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[Insomniac Leaks] Sony's Analysis on Live Service Games — Full Presentation

ProtoByte

Member
Why not? Women/girls are already playing games, there's no reason to at least try at expanding that demographics.
You just said it; women/girls are already here. And they like it the way it was/is. Trying to sell anyone else on games at this point is a lost cause. Nobody has a problem understanding this when it comes to mobile gamers on console; everyone who isn't Microsoft or a shill analyst understands that mobile gamers are just not looking to engage in core gaming.

The same goes for the vast majority of women.

This lesson has been replicated in comics, books, films and TV at this point. This data just goes to show how massive the gap is for games compared even to those.
 

Kaleinc

Banned
As for the male/female split, I’m thinking a lot of game companies are going female leads hoping to get extra sales. Historically data has shown there’s lots of female gamers but they skew to Sims and puzzle games kind of stuff. There were detailed data charts years ago on GAF where genres like shooters and sports were like 3% women.

So the urge has got to be there to get more women over the other genres and best way to do it is female leads. And the hope is the female character is good enough to get more women buying it and more importantly walking the fine line to not piss off the guy gamers. Have fun with that balancing act.
And their solution was to design ugly as sin female chars. So that the dude who's playing is like "My girlfriend is ugly and this shit is even worse"
 

Saber

Gold Member
Why not? Women/girls are already playing games, there's no reason to at least try at expanding that demographics.

Theres no need to expand a demographic that most have no interest. Its like football. Women who like football like because like to see a good sport and good plays, they don't care if its men playing or not target them. In games the few women who play games like playing games regardless of the demographics or who is targetting.
What Sony want is to catch the ones who have no interest in game at all. Most of those won't be on gaming anyway or are just social media screechers(complain about male stuff but don't play games).

One day people understand that certain products are more liked by a gender than another. Thats completelly normal, theres no need to "expand". No one expands a product that most female like.
 
That just sounds crazy to me lol
I worked at a county community mental health organization in Michigan at one point…we faced a HIPAA violation lawsuit at one point because one dumb ass clinked a link in an email and personal info of 100’s of individuals with cases in our organization got leaked (due to a ransom demand that wasn’t met), including our software program passwords. Please don’t discount the dumbness of human beings, all it takes is one, and there are millions.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Theres no need to expand a demographic that most have no interest. Its like football. Women who like football like because like to see a good sport and good plays, they don't care if its men playing or not target them. In games the few women who play games like playing games regardless of the demographics or who is targetting.
What Sony want is to catch the ones who have no interest in game at all. Most of those won't be on gaming anyway or are just social media screechers(complain about male stuff but don't play games).

One day people understand that certain products are more liked by a gender than another. Thats completelly normal, theres no need to "expand". No one expands a product that most female like.

This is not accurate. There are populations outside of the core demographic who can be captured with a nudge.

People don't either like or dislike something. It's more complex than that.
 

Saber

Gold Member
People don't either like or dislike something. It's more complex than that.

It's not complex at all. Some demographic are more interested in some product than another, no matter how much people twist it. Thats doesn't mean its exclusive to specific gender, but it doesn't mean it should be a reason to expand(or taken as a bad thing)since the very low part that likes video-games still gonna like games regardless. Theres nothing difficult or complex about that.
 
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Fake

Member
I see 9:1
rlY8CAo.png



Begs the question, why is the industry so hell bent on making so many new games female centered?

Even more strange is Sony hiding this.

Only an idiot that spend 100% of his life on Twitter/Tiktok would believe that loads of women play video games.

Everytime they want to prove showing a woman playing video game, but end up being exception after exception.

This is so fucking similar to the female soccer. Those women whining like no end to support women, but almost no woman watch female soccer matches.

Most of the women don't play video games, unless of course they put mobile crap like Candy Crush into data just to disprove someone on the internet.
 
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ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
Even more strange is Sony hiding this.

Only an idiot that spend 100% of his life on Twitter/Tiktok would believe that loads of women play video games.

Everytime they want to prove showing a woman playing video game, but end up being exception after exception.

This is so fucking similar to the female soccer. Those women whining like no end to support women, but almost no woman watch female soccer matches.

Most of the women don't play video games, unless of course they put mobile crap like Candy Crush into data just to disprove someone on the internet.
I think they are trying to appeal to women and broaden the demo by having women centered games, since they know males will prob buy the game regardless of the protagonist.

The issue is that women are just think differently. They are not that into the pew pew, and more into stuff like Animal Crossing. They want something cozy.
 

