Why we care about "Target Audience" in specific things?

[SweetShark]

I was reading a Thread in Escapist yesterday about "Call of Duty Developer Gets Death Threats After New Patch".
At some point someone posted a picture for wanted to make a point why the people that play the most time CoD are so agressive and foolish:

And I need to ask: Do we really must care about the Target Audience?

Shall I feel guilty because I love watching cartoons, playing videogames, etc.?

Yes, I said even for videogames, because lets be honest here, if you are over 20 years old [Like I am] people will still judge you for playing Videogames, because you aren't in the boundaries of the "Target Audience" anymore....
They will judge you for watching Cartoons Like Transformers, TMNT, GunGrave,etc
They will judge you for liking something that the target audience is only for kids, Like Pokemon.
They will judge you for liking something that the target audience is only for girls, Like MLP.


My point is:

They will judge you because they consciousness think is wrong to like something "different"

I love many things that most people when learn about my interests, they will call me a freak, a weirdo, a black sheep, a prevert, etc.

Examples:

"Are you a 20 years old guy and you are wathing My Little Pony? LOL!!! Are you G**??!?!?!!"
"Are you a >>>>> and you playing Pokemon? HAHAHa!!! Get out from your house and get laid!!!!"
"Are you a girl and you love playing videogames? Nice joke!!!! But I know a better one GIRLZ!!!"
"Are you a guy and you love havings action figures? My God!!! Go play with the other little girls!!!"

F*ck Target Audience. I will play/watch/buy/collect/love whatever I like assh*les!!!
I am not a sheep to tell me what I should like or not!!!


So.........Do you think I am wrong to think that way? [I don't, but I want to have a discussion about this].
Don't you feel exhausted to get judge and controlled by their "logic"

 

[Buffoon1980]

Well... it's actually tough to say. I'm not going to criticise anybody for genuinely getting pleasure out of something. However, it does somewhat concern me that there are so many adults out there that get their only form of cultural enrichment from relatively unsophisticated places. There's nothing wrong with MLP or Pokemon (I love Pokemon) or Call of Duty, but there are so many other things in the world, so many other intellectual pursuits.

I'd never worry about an adult enjoying Pokemon, but I would worry if they were utterly incapable of enjoying Shakespeare, or a good philosophical debate, or a natural history museum, or if they took no interest in the wider world. Alas, I suspect this is increasingly true of younger generations.

 

[Hazy992]

My mother's away for a week so I'm currently looking after her house. She has Sky TV and I don't so I'm using this opportunity to watch as many episodes of Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and The Bold as possible.


Needless to say I don't really care whether something's aimed at my age group, and neither should anyone else. If you enjoy it and if it doesn't hurt anybody then like what you like. Life's too short to be worrying about 'liking the right thing'.

 

[SweetShark]

Well... it's actually tough to say. I'm not going to criticise anybody for genuinely getting pleasure out of something. However, it does somewhat concern me that there are so many adults out there that get their only form of cultural enrichment from relatively unsophisticated places. There's nothing wrong with MLP or Pokemon (I love Pokemon) or Call of Duty, but there are so many other things in the world, so many other intellectual pursuits.

I'd never worry about an adult enjoying Pokemon, but I would worry if they were utterly incapable of enjoying Shakespeare, or a good philosophical debate, or a natural history museum, or if they took no interest in the wider world. Alas, I suspect this is increasingly true of younger generations.

I see your point and I agree with you.
However the major different about that the intellectual pursuits you said, they don't have "Target Audience".
Sure, a young child maybe don't understand Shakespeare and don't like to go the museums, but at least the others will not blame the child for that.
They will blame the child only if he start playing with dolls, or don't like football like his friends, or even if the child like to cook with her mother............yeeeaaahhhhh the last one happened to me....
The intellectual pursuits don't have a Specific Target audience, this "stigma"....

 

[Pinkamena]

I actually like it when people do things they're not "intended" to. It makes the person more interesting from the rest.

 

[Hazy992]

I'd also like to point out that things aimed at the 16-24 age group are absolute garbage. If I stuck to my demographic I'd be stuck watching things like Hollyoaks and The Jersey Shore. No thanks, I'll stick to my cartoons and stuffy multi part documentaries on the Cold War

 

[Wraith]

I believe that people should be allowed to like whatever they want, whether grown men like MLP or if little boys like to play Mature rated games, however, these groups of people should not be allowed to dictate what goes on in the medium that they became attracted to. If a show that was made for little girls, continues to try and pander to little girls, then the bronies should not demand that the show be changed to favor them, because they are not the target consumer, they were just an unforeseen bonus. Yes, they themselves are consumers, but whether or not they make up the majority of viewership plays in as well as whether or not what they want will cut into what made the show appealing to the other people who like it.

