying power (or weak-spined parents who do) the video game industry reeled in $1.1 billion in America alone... in the month of January. But perhaps because of the "niche" audience or potentially dangerous connotations, gamers remain a mostly untapped resource in PR, chased after in other means besides the actual games themselves. Not that people haven't tried. For example, the U.S. Army spent millions creating a First Person Shooter war game designed to teach people (kids) what the Army was all about, namely discipline and patriotism (and killing). 

Still, video games don't get the same amount of outreach and tie-ins as movies do, despite games soundly beating the snot out of the movie industry for the last 5 years in terms of profit. Recently, a client of ours participated in a movie tie-in contest to Fool's Gold starring Matt "I need an easier to spell surname" McConaughey (see how I didn't go for the obvious "no shirt" joke), and Kate "Teh Hawtness" Hudson. While I enjoy movies with bronzed up dudes (300) and anorexic lookers as much as the next guy, it makes me wonder what sort of interest could have been generated by tying into the recently released Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), Pirates of the Burning Sea, where players take the role of pirates searching for treasure, swashbuckling and chasing monkeys. Plus their anorexic chicks are more dapper!

Working with games can go farther than just contests, however. Personally, I see a chance to conduct questionnaires and surveys within games, particularly the extra lucrative MMO market. Soft-sounding gamers on upcoming PR initiatives, or just sitting and observing what people are talking about (be prepared to cover your eyes and ears) are all unexplored avenues. The frank honesty (and equally weighty overloads of BS) that can be found within MMO chats and forum boards can be a valuable insight to many of the clients we work with. These discussions are like the Perez Hilton of all things nerdy.

The shining jewel of MMOs is the World of Warcraft, the best selling PC title of 2005 and 2006 and 2007. With 10 million subscribers, a unique place in pop culture (as an Emmy award winning South Park episode and as a model for scientific research of how plagues spread) and as part of the largest video game publishing house in the industry, WoW is unequaled in its impact on the market. Where most MMO games are lucky to get 100,000 gamers, WoW's subscriber base dwarfs the competition, and means that thousands of people are online at all hours of the day (myself included). Through the in-game chat, and online forums, these subscribers not only help spread the many viral videos, images and phrases we come across everyday, they help create them. And those subscriber numbers are only expected to go up, as yet another expansion for the game hits later this year. 

The dangers of working closely with the gaming industry and its audience is similar to that of working with popular blogs. If you don't know your audience, you are in for a world of hurt. 

Fox News recently tried faking their knowledge of the RPG Mass Effect, and the results led to an embarrassing series of events, especially for their "credible expert." The dangers of faking it are many, and this expert found out what happens when gamers, notoriously protective of their hobby, found out.

The game is an epic sci-fi journey that takes many cues from Star Wars and features mature themes as well as difficult decisions. In the more than 30 hours of gameplay built into the main story line of the game, 30 seconds of it feature a love (okay sex) scene that can only be viewed if the player spends the entire game developing a relationship and getting to know their digital lover. It was nothing more raunchy than what could be seen on prime time TV, and fit in with the cinematic and EPIC scope of the game. 

Well, Fox's credible expert who perhaps lacks opposable thumbs and never bothered playing the game, nationally lambasted the game for its effect on children, how its pornographic nature is corrupting and how its essentially the next Playboy magazine where kids will be secretly watching it when dad is not around. Gamer's were angry and used the tool that they grew up on to express their anger: the interwebz. They found her book on Amazon.com and spammed it with more than 230 bad reviews in less than 24 hours, forcing Amazon to lock down her page and "inspiring" her to re-examine her stance and publicly apologize. There were also some very public legal threats by the game's publisher Electronic Arts, who probably can hire some good lawyers considering how profit margins of the video game industry. 

In part 2 of my EPIC post, I'll explore some more ideas of working with the gaming industry, and also post a glossary of gaming terms so we can all start slinging some of the lingo around the cubes, you n00bs.