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Hey everyone!
TL;DR – Gamesurvey.org is where you'll find an academic survey on hobby gamers' motivations, community engagement, and entrepreneurship, thru 15 April 2024. Please take the time to join a few thousand other hobby gamers and complete this for us to help better understand the overall hobby gaming community.
(direct link to the qualtrics server, too)
The full scoop –
Back in 2006, we ran a BIG survey on hobby games players (over 3500 respondents) that was designed to dig into motivations and behaviors of gamers, rather than just demographic or marketing profiles.
We were looking into such things as
- What do game players like in a game?
- Why does a gamer like this?
- What motivates continued game play and preferences for types of games?
- Where are games bought (and how much is spent) and what influences those purchase decisions in light of preferences and motivations?
- With whom (and where) do gamers play, and how frequently, and how do these decisions influence preferences and motivations?
One of the original papers is archived here – Motivations of Hobby Game Players: Motivations of Hobby Game Players
Another one is here – Why do we play? A content analytic exploration of gaming motivations from a uses and gratifications perspective: OhioLINK ETD: Shamos, Josselyn Fara
Well, it's been almost 20 years since that original survey, and plenty of things have changed. There have been new categories of games developed (such as living card games) and significant changes in the hobby gaming audience. The pandemic changed the ways in which people connected to play, and some of those changes have stuck even post-pandemic. Plus, everyone now has a cell phone where they can take the survey, if they choose.
Over the past 20 years there's been an explosion of channels and content related to hobby gaming - new sites, YouTube channels, Discord servers, Twitter feeds, Facebook groups, and more - so there are many, many more ways to get the word out than ever before.
We also learned some lessons from the previous survey, so we'd like to think this one is an improvement.
This time, we're partnering with Dr Ian Mercer of Fairleigh Dickinson University (himself a life-long gamer), and are using their survey tools to gather our data.
In addition to following up on the previous research into motivations, this time around we're also looking at community engagement within the hobby gaming world. Dr Mercer has a keen interest in varying levels of entrepreneurship among hobby gamers, where plenty of folks with a great idea have started their own companies.
This study is being conducted as an online survey. The web address for the study is Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management (redirects to FDU's Qualtrics server)
The survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete, and there's a bunch of demographic data at the front because the university requires us to collect it. Please note that 20 minutes is a realistic time frame for this, because like most academic surveys, there are a lot of questions, for statistical validity.
Gamesurvey.org is planned to stay open until 15 April 2024
Any and all hobby gamers are welcome to participate and submit their responses.
We've created an email address for folks who might want to reach out directly, rather than ask questions here gamesurvey2024-at-gmail-dot-com
No survey is perfect, but we're building on what's come before and trying to push the field a bit further forward.
The results will be the subject of as many conference papers and publications as we can wring out of them (that's an inside joke for you university-connected types).
We will also be writing a non-academic version (basically leaving out the statistical methodology crap and the literature review) for the Armchair Dragoons, highlighting the interesting findings we get, and discussing possible implications for the industry.
Please spread far and wide to as many channels as you can, and we appreciate your participation.
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