Felessan

Member

Been here 10 years. Every recap shows the same kind of thing. Like 5-10 people out of the 150-200 people in my office always click them. Would be better if they also showed how many clickers are repeat offenders. Lol!
Only goof IT mail filtering solution really helps. People are unreliable.
We have training twice a year and several mocap phishing attacks - and people still fail at them. Because they made so believable and lucrative that someone will click on them, especially if he is busy, distracted etc, so he is not paying full attention to it.

Most of the women don't play video games, unless of course they put mobile crap like Candy Crush into data just to disprove someone on the internet.
Genshin has quite high ration of women - like 40:60, and there are really a lot of them, especially teenager girls. But game was made to be lucrative to them.
 

Aces High

Member
Again, of all the game companies out there why would Insomniac be targeted?
Every business is targeted 24/7.

Every business get's hacked sooner or later. The question is not "if", but "when".

The guys who are doing the ransomware attacks are not the ones who hack a business. The hackers usually sell the blueprint for the company hack in the darkweb.

Other studios from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc are getting hacked all the time and they probably don't even know.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
They probably use the unreported data to spin the numbers towards who they favor.
It's fair to assume though that if someone does not want to be known their gender it would be girls. So any spin might not entirely be that far from the truth.
Boys (or probably just everyone) get those mass spam messages with links to some naked lady or whatever. That's a waste of time but girls probably get harrased with direct messages in the second they anounce their gender. And I would want to avoid that also. Getting some creep to stalk me just because would hardly excite me.
Doing some ballpark math based on the blue unknown portion vs the green known gender split, even if the blue part was 50/50 guys/girls, the overall split would still be 60/40 guys/girls.
 

Fake

Member
Genshin has quite high ration of women - like 40:60, and there are really a lot of them, especially teenager girls. But game was made to be lucrative to them.

You can't use one single game as a base dude. Using data require loads of different games.

I think they are trying to appeal to women and broaden the demo by having women centered games, since they know males will prob buy the game regardless of the protagonist.

The issue is that women are just think differently. They are not that into the pew pew, and more into stuff like Animal Crossing. They want something cozy.

I don't see any problem in your argument, but changing the data results just to satisfy women is the real issue.
I know women normally like some type of games like Sims and Animal Crossing, but again manipuling data is wrong.

Sony is being dissonest about showing the data just to earn social media points.

Its just bad faith.
 
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shamoomoo

Member
Theres no need to expand a demographic that most have no interest. Its like football. Women who like football like because like to see a good sport and good plays, they don't care if its men playing or not target them. In games the few women who play games like playing games regardless of the demographics or who is targetting.
What Sony want is to catch the ones who have no interest in game at all. Most of those won't be on gaming anyway or are just social media screechers(complain about male stuff but don't play games).

One day people understand that certain products are more liked by a gender than another. Thats completelly normal, theres no need to "expand". No one expands a product that most female like.
I'm not sure if football is a good comparison as games are a little more neutral,I think s better comparison would be TV shows.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
You just said it; women/girls are already here. And they like it the way it was/is. Trying to sell anyone else on games at this point is a lost cause. Nobody has a problem understanding this when it comes to mobile gamers on console; everyone who isn't Microsoft or a shill analyst understands that mobile gamers are just not looking to engage in core gaming.

The same goes for the vast majority of women.

This lesson has been replicated in comics, books, films and TV at this point. This data just goes to show how massive the gap is for games compared even to those.

I think this is true. You can say there is a lot to gain here, but this audience knows and visits the same public places. Women know full well about gaming, and Playstation. They aren't stupid. The see the commercials at home or in cinema, they see the console displayed in the shopping malls. Hell, they see their boyfriend gaming. My girlfriend likes games even, but she isn't interested in an Xbox or PS5 at all.

Sony and MS cater to a crowd that isn't there. Sure they can push and push and uglify characters because some no lifers and trangenders complain about representation, but it will literally get them nowhere.
 

Godot25

Banned
Watching this, I'm not surprised that Sony went so hard on whole "live service" pivot.

Because if you make successful live service game, you have constant revenue stream for 5-10 years. It's literally insane.

But making successful live service game is not easy.
 

Saber

Gold Member
I'm not sure if football is a good comparison as games are a little more neutral,I think s better comparison would be TV shows.

Games was never neutral. Was aways more a thing of men than women(not much about target but demographic), no wonder we have alot of screechers and people against stuff they consider offensive.
Football was an example for me because despite being an extremelly popular stuff in my country we still have people complaining about it, including female soccer players.
 

Fake

Member
I'm not sure if football is a good comparison as games are a little more neutral,I think s better comparison would be TV shows.

Football is a fair comparison taking the numbers.

Most of the viewers are man, and most of the women watch male football instead of female football.

