FalloutJack said:
Therumancer said:
The Escapist isn't a demographic. It's a microcosmic to-scale model of the general gaming population. A lateral cut across the board instead of a downward column. And before you say "Yeah, but the point is that we're all gamers", the truth is that lots of different kinds of people game. Gamers aren't exactly a true demographic either. I'm an eighties child who's seen gaming history from some of its older days to now. Other people are older, other people are younger. Some spent more time, some spent less. All kinds of people are here.
Actually it does represent a demographic, just not one in the way your used to seeing. Exceptions exist in every community, but for the most part your dealing with people that decide to patronize this site due to thinking a specific way and finding a community of similar individuals. For the most part it can be pretty predictable what the response to certain topics is generally going to be. Oftentimes I find myself for example being one of the few right wingers, or militants actively involved in pretty much any discussion, which I do in part to present other points of view, and try and balance things out a bit. A point reinforced by some of the messages I've received from people who think similarly to me but don't have the same level of guts or willingness to go back and forth with the community, both in regular E-mail and in private mail through the site (while it's hardly every day, I rarely clean my mail box and if someone with the right access wanted to check they could easily see I'm telling the truth).
Basically you'll find that as a general rule here the Escapist lionizes games with messages along the lines of say "Special Ops.: The Line" while at the same time being fairly negative towards say the storyline of "Ghosts" and very willing to jump on the bandwagon of almost anything that is being promoted as racist, sexist, nationalist (if it's US nationalism) or whatever.
A lot of people here on The Escapist like to think that this is just generally how things are, but really they aren't. The temperament and leanings of other communities can be quite different, though admittedly you do see most gaming communities largely winding up like this one, albeit usually most of the sites are not as good overall as The Escapist.
Outside of the political aspect of things you'll find most people here consider themselves to be intelligent, well educated (to the point of using it oftentimes to put down anyone they disagree with, questioning their educational credentials), unwilling to do much in the way of research into topics they don't like or find questionable (which is a big thing for marketing), and for the most part look down on anti-geek and anti-intellectual groups, you see periodic bashing of "Bros" even among those who otherwise defend casual gamers for the most part.
Trust me, The Escapist, and spiritually similar sites, do represent a demographic which advertisers can and do exploit, especially seeing as gaming sites can act as major advertising hubs, and ways of disseminating news. What's more when it comes to viral marketing, employing shills, and similar things advertisers look specifically at the behavior on sites like this in order to create the personas they are going to use to generate hype/discussion on upcoming products.
One of the big reasons why advertising and sociology work so well is that people like to rebel against the entire idea and view themselves as exceptional individuals, and subcultures and demographics they are part of as being beyond classification and manipulation, or even denying that they are a demographic or stereotype to begin with. The specific defense that "this group isn't a group for these purposes because we are so different" is exactly the kind of ignorance being counted on.
What's more one of the most ironic things about advertising is that huge groups of people are manipulated easily by ad campaigns that propose individuality, breaking the moulds, and the mystical nature of the human spirit. A believe ignorantly held by so many that it itself becomes an easily exploitable trend. Another technique that works is false subversiveness trying to convince people something mainstream is underground, "cult", or "fringe" putting people outside of the norm when it's actually as common as Mcdonalds, something which also works surprisingly well when it's done properly, and in turn fuels a lot of people going "whoa hold on, how can we consider something everyone does/reads/plays underground or edgy when so many people are involved over such a large area..."
