ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[JC John Sese Cuneta <jcjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Target Market Grouping

By Age/Generation:
1) 70s & 80s gamer generation
2) 90s gamer generation
3) Millenium gamer generation

By Type:
A) Single Player gamers
B) LAN gamers
C) WAN gamers (I am using "WAN" to refer to "online-LAN"; games which
can connect to servers like Battle.Net; GG-Game/Garena; Steam; GGZ;
etc.  This also includes online games like Yahoo! Games; POGO; etc.)
D) MMO gamers

I believe that for us to be able to move forward effectively, we need to
clearly define our target market.  Each of these group of gamers have
different tastes, for example, the Millenium gamer generation are mostly
the eye-candy gamers.  If this is our target market, then we definitely
have to consider including proprietary games in our plans.

If we really do not want to include proprietary games - whether they
have a native client, or WINE-based client, or none-at-all - then we are
already limiting ourselves to the 70s & 80s generation, maybe half of
the 90s generation can be counted as well.

Now this is but an example, this is in no way definite or the standard. 
But if we are not going to understand the gamers, then we will never be
able to effectively plan our plans.

We may end up wondering why gamers are not switching to Ubuntu or Linux
in general when the major reason was we're targeting the eye-candy
gamers in a Linux-gaming maturity level that still can not provide their
eye-candy tastes (*knocking on the doors of OpenGL here*).

So which is our target gamers?  My proposal will be to start at this
group: #1 to #2 + A to C, and yes this includes proprietary games (which
are mainly under the letter 'C' grouping; and maybe most of the 90s
generation really prefer).  A simple question to ask, will our target
market play the current FLOSS-games that are available in Linux?  If we
can answer that, if we can define that, then we have our target market
and we should start there.  A goal that we can reach, a target that
later on we can safely grade ourselves if we're successful or not, or
where we are already.

Next question then is support for this proprietary games.  Then why
don't we provide that support?  I'm definitely not talking about
"internal" client/programming support but the Linux side.  After all,
isn't that one of the ways the Free Culture can earn from - providing
support services?  (We can even tap FLOSSManuals here..)

Best Regards,
JC

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