Media always tried to masquerede this information.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Football is a fair comparison taking the numbers.

Most of the viewers are man, and most of the women watch male football instead of female football.

Media always tried to masquerede this information.
Yup.

It’s not even just about the usage or viewership split, but purchase intent. If an NFL game has 60,000 fans and it’s 80/20 men and women I’d bet the people who actually bought the tickets or are the ones itching to go is probably more like 95/5 for guys.

Gaming, sports…. Heck even sports cars etc… are traditionally male dominated hobbies. So for anyone to try to fake it so it’s kinda 50/50 is lying.

But you got to give them credit for fighting the fight because when you got hobbies dominated by men or they can have lots of female fans watching but they prefer watching the men’s pro league it looks bad politically because it shows that the guys rule. When you got women’s pro leagues getting almost no fans and need to be subsidized by the NHL or NBA or go broke it looks bad that the ladies can’t keep up or that the female fanbase would rather support the guys going to games where tickets and parking are triple the price.

What they are also trying to do is fudge the numbers to grow sales. If the real gender split is let’s say 80/20 guys but a company promotes its 50/50, then it kinda urges women to get on the train and join the tons of other women when in reality there’s hardly any. If they honestly promote it’s 80/20 then the ladies wouldn’t give a shit because it seems the rest of them don’t care so why bother
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I hate
That it's all this deeply rooted corporate business.
I mean I know it is... but this is so fkn cold hearted and soulless.

If revenue is truly the only thing that matters. With no room for people making games because they love games...
then fuck off and go make cars or buy property. There are better ways to make money than overmilking video games.
At least nintendo keeps in the same realm and they are both content and confident with who they are.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I hate
That it's all this deeply rooted corporate business.
I mean I know it is... but this is so fkn cold hearted and soulless.

If revenue is truly the only thing that matters. With no room for people making games because they love games...
then fuck off and go make cars or buy property. There are better ways to make money than overmilking video games.
At least nintendo keeps in the same realm and they are both content and confident with who they are.
Your view would be correct holistically if this was the old days of gaming where Mario and sonic and SF were the killer sales and everything else from console and PC games sold meh. studios and budgets were meh and if a game sold 500,000 units that would be considered decent enough to stay alive. And if it sold 2M copies on PS1 that would be a good enough to be a Greatest Hits sales chart topper.

But modern day gaming is every decent sized studio or publisher has amped up the budgets and marketing so they need the typical non-indie game selling like 5M copies minimum or else the CEO goes ape shit. If a game sold 5M during the PS2 era that’d be a best seller.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
They can want or believe in potential as much as they like, it isn't going to happen.

My daughter is 4 years old. She's been watching me play Spiderman 2 for the last few weeks. She loves him. She asked to play the game with me. I let her do a little something while walking around the city. I noticed her interests in some other games after that and decided to buy her a Nintendo Switch and bought a Paw Patrol game.

We've played it almost every day together in 2 player mode and said it's her favorite toy EVER!!! All smiles. So why isn't it possible to get more girls into gaming? I could have assumed since she's a girl, I'm not going to buy the Switch. But lets be real......I'm on GAF, so of course I did the right thing LOL!

But her natural reaction to watching me play games was to ask to play too. It's normal for girls to like video games just like little boys.
 

shamoomoo

Member
I hate
That it's all this deeply rooted corporate business.
I mean I know it is... but this is so fkn cold hearted and soulless.

If revenue is truly the only thing that matters. With no room for people making games because they love games...
then fuck off and go make cars or buy property. There are better ways to make money than overmilking video games.
At least nintendo keeps in the same realm and they are both content and confident with who they are.
Huh? But the bulk of Nintendo game are franchises that are as old as the company,they haven't put out too many new games different from they are usually known for.

Also, why can't a company do both, over milk video games but being relatively good at it .
 

shamoomoo

Member
Games was never neutral. Was aways more a thing of men than women(not much about target but demographic), no wonder we have alot of screechers and people against stuff they consider offensive.
Football was an example for me because despite being an extremelly popular stuff in my country we still have people complaining about it, including female soccer players.
I'm talking about the experiences that games can provide,they don't have to cater to what men/boys find appealing.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Huh? But the bulk of Nintendo game are franchises that are as old as the company,they haven't put out too many new games different from they are usually known for.

Also, why can't a company do both, over milk video games but being relatively good at it .
I know I know. They are all like this but these slides remind me too much of my work... the corporation is what it is
 

twilo99

Member
Watching this, I'm not surprised that Sony went so hard on whole "live service" pivot.

Because if you make successful live service game, you have constant revenue stream for 5-10 years. It's literally insane.

But making successful live service game is not easy.

