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Hi there, myself and a few friends from college have a work experience project that might be interesting. We’re going to try to conduct a market research survey where the aim is to explore the idea of closer thinking between the general public and the game development world. No middle person with an agenda that to some degree dictates or colours the results, just our neutral group trying to bridge between the two extremes of perspective.
When approached in the street and asked boring questions like how much we’re willing to spend on a game it can feel a bit sad. We would like to ask questions that are relevant to better gaming for real people in real life. We’re all gamers, studying game design so this added to the not for profit factor could give us some sort of an edge over the usual commercial surveys. This is dependent on doing a good job of course.
Any interesting or useful results will be offered to game development sites and forums. If you are into dev, what would you like to ask the public?
Thanks in advance.
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This idea still looks promising, I’ve been speaking to some game zones and they sound positive about it. A few have already agreed to give us the accreditation we need to complete the work experience module. The structure of the actual survey is a big question mark as that’s something none of us have ever before.
It hope our group can come up with some sort of interesting result to show those who are going to support us. Easier said than done I know.
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Maybe some questions like…
1.) Do you like games with more of a story or more basic games with lots of action?
1.a) If you like a game with a detailed story, what types of stories excite you most?
2.) Do you like games that are easy to complete or games that provide a challenge?
3.) How long would your average gaming session last?
4.) What is your least favourite game ever and why?
4.a) What is your least favourite game character ever?
5.) What games are you currently playing?
6.) What video game consoles do you own/have you owned?
7.) Can you name three game development studios / Publishers?
7.a) What is your favourite Game Development Studio / Publisher
That class of thing…
Ian
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I’d like to know how much the general public know about the industry. Do they know how long it takes to develop a game? Questions that investigate if they at all appreciate the amount of work put into the whole process.
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8) Name one non-EA game
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(;) Kyotokid/Ronny)
9) Ask the public to name a non-EA game.
:D
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Why do you buy games ?
a) Based on recommendation from friend
b) review from magazine ( if so, what mag )
c) review from internet ( if so what site )
d) impulse buy based on nice packaging in the shop
e) because it was done by X developer ( if so, what developers inspire you in this way )If you were to buy a hand-held, what are the features that attract you? ( Tick as many as you like )
a) The specific brand games
b) touch-screen feature
c) being able to watch movies
d) manufacturers brand
e) network-ability
f) Others – please specifyIf you were to buy a console, what are the features that attract you?
a) the specific brand games ( ie one example for each xbox = halo, ps2 = gta, gc = zelda )
b) the manufacturers brand
c) the controller
d) on-line play
e) other – please specify -
Why do you buy games ?
b) review from magazine:EDGE (attempted many times to ignore – EDGE never turned out to be wrong, though!)If you were to buy a hand-held, what are the features that attract you?
b) touch-screen feature
e) network-ability
f) Others: battery life, software line-up, unit & software price, multi-region capacityIf you were to buy a console, what are the features that attract you?
a) the specific brand games
e) other – please specify:number of control ports, 5.1/16:9/DVD playback out-of-the-box, own-tune-ripping for gameplay -
I think they’re still looking for the questions rather than answers Steph ;)
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D-oh, how could i forget to put down battery life and price!!!
Interesting you didn’t put down playing movies Steph. Doesn’t interest me at all either…is this a common feeling or are we in the minority ?? -
I was just giving it a test-run :D
Movies? I’ve got an ARCHOS 420, so not bothered. Though if I didn’t (have the ARCHOS), then yeah, probably.