Same goes for kids who play CoD. If the games started focusing on them, we'd up with even worse stories, extremely over powered weapon setups and probably end up with absolutely every player being a master quickscoping try-hard. Shit like that happens now, yes, but very rarely due the mature audience (I assume) prefer a better balanced game. (But then again all those death threats about the latest patch probably destroys my last claim.)

 

[EternallyBored]

Target audience is generally important to the business world as it's predictable and allows them to target media accurately. If they solely attract an audience that is outside their target then a business no longer has the ability to judge what the main attraction of their product is, and it becomes that much riskier trying to market it in the future.

Don't kid yourself about the effects of the target audience, the majority of CoD players are still late teens early 20's college kids, pokemon is still played by a lot of young children, and MLP is indeed popular with its 5-10 female market demographic. If any of those properties had failed to acquire popularity among their target audience they wouldn't exist as they are today, CoD can't support its massive popularity on children's sales, pokemon wouldn't be able to support itself on nostalgia alone, and if bronies were the supermajority of the people watching MLP the show would have never made it past the first season.

This is part of the reason that Unintended demographics tend to draw scorn from others, they are a minority population that gets an inordinate amount of attention, due to usually being louder than the target audience, and in most cases (where adults are participating in media targeted at kids) also hijacking most of the attention from the show producers and directors. Especially in cases where the target audience are kids, adults tend to come in and try to hijack everything for themselves, and it ends up overshadowing what the kids want out of the property, both parents and companies tend to look down on this because it drowns out the potential voices of those they are trying to reach and market to, or it poisons the content by bringing rule 34 (porn) into the mix. Yes, everything has at least some porn, but stuff that's popular tends to have exponentially more porn of it produced, a kid whos into Thomas the tank engine is much much less likely to stumble across porn of his favorite show, than an 8 year old fan of Pokemon or MLP (as much as some people like to give bronies crap for sexualizing ponies, and yes I realize that's a minority of the fans, they've got nothing on the sheer amount and variety of porn the pokemon fandom produces, that and I find the underage beastiality to run a little more on the creepier side since it involves underage humans and pokemon that are often portrayed as quite a bit less intelligent than humans).

Unintended audiences also tend to poison relations with the show runners, writers and artists, as they can distort communication between themselves and fans. Instead of CoD devs focusing on making and marketing shooters for a mature crowd, they have to waste time and energy to deal with death threats from twelve year olds and deflect media attention for attracting such a young audience to a violent game, so now they are the poster boys when moral crusaders strike out at video game violence. MLP show runners now have to worry about how a 20-something audience is going to interpret their simplified storylines and dissecting everything for continuity and consistency, so now I end up having to explain to a sobbing 7 year old girl why the internet is being so mean to Princess Twilight.

There are a lot of positive points to having an unintended audience as well, the increased attention can bring in more popularity for a property in general, communication with an unconventional audience can reveal previously unknown reasons for its popularity to artists. To go back to my examples, 12 year old kids being CoD fans means they will often be fans while growing up, and will stick with the franchise buying CoD games for the next 10-15 years. Adult MLP fans acted as a general word of mouth generator and it was likely that extra push that got MLP past the dreaded 65 episode syndication death sentence that just recently got even the current popular transformers cartoon canned. The shows popularity is also probably a good factor in pushing Hasbro's venture with its own television channel into profitability.

Yes hating on young, CoD fans, adult pokemon fans, and adult MLP fans for being "gay" or "weird" is stupid and petty, but it helps to recognize that unintended audiences present their own unique challenges and problems, so its not all just random pointless hate being thrown at them, just mostly random pointless hate.

 

[SweetShark]

I believe that people should be allowed to like whatever they want, whether grown men like MLP or if little boys like to play Mature rated games, however, these groups of people should not be allowed to dictate what goes on in the medium that they became attracted to. If a show that was made for little girls, continues to try and pander to little girls, then the bronies should not demand that the show be changed to favor them, because they are not the target consumer, they were just an unforeseen bonus. Yes, they themselves are consumers, but whether or not they make up the majority of viewership plays in as well as whether or not what they want will cut into what made the show appealing to the other people who like it.

Same goes for kids who play CoD. If the games started focusing on them, we'd up with even worse stories, extremely over powered weapon setups and probably end up with absolutely every player being a master quickscoping try-hard. Shit like that happens now, yes, but very rarely due the mature audience (I assume) prefer a better balanced game. (But then again all those death threats about the latest patch probably destroys my last claim.)

