» OSU, GAMA and the Wargamer want to ask you some questions
Monday, May 8, 2006
OSU, GAMA and the Wargamer want to ask you some questions
In the “Do Market Research or Die” sweepstakes, it would seem that someone’s finally chosen the former. Although really this survey is more about “[w]hat motivates continued game play and preferences for types of games,” that can’t help but be useful to the industry. For some reason the online survey is only up until the end of May. Hell, maybe they’re going to take this and somehow interpret out our votes for the Origins awards.
Back to the
Brant Says: May 8th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
You guys rock!
Thanks for helping us get the word out.
The survey has to come down by 31 May because we’ve got to start writing results to make deadlines for academic paper submissions. Sadly, the world of academics does not parallel reality - we’d love to have this running through Origins, where people could fill it out on-site.
Thanks for the exposure.
Brant
PhD Student
Ohio State
School of Communication
misuba Says: May 8th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Brant, since you’re here (and if you’re at liberty): how was the breakdown of game types and gaming genres decided upon?
Brant Guillory Says: May 9th, 2006 at 3:41 am
Originally, it was very wargame/boardgame-oriented, but when we went to GAMA to beg for assistance/support, they (a) were thrilled to help someone doing research within the industry and (b) requested that we expand it to cover as much of the industry as possible.
So the current mix of genres/types was a collaborative effort with GAMA, but they provided us with a lot of the expansion beyond boardgames.
There’s a lot more detail available in the forums at RPG.net and The Wargamer. I’ve been answering questions over there for the past week, and some of your questions may already have been answered. (Full disclosure: I write for The Wargamer and they are going to run a non-academic wrap-up of the article later this summer.) While I used to write for RPG.net, too, I didn’t start the thread there; I was alerted to it by another survey respondent.
Chris Says: May 9th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Could you post links? The quickest and easiest way to share that info when we are on a dealine would be wonderful…
Brant Says: May 9th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Ask and ye shall receive!
http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.asp?m=168268
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=261805
misuba Says: May 9th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
I love the RPGnet posters who say they had to stop taking the survey halfway in because some question wasn’t fine-grained enough for them to answer. Only gamers, man. I hope these guys never have to fudge a rule in a game; I picture smoke coming out of their ears, loud pings of machinery, violent outbursts…
Allan S (not that one) Says: May 9th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Okay Brant… dude… typos…and line shading for the all the tables.
If you are asking for people to donate time to provide data for you, the least you could do is make it easy on them to actually read the survey.
But seriously… typos.
Brant Says: May 9th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
The typos are a seemingly endless problem. Every time we think we got them all, another one pops up.
This thing’s been thru about 6 rounds of checking.
The line shading was a creation of the underlying HTML from the survey software. Every time I tried to monkey with it, something else went screwy, so I quit messing with it. I’m a decent HTML coder, but not great. I asked several other people to check it for usability, and they thought it was sufficient. Not perfect, mind you, but sufficient.
Thanks for your feedback.
Brant Says: May 9th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Just an update -
We’re over 1200 responses in 8 days. Thanks to everyone who’s helped out so far.
My goal is still a ridiculously-high 10000.
Chris Says: May 9th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I have it posted on my own blog as well as the Gaming Industry ntwork forums. Typos and cell shading aside, I say go get ‘em.
Brant Says: May 9th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Another note (inspired by Chris):
If you see a link or ad or flyer to the project somewhere, can you pass it along? I’d like to somehow approximate the spread of this thing as best I can. I know we’re now on message boards at The Wargamer , RPG.net, Ogrecave, BGG, ConsimWorld, and The Miniatures Page, and have ads linked from GreenRonin, The Wargamer, and BayonetGames. I’d like to track other appearances, like people’s blogs/homepages, local game store sites, and other news sites.
Thanks!
Brant
James S. Says: May 10th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Then you might also want to post a call over at boardgamegeek.com. Its the largest site for board and (non-CCG) card gaming.
Brant Says: May 10th, 2006 at 10:38 am
We’re posted over there: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/109603
Thanks!
Allan S (not that one) Says: May 10th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Don’t forget Enworld (in case someone hasn’t posted it there already)
Brant Says: May 10th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Posted in the news feeds on ENWorld last week. Don’t know about forum activity over there.
Brant
Brant Says: May 11th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Flyers can be downloaded to print/distribute (liberally!) at
http://research.comm.ohio-state.edu/projects/bguillory/gamer/GameSurveyFlyersWhite.pdf
Brant Says: May 13th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Just an update:
As of 30 seconds ago, we’re over 2300 responses!
Thanks to everyone who’s participated and is helping to spread the word.
Brant