Game design books focused on non *core* markets, a short resource list...
I recently blogged about a trend in the game market where women form one of the largest segments. To prevent reiterating the entire posting you can view it here http://weblogs.asp.net/justin_rogers/archive/2004/02/18/75377.aspx. Since that posting, I've gone ahead and tried to find the various books that I was thinking of when making the post. Reason being that I wanted to lend some credence that game design for the casual versus core market is actually a good thing.
Note that I'm referencing the core market in bold type. The reasoning behind this is to define the industry standard core game play group. One such book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556229739/, by Roger Pedersen tends to think this group is the male segment ages 13-25. At least that is what I got out of the book when doing a quick perusal. Another book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556229518, by Erik Bethke, defines the core group as the male population from 18-45. I have to point this out, because normally when you refer to a core group in any other situation you pick the largest market segment, not one of the smallest market segments. Take for example the core consumer of the .NET Framework. You might say, C# programmers, and probably be very wrong, since there are millions of VB/VB.NET developers consuming the .NET Framework compared to the much smaller C# segment. VB/VB.NET books also result in much larger sales than C# books in general and simply putting a book in the more widely used VB can double or better your sales.
So what books are actually focusing on the larger and yet untapped gaming market segments? Well, Game Programming for Teens, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1592000681, by Maneesh Sethi seems to be leading the way for designing games targeted to teenagers. Teenagers account for a good deal of retail sales in the US and current retail analysis shows that teenage male/female buyers have a good deal of disposable income from summer time jobs or part-time jobs during school. While they spend most of the money on cell-phones and trendy clothes, some of that disposable income is making it's way to buying games and purchasing other forms of entertainment (music and DVDs are big on the list). The teeenage market is definitely a good place to focus your game design, and certainly not a waste of time as some game publishers/development companies might think. A recent advertisement in Game Developer Magazine for a game developer/designer was asking for individuals that could create games targetted to the female age groups from 8-18. These guys found a niche and are making money off of a large untapped market.
The next book, Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584502398, by Sheri Graner Ray, focuses on game design that targets both the male and female audiences. By gender inclusive, the book generally focuses on creating gameplay elements that are either gender neutral or creating pairs of gameplay elements that will apply to the male and female market independently. The book notes hundreds of small things that a game design can include to help bridge the gap between male oriented game design (or focusing on the core market) and the much more casual female gaming audience. I personally think this book is a must read for any small production game company looking to grab a large market share by focusing on disparate market groups, or for any larger game companies that are hoping to get more than just the core market into their game.
Hopefully these books help to point out that existing game design truly isn't focusing on the proper markets as demonstrated by the first two books. A step is being taken in the right direction by some forward thinking individuals. Hopefully these trends continue and we start to see more games that are less focused towards a specific group and more geared towards general consumption by the entire gaming audience as a whole.