On the flight to Los Angeles, Joystiq blogger Chris Grant and I decided to hold a little impromptu Flight 899 pre-E3 focus group to the pass the time on enroute. After Professor Grant lectured a captive audience on the perils of sexual objectification and the senior citizen cross-appeal of genteel titles such as Brain Age for the DS, I turned to random Gamer X, age 18, for input from the gaming industry's traditional demographic. True to form, Gamer X (pictured above, slackjawed) said he prefers games with "hot girls," "big t-ts" and "killing." His favorite gaming moment of all time is "flying up really high in Battlefield: 1942 and bailing out so that the parachute guy [craps] himself...[sound effect provided]." Gamer X is entering the Marines and a few months and he thinks his FPS expertise will serve him well on the real battlefield, which he assumes is similar to a video game.
Moral of the story: Reach out all you want, but the core audience wants what it wants.
Update: I should have noted that when I told Gamer X the Nintendo Revolution had be re-named the Nintendo Wii, he gave me a quizzical look and said "You mean like wee-wee?" Obviously, the "focus group" in the title was a jest, but I'm willing to bet this guy represents a wide swath. His stereotypical love of sex, violence and low humor was such a humorous counterweight to Chris' high-minded hopes for the industry, I had to post it.