Thank you too also for your answer.
But my point is I don't want to change something for my shake an interest that "isn't" for me. I just want to not be judge for it.

 

[SweetShark]

Text

Thank you also for your post

*Each paragraph is my answer for your paragraphs in your post*

Indeed, I understand why we need to have a Target Audience for business model.
I just don't like when other people take this business model and use it against your personal interests.

Again, I agree that the "outsiders' [like me in many things] couldn't hold for long time a Franchise. However I wasn't talked only for TV shows or Videogames.
As I said many people will judge you for many different things, even if you belong to the Target Audience.
For example if you like to collect Action Figures. The Companies that design the figures have for Target Audience that love a specific show [LOST series], love a movie [Predator], love an Anime show [Bleach],etc.
The ages of the Target Audience can be both equally for small young children and for adult like me. Heck, many toys are only for adult also [Hentai material mostly].
But again even if you are inside the "barrier" of the Target Audience, the possibility to see you admire your Alien figure and call you a weirdo is very high I must say......sadly....
So.....in other words and in the same time contradicting somehow my first post, some people will still judge you even if you belong to the Target Audience.....
I must thank you, because this go further that the problem of the Target Audience "stigma" I had in mind to talk. The biggest problem is what the World tell you what it is norm,al and what is not:
-figures is only for girls.
-cartoon is only for boys.
-videogames is only for men.
-football is only for men.
You get the idea.

In this paragraph I agree and disagree in the same time. Let me explain.
Lets take for example My Little Pony, as you already said yourself.
I realize the concern you have the Unintended demographics trying to "poison" a media that "belong" to others [yes, sorry for using so many "" XD]. I know that many people don't like to see something they like simple because it is entertaining to something twisted and obscure because of others for having different tastes of enjoyment.
Many people [like me] like MLP because of the cuteness, the really good animation, smart writting, the appeal to both children and adult,etc. But some others go beyond this enjoyment and they enjoy the show with a different way, like Rule 34 [like me.....blame Slugbox for that], Grimm/Dark stories [Cupcakes story],etc.
However because of this we have also the people that get together and create something beautiful and entertaining for both children and adults.
People that created a whole 22-minutes episode EXACLY like the a normal MLP episode.
People that create funny and heartwarming comics/stories for us to read.
People that drawing beautiful artworks for you to see and admire the effort they put to make them.
For every single "bad" consequences come from an "outsider", so many other good things come from them, the fans of a Cartoon show for girls [and for us ^^].

For this paragraph.......yes you have absolutely right. I don't have something to say about this problem.
I simple don't care so much because as I said, even if I am not in the target audience, I simple enjoy a show/videogame/movie/etc.
Maybe I will talk with the other because is interesting to talk about it, but I will never act like an assh*le and abuse the developers/makers just I don't like something......this is really foolish I must say.

I agree also on this as I said above ^^

Finally....what do you mean by saying "...so its not all just random pointless hate being thrown at them, just mostly random pointless hate."
I don't understand what do you mean.

 

[Galletea]

The target audience, being children, are really the people who will ensure that the merchandise sells, so that it who they advertise to. Small children get stuff bought for them. 20 year olds rarely have the cash to spend on cheaply made merchandise, so they don't push for that demographic, but I'm pretty sure the makers of these things know they're being enjoyed by older people.
Aaaand kids can't buy COD, so they can't market to them, silly.
Who are they anyway? And why are you bothered about other people's opinions?

I don't really get the issue with games, and most people drop the issue when you tell them what a massive industry it is, and how the average gamer is an adult male, and not a child, or a teenager.

 

[MCerberus]

A lot of this 'target audience' stuff just seems to be a cynical cycle of stupid. "Target audience" wants gunbro bro-guns. "Target audience" can't handle complex plot lines. The examples in the OP manage to appeal to broader audiences because, in order 1. easy to operate gameplay attached to a skinner box, 2. Bright animals hiding a rather absurd metagame, and 3. Pastel horses doing adorable things while having some actual character depth... also Blanc-era Looney Toons style gags.

 

[Raikas]

Eh, the concept of defining a "target audience" is a marketing communications management thing - if you're not in sales, why would you even care? Just because the advertising for some product is aimed at someone else, there's nothing stopping you from buying it (with exceptions for age-restricted items or pharmaceuticals).