Even though formatting movie files, buying xtra-large mem cards etc. would sure dampen the benefit shortly after. How much is a 512MB (=1 divx movies or two episodes of “Lost”) memory stick, these days ? ;)
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Originally posted by omen
If you were to buy a hand-held, what are the features that attract you? ( Tick as many as you like )
a) The specific brand games
b) touch-screen feature
c) being able to watch movies
d) manufacturers brand
e) network-ability
f) Others – please specify
[/quote:2a7fb25180]Yeah Steph is right “Battery Life” and Price are very important ;)
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I suppose a lot of the possible features of a handheld will themselves be dependent on a lot of user initiatives, add-ons, accessories or dowright hacks…
I mean, the GBA-SP wasn’t intended as a movie player or a portable emulator, yet now it does. So possibly, a criterion worth including is “expandability” (as in, what kind of interfaces and/or OS handles are included, with which users may develop their own ‘applications’ – e.g. a SD or Compact Flash port, embedded browser or Jpeg viewer or Java processing module, etc.).
In this respect, the ‘movie-player’ tagline of the PSP is a bit pretentious, as movies will be predominantly marketed on proprietary media (UMDs) and I don’t know what codecs will be supported for downloaded and MemStick-stored ones…but if some eventually are, then I’m confident Lik-Sang or someone else will hack away at the DS to offer the same functionality through the GBA/CF movie player attachment. Horses for courses.
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I’ll have to give these and other questions gathered some serious consideration, not just in their immediate form but also in how any implications help towards the point and overall shape of the survey. Questions not used directly will never the less be useful for an outside my own view never would have occurred to me type of perspective that will no doubt provide plenty of food for thought.
The basic idea beginning to materialize so far is to try with the first question to categorize people into one of three or four main groups, never, sometimes, regular and full on veteran gamers. Dividing the questioning to an outsider, midway and insider format to get the most from each type of respondent regardless of which end of the experience spectrum they seem to fit best.
Regular gamers can be asked more specific questions regarding tweaks to existing game arrangements, while non-gamers can be asked about their overall thoughts and perceptions of that seen and heard through the media or friends and family. Thoughts that target the intermediate experience level feel vague at the moment but suggest that’s maybe an area worth concentrating on.
Hopefully this attempt is only a test run, if things go well and lessons are learned then refinements can be made for the next time. It’s perhaps a lofty enough goal but I’ll try to do my best to keep it nice and simple, as that’s what seems to work best for me (lol).
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The CESA white paper reports on an annual Japanese survey of the general population and games.
CESA categorised their total population sample into four consumer categories: active, dormant, prospective and disinterested. Disinterested customers were those who had never played and did not want to, or had played and had no intention of playing again.
In the last survey I have (1999) disinterested customers constituted the largest proportion of those surveyed at 35.8 percent. Dormant customers were players who were waiting for games to be made which would make them want to play again. These constituted 28.1 percent. Only 27.8 percent were described as active players, down from almost 40 percent.
Might be worth considering..
Aphra.
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Will the survey be online too, so that you get more feedback than just approaching people on the street.
You could make it Irish only (somehow :p)
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Hi Aphra, thanks very much, those are unfamiliar ways of categorizing people. Dormant, that’s an interesting one. At least one question will be worded to try to probe what on earth such people could be waiting for.
The disinterested type are not unusual, sometimes they seem to have a mysterious mental block and questioning tends not to reveal a lot about why they’re not interested. Often saying things like they don’t have enough time, games are pointless or there are better things to do.
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Hi kyotokid, it will also be online but someone else is handling that end. He has already set up a forum but it’s empty and waiting to be filled out. As soon as it’s running I’ll post the details on this thread and buzz the people who post here with a quick p.m. to let them know. Hopefully it shouldn’t be longer than a couple of weeks or so.Keeping this an Irish thing definitely sounds like the right way to go, no offence to the rest of the world of course.
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Dormant customers were players who were waiting for games to be made which would make them want to play again. These constituted 28.1 percent.[/quote:815c6dce29]
See Nintendo know what they are doing with the DS :)
(dont want to hijack thread…semi related)
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Hooray for the marketing folksmen – I’ve been categorized at last! I’m a “dormant gamer”, then.
…fuuuh, that was close, I was nearly badged a hardcore gamer instead! :D ;)
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I had to change my name a little because I’m having problems accessing the post facility and sending PM’s.
Here is the survey site mentioned. http://www.gamer-survey.tk
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