An Unofficial Marketing Research
on
Squaresoft, Inc.
(The Best Video Game Developer Ever!!!)

"Customer Profile"
by Spirit Mouse

Demographic Profile:

In order to retain a lifetime value of its brand loyal customer, Squaresoft grows with them. Since the first episode of their long lasting series, Final Fantasy, back in the 1980's, until the most recent Final Fantasy X released last year, it has grown from a childish game, targeting the younger age of 6-10, to a RPG targeting the youth of 15-25 years old. The content of each episode is more mature and complicated than the previous episode.

As the industry develop its diversity, Squaresoft is also gradually widening their customer base to both genders. Nowadays, the consumer of Squaresoft's RPG, 57% are still males, and 43% became female players. When Squaresoft was still a small video game development company, it only markets its product to their own region. However, as it expands its company globally to the U.S. and Europe, it also broadens their product line towards the Americans and Europeans.

Presently, since Squaresoft has became a international wide company, and retain the third leading market of the industry, it could afford more than a single product line, they also develop a secondary product line, focusing the younger age group of 6-10, which they once targeted. As a better benefit of developing revenue from this target market, they cooperated with Disney to create Kingdom Hearts, which won the heart of the child group successfully. They are also going to work with Nintendo to further cultivate this group of audiences.

Psychographics Profile:

Considerate that Squaresoft's major product line is enormous RPG that releases annually, their target audience is different than other companies. Their RPGs, such as Final Fantasy are games that simulate long quests in a fantasy world. Therefore, players are required to have commitment, patience, memorization, critical thinking, and strategy.

Most of Squaresoft's major products tend to be longer which requires players to finish more than a few weeks, or an average of 30 - 50 hours. They did that purposely and effectively. The more time the player spends on the game, the more they will addict to it. As a result, although after a player finished the game who usually will not play another time, as they already knew the whole story, they will buy the game's ancillaries. The primary usage rate of their customer is not heavy, but this does not matter, as their goal is not increase usage rate.

Majority of Squaresoft's customers are core game players who read game magazine or go to any game store frequently. These sources are what Squaresoft need to distribute its news to. In additional, Squaresoft sometimes promote a short preview on TV to let the parents understand it is a trustable game developer for their children.

Since they release their major product annually, their customer has to be hard-core loyalty and patient enough to wait. All products by Squaresoft are 98% differentiated in order to maintain its quality demanding loyal customers. A short preview of the best clip from the game will build its customer's eagerness of playing the game. The buyers usually are ready to buy their products before they are even released in the market.

　

	Primary Target Audience	Secondary Target Audience
Gender:	Both	Male
Age:	15-25 yrs old & above	6-10 yrs old
Ethnicity:	Asian, American, European	American
Region:	Urbanize	Urbanize
Education:	High School or above	Elementary School
Marital Status:	Single	Single
Household Income:	$15,000+	$10,000+
Occupation:	Student to any kind	Student
Lifestyle:	Experiencer, Striver, Maker	Experiencer, Believer, Striver, Maker
Personality:	Sensory, patient, critical thinking, strategic	Sensory, cheerful, aggressive
Usage Rate:	N/A	N/A
Loyalty Status:	Hard-core	Hard-Core
Readiness:	Eager to buy	Intend to buy
Ability & Experience:	Basic to moderate experience	None to moderate experience
Media & Shopping Habits:	Game Magazine, Online Game Articles, Game Store	Game Magazine, from schoolmates, by Parents
Preference Price:	Medium to high	Medium to high

Written on: Oct. 14, 2002

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