If your friends or family are teasing you over your purchases/taste that's hardly the fault of the existence of targeted sales. People just like to joke (or judge, if they're jerks). Just look at how many "They mock my games but they watch reality TV!" posts there are here - those are passing the same kind of judgement on those TV-fans.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

You can make a pony cartoon and your target it at young girls, but also doesnt mean older people cant enjoy it - i enjoy watching the Power Puff Girls eventhough im 36. But at the opposite end of the stick you get movies aimed at young people though the original was for older audiences. For instance the Robocop reboot and all the horror movies where they tone them right down because aiming at a younger audience makes tons of cash. By all means target the correct audience, but dont castrate your movie just to make money. An i think the reason for that is how much they spend on the movie, WWZ was $250million to make and then you have the promoting ontop of that so you have to lower the age limit to make money. Then you have Day of the Dead made in 1985 for $3.5 million (not sure what that is in present day dollars) and that film was a billion times better and they could make it gory and be a good movie because it wasnt that expensive and thus could make money.

So i guess what im saying is if you want to make a game aimed at the target audience you want, not at those that make money. Then lower the budget and target the audience you want, and you wont have to mess with your game to ensure others will buy it and cover the huge AAA budget. Look at Demon Souls (is that what its called?) im not interested in it, but it had a low budget and aimed at gamers that love that type of game. So it made its money back.I think gaming budgets are ridiculous these days.

 

[Genocidicles]

I'm just annoyed by periphery demographics because they tend to act like the thing in question is for them.

Like a certain brony on these forums (who shall not be named out of fear that I will breach the forum's code of conduct), known for posting insane threads where he over-analyses every aspect of the show, who preaches doom and gloom over the slightest thing, and seems to think the show is made to cater to him instead of little girls.

 

[Hero of Lime]

While I don't really care if something is made for a specific group, it makes sense that the content creators focus on one demographic first. As for liking things you aren't supposed to, is a pretty annoying sentiment to hear, and unfortunately the internet is full of it, especially gaming sites.

In the case of Pokemon or even Nintendo as a whole, most of the biggest fans I see of both, myself included, are in their 20s and even 30s. Nintendo makes games for all ages, it's a part of their business plan. Yet you see the haters claim that Nintendo just makes games for kids, and the adults buying those games are just immature or nostalgic man-children.

Little kids can play Mario/Zelda/Pokemon and love it, yet adults seem more thrilled to see a new big entry into those franchises, remember a room full of grown men crying when Twilight Princess was shown off? Demographics and targeting specific audiences make lots of sense, but they should never be the absolute rule to judge something by.

 

[DEAD34345]

Well... it's actually tough to say. I'm not going to criticise anybody for genuinely getting pleasure out of something. However, it does somewhat concern me that there are so many adults out there that get their only form of cultural enrichment from relatively unsophisticated places. There's nothing wrong with MLP or Pokemon (I love Pokemon) or Call of Duty, but there are so many other things in the world, so many other intellectual pursuits.

I'd never worry about an adult enjoying Pokemon, but I would worry if they were utterly incapable of enjoying Shakespeare, or a good philosophical debate, or a natural history museum, or if they took no interest in the wider world. Alas, I suspect this is increasingly true of younger generations.

This sort of snobbery (don't mean to be insulting here, but that word is the best I could think of to describe it) is exactly the problem at hand. You say that there's nothing wrong with enjoying Pokemon for example, but follow it up by saying that you'd be worried about people who didn't enjoy natural history, philosophy or Shakespeare. You take it for granted that there is something inherently superior about those things that isn't present in (say) Pokemon or Call of Duty, but there simply isn't, it's all 100% subjective.

When Shakespeare was alive his "modern" plays were considered to be the lesser, more disreputable entertainment for the masses, unlike the more high-brow Latin or Greek plays. The fact is that people will always find reasons to look down on other people, and that's all it comes down to. An interest in philosophy is no different, no better, and no more useful than an interest in digital soldiers shooting each other for points. Nor does it have anything to do with a person's intelligence.

My opinion is that people should enjoy literally anything they want, so long as it harms nobody, and they shouldn't be judged for it. Sadly, many people find it difficult to accept interests they don't understand.

 

[HellbirdIV]

"Target Demographic" is basically the same as any other societal norm - completley irrelevant in practice, but indoctrinated into young people to impose order on society.

If you're, say, a Brony or an older Pokémon player, and someone has judged you unfairly for that hobby, then I can just say "welcome to the life of every woman in modern society".

Hope you enjoy being told your place because no matter what you say to defend yourself, you and everyone around you has been conditioned since childhood to think what you're doing is wrong if it doesn't fit into their established patterns.

 

[generals3]

The target audience is important because it tells something about the audience, period. If people decide to judge you based on those characteristics than yeah they judge you. What can i say.