Groups of Gamers: Market Segmentation of Brazilian Electronic Gamers

ABSTRACT The electronic games industry is a new, dynamic, and fast-growing economic sector. However, organizations in this industry do not know the profile of their consumers. In view of this knowledge gap, the objective of this research paper is to analyze groups of electronic games consumers in the Brazilian market, in terms of their socio-demographic, behavioral, and expenditure characteristics. Using market segmentation literature and motivational variables found in games literature, this paper uses self-organizing maps and analysis of variance to segment 601 Brazilian gamers. The results demonstrate the existence of five different groups of games players and that, in order to reach each group, different strategies need to be used. The first group consists of t players who play all the time. The second has the same features as the first, but they do not have the same amount of time available to play. The third group consists of pro players. The fourth group and fifth group are the new challenge for games companies.

摘要：电子游戏产业是新兴的、充满活力且快速增长的经济领域。然而，该产业内的企业并不清楚其消费者的画像。针对这一知识缺口，本研究的目标是从社会人口统计学特征、行为特征与消费支出特征三个维度，对巴西市场的电子游戏消费者群体展开分析。本研究借鉴市场细分领域的相关文献与游戏研究中的动机变量，采用自组织映射（Self-Organizing Maps）与方差分析（Analysis of Variance）两种方法，对601名巴西游戏玩家进行群体细分。研究结果显示，巴西游戏玩家可划分为五个截然不同的群体，且针对每个群体需采用差异化的触达策略。第一类为全天候游戏玩家；第二类与第一类特征相似，但可用于游戏的时间较为有限；第三类为职业游戏玩家；第四类与第五类则是游戏企业面临的全新挑战。