Targeting Niche a good idea? "Old School"

myth1

I'm a Kickstarter participant, and I enjoy the game; however, I have some feedback regarding niche targeting.

What I mean by niche targeting is focusing on a specific group of players who prefer certain gameplay styles, whether that be more PvP over PvE, or vice versa, or more "grindy" versus less "grindy." The list goes on and on.
TL;DR: The old-school approach seems to target older audiences, who are often in their parenting years. We lack time and wish we didn’t. Targeting a niche reduces the overall audience. Massive multiplayer experiences can. Targeting a niche may not be as healthy for a game as one might think. It’s difficult to enjoy a game—regardless of personal opinion—if it’s not sustainable, as resources cost money.

In the interview today (the one with PirateSoftware), the "old-school approach" came up. While I appreciate the uniqueness of separating from the general modern-day game development approach where games are designed for a wider audience (or at least attempted to be) I find that those games tend to be less successful than ones targeting the majority. To me, "old school" tends to appeal to those who are 30 years old or older. I don’t have any statistics, but from my personal experience, we are often in our parenting years at that age, so old-school MMO gaming where you can spend an extremely large amount of time progressing through systems may not be as appealing due to time constraints. I wish I had all the time in the world to play a fantasy MMO for days and weeks on end, but sometimes that isn’t feasible. When Steven refers to "MMO" and reiterates what it means, I feel that the massive aspect might be more oriented toward the size of the game rather than the number of people involved. While a massive world is great, it won’t feel like an MMO with too few players. I know many people will disagree with this, as is often the case, but when you target niche players, you really have to ask yourself are we still capable of engaging at the level of gameplay we experienced growing up.

I also understand Steven’s point that if it’s not your target game, you shouldn’t play it (a common counterargument). However, when someone invests as much money and passion into the game as he and his team have and places significant faith in a specific group rather than diversifying you have to ask why.

Why target a niche group rather than diversifying?
Will the game be sustainable?

I hope so. Thank you.

Noaani

Keep in mind, Steven has said in the past (2017/2018) that Ashes is basically just his game. He wants to build it for himself, and is happy to pay for it to be built.

I specifically remember him saying about the game being a commercial success something to the effect of "it would be great if it is, but as long as it is the game I want to play, I don't mind if it isn't. I'll keep the servers up as long as I can afford to do so for those like me that want to play this game".

Now, things may have changed since then, I don't know. However, this was his stance.