game-market-research

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# AlterLab GameForge -- Market Research Workflow

Making a game nobody wants to play is easy. Making a game that finds its audience requires
understanding where that audience lives, what they are already playing, what they wish
existed, and how saturated the space is. Market research for games is not about copying
what sells -- it is about finding the gap between what players want and what currently
exists, then positioning your game to fill that gap.

The indie games that succeed commercially almost always have a clear answer to "who is this
for and why would they choose this over the alternatives?" Hollow Knight launched into a
crowded Metroidvania market but differentiated on atmosphere, difficulty curve, and sheer
content density. Vampire Survivors created an entirely new micro-genre by stripping the
bullet-hell formula down to its most addictive core. Balatro took the poker roguelike concept
that nobody knew they wanted and executed it with such precision that it outsold games with
100x the budget.

None of these were accidents. Each team understood their market position, even if
informally. This workflow makes that understanding systematic.

### Purpose and Triggers

Use this workflow when:
- A developer has a game concept and wants to validate its market viability
- A team is choosing between multiple game concepts and needs data to decide
- A studio wants to understand the competitive landscape before committing to production
- A solo dev wants to know if their niche has an audience large enough to sustain them
- After `game-brainstorm` produces a concept and before `game-start` commits to building it
- A game is approaching launch and needs positioning against current competitors

Problems this solves:
- Building a game in an oversaturated genre without differentiation
- Underestimating or overestimating the target audience size
- Missing competitor moves that change the market during development
- Pricing the game incorrectly for the genre and audience expectations
- Launching without a clear positioning statement for store pages and marketing
- Spending 2+ years on a game concept that has no viable commercial audience

### Critical Rules

1. **Research is not validation bias.** The goal is to find the truth about the market, not
   to confirm that the developer's idea is brilliant. If the research reveals a saturated
   market or a tiny audience, that is a valuable finding -- not a failure of the research.

2. **Quantitative where possible.** Steam revenue estimates, player counts, wishlists,
   review volumes, and similar games' performance data are more useful than subjective
   market assessments. Use tools like SteamDB, itch.io trending, and App Store charts
   to ground the analysis in numbers.

3. **Recency matters.** A genre that was hot 3 years ago may be oversaturated now. A genre
   that was dead 3 years ago may be experiencing a revival. Always check the publication
   dates of market data and prioritize data from the last 12 months.

4. **Indie scale, not AAA scale.** Market sizing for a solo dev making a $15 game is
   fundamentally different from market sizing for a 200-person studio making a $70 game.
   Always contextualize findings to the team's actual scale, budget, and timeline.

5. **Positioning is not features.** A game's market position is defined by what it does
   differently, not by what it does at all. "A Metroidvania with combat" is not
   positioning. "A Metroidvania where every ability is a musical instrument" is positioning.

### Workflow

---

**Phase 1: Genre Analysis**

Define the genre space and its current state.

Questions to answer:
- What genre(s) does this game concept belong to? (Primary and secondary)
- What are the defining characteristics of this genre that players expect?
- What is the genre's current lifecycle stage? (Emerging, growing, mature, oversaturated)
- What sub-genres or hybrid genres exist within this space?
- What was the last major commercial success in this genre? How recent was it?

Research methodology:
- Search for "[genre] games [current year]" to find recent releases
- Check Steam tag pages for the relevant genre tags -- note total game counts
- Look at itch.io genre categories for indie-specific saturation data
- Review recent gaming press coverage: is this genre being talked about?
- Check YouTube and Twitch viewership for the genre: are people watching?

Output:
```
GENRE ANALYSIS
---------------------------------------------------------------
Primary genre: [genre]
Secondary genre(s): [genre, genre]
Lifecycle stage: [emerging | growing | mature | oversaturated]
Key genre expectations: [what players assume the game will have]
Recent notable releases: [game (year), game (year), game (year)]
Genre health signals: [viewer interest, press coverage, release volume]
---------------------------------------------------------------
```

---

**Phase 2: Competitive Landscape**

Map the competitive field using three tiers of competitors.

**Direct competitors** -- Games in the same genre targeting the same audience with similar
mechanics and price points. These are the games your potential players are already playing
or considering. A direct competitor to a cozy farming sim is another cozy farming sim.

**Indirect competitors** -- Games that satisfy the same player need through different
mechanics or genres. An indirect competitor to a cozy farming sim might be a cozy life
sim or a relaxing crafting game. These compete for the same emotional niche.

**Aspirational competitors** -- Games that achieved the quality bar or market position
you are aiming for, even if they are not in the same genre. These set the benchmark for
execution quality and help calibrate expectations.

For each competitor, analyze:

```
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
---------------------------------------------------------------
Game: [name]

From AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab_GameForge, MIT.

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