You might be surprised to see "Market and Audience" so early in this book, after all, isn't that where the game finishes last? But that's exactly why you need to think about it now. This is especially true if you want to sell your game. Knowing which market you're targeting will give you an advantage in deciding which features to cut or add next. Just remember to keep yourself satisfied too; you can't make a great game if you don't like it. In the illustration you can see a magician performing a trick in front of an amazed audience. Yet, in the distance, there is someone who does not feel surprised. They may also be perplexed by the reaction of others. You see, magic tricks (at least the garden variety ones) target young ages. As you get older you aren't impressed by a bunny being thrown out of a cage or popcorn being "magically" popped. To reach an older audience the magician must perform tricks that are of interest to older people; by doing so they may lose their younger audience. Sawing a volunteer in two is an impressive feat; It may entertain a mature audience but a kid would probably freak out in that place. By studying your target audience you go from randomly choosing between rabbits and saws in your project to knowing exactly why you should choose one over the other. Traditionally, companies tend to think about the customer's age, gender, income, and neighborhood/culture. These are the basics you need to cover with some research; they always change. You should choose a specific group, for example 12-20 year old males, then you can branch out and try to capture other audiences without alienating your core fan base. But wait, there's more! As a game developer you have two other groups to consider: the casual… the print medium… which means you can't have fun or create hardcore games (or vice versa). Keep in mind that the reason for this is simply to make informed decisions in the future that will reach one of the groups in a way that is consistent with your role-playing. Now that we've discussed the market, we need to take a look at why these people are playing RPGs. The main one is simple, RPGs are built around character development, so it makes sense that role development is a big reason to roleplay. I will talk about it in depth in the next two chapters entitled to it; for now we should consider the other reasons why people play role-playing games. Basically there are six of them, which can be divided into more: problem solving, treasure hunt, story, showing off, exploration and destruction. Problem solving is a common element in games; in fact, that's probably what makes a game.