Target Audience (Age, Class and Self-Image)

A - Upper Middle Class Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other proffesionals.
This certain bracket must be completely ruled out as for one, people with these kinds of jobs are probably far too busy and have little or no spare time to have time for video games. They must think about themselves, their career and their families first. Sadly, as their wages could promote the growth of income related to the game, nearly all people working under this class have to be ruled out as I can not focus on them, as MMORPG's take up a lot of time.

B - Middle Class Middle management, teachers, mant 'creatives' eg graphic designers etc.
This bracket can't be focused on, but using knowledge that many people working under this class have been known to spend free time on MMORPG's, we may be able to take into consideration possible contests for rewards both in-game and physical prizes such as cash prizes, T-Shirts and the like. These contests could consist of story-writing, art competitions and others.

C1 - Lower Middle Class Office supervisors, juniour managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc.
This class bracket must, alike Upper Middle Class, must be ruled out as these sorts of jobs may be far too important to stray the worker's away from.

C2 - Skilled Working Class Skilled workers, tradespersons (White Collar)
This class is quite possible to focus on, as skilled worker's may work for themselves and have quite a bit of free-time to use up playing videogames, but a small ammount on MMORPG's but they will be able to afford in-game extras more easily and may use the game to unwind for fun and casual enjoyment, but probably will not be focused on too seriously.

D - Working Class Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)
These people may well be ruled out for the fact that most feel they need to work overtime just to afford extras in their life, which means they do not need videogames to distract them from this fact.

E - People At Lowest Level Of Income Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers
These are the types of people I must focus on, as unemployed people have plenty of time to play video games as they probably have nothing better to do if at a young age. Students have plenty of time between studying and classes to unwind while playing videogames, so these must be targetted by intergrating content for both younger and older generations. Pensioners are generally elderly people and are completely ruled out of focus. But casual workers seem to be the greatest target for my game, as they will probably work only to pay for the bare necessities in life and spend the rest on video games and video game content, especially as they have plenty of time for them.

Audience Research Continued

The primary Target Audience for my Video Game will be aimed toward people who enjoy MMORPG's, RPG'S, Sci-Fi, very long story-lines and Sandbox genres. It will have both Online and Single player features and will be made for the PC, without any console ports. Publishing it on the PC will maximise the potential on the Graphic side of things and Online availability and capability, by using computer servers to host the games. It will be sold in shops on Installation Disks and available for download over the internet by other means of purchase (Debit Card, Paypal etc.) And advertised across Video Game-related websites and media, such as Sci-Fi television channels and teen-orientated channels.

Audience Research

Questionnaire 

Q: Would you consider yourself to be a Gamer? 

A: Yes / No

Q: How much money do you spend on Video games per Month? 

A: £0 - £19.99 / £20.00 - £39.99 / £40.00 - £59.99 / £60.00+

Q: How much time would you say you spent playing games per Month?

A: 0-18 Hours / 19-37 Hours / 38-56 Hours / 57 Hours+

Q: What Next-gen consoles do you own? (You can choose more than one in the list)

A: Nintendo Wii / Nintendo (DS, DSi, DSxl) / Xbox360 / Playstation 3 (PS3) / Playstation Portable (PSP)

Q: Out of your collection, which would you state to be your most played (or favourite)?

A: _________________________________________________________

Q: How much money will you be prepared to spend on extras or downloadable content for your Games?

A: £0.00 - £5.00 / £6.00 - £10.00  / £11 - £15 / £16.00 - £20 / £21.00+

Mass Effect 2 is a game of a similar style to that of my original concept of what my game will be like. Mass Effect 2 is a game that has only been published for the PC and Xbox360, excluding the two other consoles on the market (the Wii and Playstation 3) which in turn promotes the sales of the Xbox360 system. In this game you play as the lead role of Commander Shepard (who's first name is entered by the player and is never stated in the actual game dialogue) who's corpse had been salvaged by an inter-galactic organisation known as Cerberus, lead by a shady character known as ''The Invisible Man'' who works toward aiding the Human Race, trying to make Humans the most powerful and most looked-after race in the Universe.

After being ''Resurrected'' by Cerberus and being genetically modified in a laboratory, the Player chooses the name, gender, class and history of their character (unless they re-activate a save file from the previous Mass Effect game) but in that case, the player can only change the appearance of their character, as choices made in the first game determine the name, gender and history of the character.

Shepard is then given the task of saving Human colonies from being abducted by an evil Alien Race known as the Insect-like ''Collectors''. After agreeing to aid Cerberus, Shepard must explore the Galaxy, forming a small, but effective elite force group. Including the likes of Grunt the powerful Krogen, Mordin the fast-paced highly intelligent Salarian, Samara the Asari Justicar, Jacob a former soldier who has joined Cerberus, Miranda a logical-thinking Human tactician, Thane a mysterious assasin dying from a lung disease that is exclusive to his own unstated race, Jack/Subject zero a Biotics test subject who escaped a prison at childhood with a very aggressive personality and others.

The Player is able to explore The Normandy, a Spaceship specially designed for Shepard and his crew, and the known universe. Exploring different Galaxies and Planets throughout the Universe. The player is able to mine resources from Planets using Probes to pay for upgrades to Weapons, Armour and The Normandy to improve the Player's performance throughout the game.

The game relied mostly on story opposed to the actual gameplay that is in itself, perfected to every exhausted possibility in how Gunfights and Commanding your squad plays out on the field of battle. As you have Three-Five Six different dialogue options to choose from, making your Character either a Paragon (Good character) or Renegade (Bad Character) depending how you talk to and treat others in this Universe. The publishers (Bioware and EA games) have promised players upcoming downloadable expansions to continually expand the never-ending universe that is, Mass Effect 2.

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