[Deptheads] Age Group Issues

Wed Feb 13 15:59:06 PST 2008

>Very good, I don't see how we can continue avoiding this issue. We Need the Family.
Norm

  I disagree.  We need gamers.   Families do not equal gamers. 

  There is a major difference between appealing to parents of young kids (4-8), tweens (9-12) and teenagers 13+.  These are three separate markets who want different things. 

  Young kids need huge supervision, lots of varied and quick activities and a definite focus on parent/child age appropriate activities.  Promoting parent/child events are tough because you have to overcome the barrier of why they couldn't just play the game at home.   Also, lets admit it, you need to overcome the issues of how various parent/child pairing interact with each other.   Ever seen a Gymboree?  10 sets of pairs trying to isolate themselves during a group activity.   The most realistic answer is a daycare with games.   Be prepared for security and legal issues. 

  Tweens are a bizarre segment.   Unless you have a few million in your marketing budget, avoid them like the plague.   Why?   Tweens have a huge emotional and psychological variance and see the most severe gender gaps in this variance.   You constantly run the risk of everything being too babyish or too demanding for this audience.   They are smarter than you think and stupider than you imagine. 

  Teenagers are a tough group.  Again, you have huge IQ/EQ variation between 13 and 17 and all the associate behavior issues.   But nobody has more impulse money than teens.   The teenage girl is why they build malls.  Walmart for mom, everything else for her daughter.  If you don't believe me, do some googling.   We will have huge trouble marketing to teenage girls because they are under a billion dollar advertising assault on a daily basis in the mass media.  I do think we could do more to bring in teenage gamer girls, but honestly I do not know how to reach this demographic.   But hey, neither does WotC. 

  So let's be honest here.  Warhammer / D&D / Magic spend their marketing dollars on teenage / college males.   That's who the companies target as customers.  As a convention for these games, the smart money follows the corporate money.   

  - Robert

Norman Carlson <carlsonnorm at yahoo.com> wrote:
          Very good, I don't see how we can continue avoiding this issue. We Need the Family.

Norm

  ----- Original Message ----
From: Heather Hughes <heather at gibsongirl.net>
To: deptheads at strategicon.net
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 8:24:23 AM
Subject: [Deptheads] Child Care at the Convention

  I have all the information she (Lisa) aquired on that .  I still have the company info.  In 2007 it was too much of a cost with a new convention management for us to afford, so we put it on the back burner.  We can revisit it again at the next meeting if you like.  I will call the service again in anticpation of a more detailed discussion on their services and cost for May.

  Heather

  On 2/8/08, Norman Carlson <carlsonnorm at yahoo.com> wrote:         We need to attract the family to the con, as Patrick stated "The con is getting older, and we need it to get younger or our con is dying a slow death", we started working on this in 2005, by acquiring a licensed bonded company to run a kids room. Lisa was handling this for us and  has a lot of information that we could probably get from her. If i remember correctly she had a company that we where considering in right before the con was sold. 

Norm

  ----- Original Message ----
From: DB <noldor at gmail.com>
To: deptheads at strategicon.net
  Sent: Friday, February 8, 2008 7:54:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] Re: Computer Room Tourneys

I think we should put Rob in charge of day care. I imagine pursuits throughout the con like something out of Logan's Run. Carousel! Carousel! 

- Den

-----Original Message-----
From: "Karl Kreder" <zeotter at gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 07:51:32 
To:deptheads at strategicon.net
Subject: Re: [Deptheads] Re: Computer Room Tourneys

We have a large family group of 3 families worth of kids (about 8-10 of them, ages from around 6 to 13) and 4 adults.  They have come to the last 3 cons and say that they bring the kids to get them off the video games for a weekend. Just an FYI

