One of the problems facing game companies who try to bring in new players is that gaming as an activity is inherently experiential -- the love of gaming can't be effectively communicated through hands-off video watching; it requires that you sit down in front of the game and just play. This becomes a problem when you consider that not everyone enjoys that type of experience. As explained by Sheri Graner Ray, the industry's leading expert on the intersection of gender and computer games, there are essentially two types of learners, Explorative and Modeling.

Explorative learners tend to jump right into anything feet-first. Back in the heyday of coin-operated games, these learners kept arcades in business by their continuously feeding the machines with quarters in order to learn the fatalities in Mortal Kombat 2. They don't mind serial dying as long as they feel they've learned something from the experience.

Modeling learners, on the other hand, need to feel comfortable with the process before they even begin playing. They need to know what to expect well before anything happens. These learners are the ones that game companies make manuals for, and third-party companies develop strategy guides for.

Ray has found during her studies that there is a strong correlation between the two types of learners and gender -- Explorative learners tend to be male, and Modeling learners tend to be female. Obviously this does not apply in every single case, but it does seem to explain why arcades used to be packed with males. Early video games tended to be somewhat short on instructions (remember Pong? "Avoid missing ball for high score") but big on flash. Young boys, already attracted by the noise and lights, stayed for the challenge, and when the industry began creating games for the home console market, stayed home for the same reason. And right behind many of them, watching every move, was a sister, learning by watching.

So, how do you turn these learners into lifelong buyers? And how does this talk of learners explain the casual gaming boom? Well, one thing to consider is that these demographic changes tend to be generational. The arcade-goers of the 70s and 80s are now adults with kids of their own. These kids grew up with games already in place as just another form of entertainment, on par with television, movies, and books. So it's likely that kids raised alongside video games will have different sets of tools in place to help them learn how to play them than their parents did. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage for marketers -- while they don't have to spend too much time explaining why people should play their game, they are likely at a loss to understand why people do play their game. What drove players to, say, God of War, and away from Psychonauts?