Who should developers target?

depends on the project. if the project is for a narrow audience, then it should be well studied and the project should be suitable for it. if for a wide audience and an expensive project then everyone.
if this is a question about two chairs on which it is impossible to sit, which is rare and casual, in my opinion it is better to form an audience, but sales will be slow and sluggish and there are very big risks that the game will not be able to attract attention bypassing the press. on the other hand, if you choose a hyip, then most likely the game will have a very sluggish core of the audience, which will quickly go to other games, big sales, but part 2 may not pay off. they will not be able to develop this game concept further.
so there is no right solution. most likely, if you need sales in the short term, you need marketing and unrealizable expectations, which, as I see it, was the last generation when the "players get hungry".

In an ideal world, where the developer has not yet degenerated into a mid-level manager, from 9 to 5, and then even though the grass does not grow, he should strive to make the game he wants himself. He wants an action about processed cheese that saves the world - makes an action about cheese, which has an audience, albeit not so extensive. Just doing the job well and in accordance with the original plan, without being distracted by the endless rework that creates an ugly mutant. This is the only way to make a good game or anything.

But we are not in an ideal world and some moron from the marketing department constantly climbs into the development, a kid from a harosh simya, forcing us to add to the classic adventure all sorts of abbots who need a fifth leg there like a dog, because in the university he has a certain deer, in a position lecturer, once said that it would make all sorts of abyrvalgs buy this game. It won't force, they may be abyrvalgi, but not shit-eaters, at least mostly. And they don't like the ragged plot with alien inclusions as much as everyone else. And the screamers from the reseters won't buy anything anyway, because they don't care what to yell about. To attract attention at any cost, to bring a nix, to provoke a moron-marketer to get into the project and thereby lead it to collapse - their only goal. And the fact that this simple thing has not yet reached marketers confirms that

requiemmm wrote:
... he should strive to make the game he wants himself.
I imagine such a cool fancy cosmos with physics so that you can jump. hefty ships big kats in pugba. cool.
but such a first bummer - most ships do not have the usual glass cockpit.
the second great bummer - there is no "dog fight" of the 2nd world. and it does not sound like battleships. and what is the type of chess and sea battle. you press the button, the torpedo takes off.
the last bummer from which everyone gets up and leaves the hall - leisurely control in arcade mode and simulator mode. in simulator mode, you need to personally press all sorts of buttons and levers on the physical dashboard, and this is somewhat more complicated and not intuitive than aviasime because there are many axes. there are many axes of acceleration, axes of rotation and rotation of acceleration that the carrot could be smoked like mad, but it will fly according to the main vector of acceleration of inertia and launch torpedoes and mass effect, and it will need to be controlled up to a heap. or instead of all this routine, automation and skipping time.
Hellion or a couple there harm so safely skillfully and here is a simulator of a submarine in space.
Does the galaxy need such a game? but nerds might like it.

Minorities. And let them just try to smash - journalists will instantly receive a wolf ticket, and users will be banned for intolerance. Meanwhile, the game will take off on the hype and will be remembered by everyone for a long time.
SpoilerAlthough it won't take off without a good advertising campaign. TLOU2 is still on the radar, but no one cares about Tell Me Why.

MiamiBassMachine wrote:
but I think you yourself noticed - the game is good, the players are delighted - and the press smashes the game
I have never noticed this. Examples of games in the studio, as they say.



In your opinion, who should be guided by, who will try to like the developers?

For yourself, you need to like the game the developers themselves and they were the most ardent fans of their game.

MunchkiN 616
Why not? The player on the spaceship is not alone, it turns out just a slightly more advanced version of the Star Trek: Bridge Commander game that came out in the 2000s. You don't press the buttons yourself, you sit in the commander's chair and like this: Mr. Anderson, prepare graviton torpedoes. Start on command! And if you also integrate a voice assistant and VR into the game, then generally fire. They must one day finish the technology to the working level.

Protocol10
The most striking example is
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/terminator-resistance