On Feb 7, 2008 10:30 PM, Robert Lionheart <spinachcat at yahoo.com <mailto:spinachcat at yahoo.com> > wrote: If you truly want to tap the family market, you need a fully funded kids room with babysitting / kids play volunteers.   Kubla has this and its a huge resource drain, but they are betting on the long term idea of a family oriented convention.    An enhanced video game room is a double-edged situation.   While should bring the attention of the younger audience, you run the distinct risk of such an area becoming a "kids' area" when the convention is not set up with personnel to deal with such an area.     The security issues alone are quite daunting as are equipment liabilities.   One time a kid goes missing due to completely innocent wandering and you can bet the crap will hit the fan at high speed.   While this may not have been an issue when only a handful of kids are present, try to juggle this problem with five times the number of young children.  Also, is ANYONE on our
 !
staff trained and licensed to monitor children in a commercial space?    Also, I do not believe we have to aim that young at all.  The high school / college crowd / young adult market is very good and the older / returning gamer is another choice target.   If the convention wants to focus on family entertainment that is quite possible  BUT there would need to be significant changes to make that happen.   To make that happen, the convention would need a much more mundane family game track.  Stuff that people recognize.   I don't mean members of BBG.   I mean people who shop at ToysRus and never heard of Catan.  I am taking Chutes & Ladders and games where families can play as a whole with other families.   You would have to Disneyesque things to a great degree.   There would have to be MUCH more focus aimed at entertaining the 6-10 year old and their parents at the same event.     If you look at family marketing, you will see that the family focused event marketing has a maj!
or keystone - they market the idea that only people there are other fa
milies.  Families view this as an important factor in the assumption of fun and safety.   Go view advertisements for zoos, Legoland, Whatever on Ice and other family focused events.  They do NOT include single males in their marketing.   In fact, these people do not exist in Family Marketing World.   Last time I checked, males attending without kids is our main demographic.   Otherwise, just saying "sure, bring your kids" is not enough to draw anyone.  Currently, there is NO reason to bring your family to the convention if you have 6-11 year old children.   We have ZERO focus on their needs and we do NOT have a child secure atmosphere. 

  - Robert   

Patrick Havert <patrickhavert at sbcglobal.net <mailto:patrickhavert at sbcglobal.net> > wrote:  Robert,   As head of marketing do you think Teen parents may look at the website?  Come on and grow up, unless we do something that younger kids can attend they have no reason to go to the con and neither do their families.  If we eliminate that group for a few years, do you think they'll really come back?  The con is getting older, and we need it to get younger or our con is dying a slow death.  I admit that teens are better, but we want people to be able to bring their families, if we don't let's just put up signs on the website that say 12+ years old only so we can eliminate any family groups with younger kids.   If you can explain why lounge is better than Zone for teens, I'd love to hear it.  You seem pretty jaded for someone trying to get people to attend the con, maybe we should call it one of your names to really lower expectations.   -Patrick   ----- Original Message -----  F!
rom: Robert Lionheart <mailto:spinachcat at yahoo.com>    To: deptheads at strategicon.net <mailto:deptheads at strategicon.net>    Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 5:14 PM  Subject: Re: [Deptheads] Re: Computer Room Tourneys 
Oh gods Patrick, are we doing it "for the children"?     That's it!  We're going with Video Game Bordello!  Halo Orgy starts at noon!   I like the non-family connotation of Lounge because we do not want the Video Game Space become the Babysitter Zone.   We do not want parents using the con as a dump zone for their rugrats.   I am quite sure Janice isn't signing up for Strategicon Day Care, aka Dungeons & Diapers.    We want teens, not kids, as attendees.  Kids are walking liabilities.  Teens are walking wallets and awesome impule buyers for the dealer's room.  Kids are a resource drain while Teens are networking gold.   The 12+ crowd is far far far more desirable than the 6-11 range.   - Robert     

Patrick Havert <patrickhavert at sbcglobal.net <mailto:patrickhavert at sbcglobal.net> > wrote: I agree with Janice in that Lounge has a kind of non-family connotation associated with it, that we do not want to foster.   How about Video Game Zone, Video Games Live, or Interactive Gaming?  _______________________________________________Deptheads mailing list Deptheads at strategicon.net <mailto:Deptheads at strategicon.net> http://mordred.punk.net/mailman/listinfo/deptheads <http://mordred.punk.net/mailman/listinfo/deptheads>    ---------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51734/*http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping>  ---------------- _______________________________________________Deptheads mailing listDeptheads at strategicon.net <mailto:Deptheads at strategicon.net> http://mordred.punk.net/mailman/listinfo/deptheads <http://mordred.punk.net/mailman/listinfo/deptheads>  ______________!
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