Sony employs the best game developers in the world, there shouldn't be a problem creating a GaaS game that can outperform whatever is out there right now.
 

ProtoByte

Member
My daughter is 4 years old. She's been watching me play Spiderman 2 for the last few weeks. She loves him. She asked to play the game with me. I let her do a little something while walking around the city. I noticed her interests in some other games after that and decided to buy her a Nintendo Switch and bought a Paw Patrol game.

We've played it almost every day together in 2 player mode and said it's her favorite toy EVER!!! All smiles. So why isn't it possible to get more girls into gaming? I could have assumed since she's a girl, I'm not going to buy the Switch. But lets be real......I'm on GAF, so of course I did the right thing LOL!

But her natural reaction to watching me play games was to ask to play too. It's normal for girls to like video games just like little boys.
Nice anecdote. Now, instead of that, let's consider an adult woman; because I highly doubt the target audience for TLOU or even Horizon is kids (I mean, the demographics show 20-39 is the key age range regardless of gender here).

She sees her boyfriend, brother, roommate, or colleague playing and talking about games all day. Much of the same advertising he's seen, she's seen already too. At that point, if she isn't playing games now, no amount of pandering to her (perceived or actual) tastes is going to change that; as many different genres, characters and styles as there are already.

Another thing; your main reference here is Spider-Man. A game about 2 dudes. It literally has Man in the title. Again: Girls who play games like them just fine as they are.
 

Felessan

Member
You can't use one single game as a base dude. Using data require loads of different games.
Actually you can. You made a baseless assumption "women don't play games" so it's require only one reasonable evidence to prove your theory wrong.

I don't see any problem in your argument, but changing the data results just to satisfy women is the real issue.
I know women normally like some type of games like Sims and Animal Crossing, but again manipuling data is wrong.
And something with high socializing. Mainstream MMO has a quite a high ratio of male to female, FF14 has 7:3 ratio.
Or something with high aesthetic value. Anecdotical evidence - Granblue (mobile) even though it's a hardcore RPG with MMO styled progression (lots of grind, lots of complex mechanics etc) has more female players than male one. It just has a lot of appealing art and likable characters.

We don't know what data was used in that statement and what behavioral pattern is in chart in presentation. Maybe women just don't like to reveal their gender in their profile, for obvious reason. 78% in unknown really blur picture, you can't just assume that it contain same distribution as known part.

Actually we do know - 41% number used more information than just registration, it has additional separate source of data "SIE Global Platform Experience Tracker (Breakthrough)"
 
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Fake

Member
Actually you can. You made a baseless assumption "women don't play games" so it's require only one reasonable evidence to prove your theory wrong.

No you can't. Stop moving goals.

Thats why Sony hide those information. To fool people like you. Men are still the majority of the gamers, no matter how much you try to spin.

This is no Twitter, so try to live with that 9:1 leak in mind. 2024 will be fun.

BTW I never said women don't play video games, so get that fuck out of here with your accusations.
 
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Felessan

Member
No you can't. Stop moving goals.
You seems to not know math very well.
It requires compex logical proof to prove theory and it requires only 1 reasonable contradicting fact to disprove it.
What you are trying to do has nothing with rational argument trying to prove you position, it's just pushing some emotional stuff "I feel like that" that has ZERO proving power.

Thats why Sony hide those information. To fool people like you. Men are still the majority of the gamers, no matter how much you try to spin.
This is no Twitter, so try to live with that 9:1 leak in mind. 2024 will be fun.
Yeah, "Sony is lying". Convinient argument. Save trouble to try to understand and put things into perspective, just blame other party is lying and feel righteous.
Unlike you I know what does reliability of data means, and 80% unknown is anything but reliable data.

BTW I never said women don't play video games, so get that fuck out of here with your accusations.
You said exactly this - "Most of the women don't play video games, unless of course they put mobile crap like Candy Crush into data just to disprove someone on the internet."
And this is bullsh*t.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Nice anecdote. Now, instead of that, let's consider an adult woman; because I highly doubt the target audience for TLOU or even Horizon is kids (I mean, the demographics show 20-39 is the key age range regardless of gender here).

She sees her boyfriend, brother, roommate, or colleague playing and talking about games all day. Much of the same advertising he's seen, she's seen already too. At that point, if she isn't playing games now, no amount of pandering to her (perceived or actual) tastes is going to change that; as many different genres, characters and styles as there are already.

Another thing; your main reference here is Spider-Man. A game about 2 dudes. It literally has Man in the title. Again: Girls who play games like them just fine as they are.

I don't think the leading characters in TLOU or Horizon were made female to bring in more woman gamers though.
 
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