Peasant Tournament Round 3 Pairings

I disagree with everything really. There are many players who play games for a very long time. It depends on the game type though. I used to play MMORPGs for years each. And would still be if I find the right one. And I am not alone, because there are thousands or even millions of players who (still!) enjoy games like WoW, DAoC, MU, Diablos, Everquest, SUN Online and many more. People play chess and other board or card games for years either.
Tournaments are different from plot based Single Player or simple duel in multiplayer. They extend the life cycle of a game, not just give an interesting option for everybody. They act like an end-game. You reach some point in your experience and character development, that you already played whole game content. That is the turning point when people start playing multiplayer very often. And look for other options. In this game example you gather items, weapons, armors, get money for more stuff etc. And you get to know tactic and strategies used by others. It all takes time. And only after that you can be confident enough to try to fight in a tournament. There is little point to waste money (assuming there is a price to join it) when your experience is next to amoebas and you don't have right equipment either.
There are stages in games like this, and end-game is a very delicate and very serious problem for developers to keep players as long as possible. And spend their money too.
Very strong reason behind this is advertisement. Veteran players like to bring friends to games they play, they put movies on web, blog, discuss etc. So they increase this flow of new players into the game by huge numbers I have a feeling. If you hear from a colleague at work or at school that he found some great game and he talks about it for months, you get interested. Simple as that.

EDIT: And such games cannot even be finished in a matter of months. To play everything they offer you need to spend years quite often. In card games you spend time to gather cards and build better and better strategy. It is not that fast and easy to get all you want and beat everyone else.

 

I was referring to the average gamer, not the die hard fan. I completely agree with everything said about tournaments. However, tournaments were not built by devs to keep top players around. They were built for all, a point which you so eloquently raised.

 

I have no statistical data what an average player is. How long he plays a game etc. If you have it - I would be glad to see it.

EDIT: As mentioned above: average MMORPG player plays the game for a very long time. Because the game is made in that way. Card and collectors games also require you to spend many months to reach some kind of end-game.

 

http://www.middleeasy.com/gaming/it...esting-gaming-facts-that-were-just-discovered
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf

“You create these communities around the game that do an incredible amount of intellectual work, and when they’re done with the work, they will leave the game and go on to another game that’s more challenging. Can you imagine if we had that kind of environment in classrooms?”
— Constance Steinkuehler Squire, associate professor in digital media and co-director of the Games+Learning+Society Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and former senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

I suppose the above statement summarizes the state of the average gamer, no ?

 

Nope. Not in the context of this game and genre. The report could describe average player across the board of all kind of games. There is nothing in it (I could find) which would describe how long average player stick to one game - especially of the type we talk about. But we can get some data from this.
Check top selling computer games in 2012. These were not arcade or sport games. But some kind of RPG games mix. Either with a bit of hack and slash, action or (virtual) community building like The Sims. They also tend to be *multiplayer* games. Even mass multiplayer games, aimed to last for years not weeks. Check the sequels and packs which were bought. To the WoW, Sims, Starcraft. These are not single player games which you could just play fast, finish and leave. You invest a lot of time in any of these and adventure packs on the best seller list means that people stick to them and do play them for very long time. These are not new games. There is totally different situation within console public of course.
Even Battlefield, Mass Effect and Civilization (especially!) are games which are on the market for a very long time. Higher number next to the title does not mean it's a new game.
Here is my take on the subject:
An average computer game player of 2012 would be 35 years old and planning to stay with his favorite game longer and longer. With the community he found interesting and genre he found appealing. He/she is buying sequels and prefer not to change the game. By comparing the kind of popular games of this year with the time required to reach end-game stage, one can show that developers will most likely produce a sequel before an average gamer would reach the "boredom point". 35 years old is also an age at which you do not look for too many rapid changes, you stabilize and stick to what you like.

Oh, and I agree with the above quotation too. You stick to a game then you leave it. Correct. We discuss the *time* after you want to do it and do it.