Introduction
In this task I am going to do primary qualitative, quantitative research and several audience profiling techniques to help test my theory. I am using online questionnaires as my main method to help collect responses for my primary research.Primary research
Quantitative Questionnaire
First, I began by creating a quantitative questionnaire for the game star wars: battlefront. I already had a basic idea of who the audience for my chosen game is because of the secondary research I did previously In HA8 Task 1. I decided to base this questionnaire on the results I found whilst doing the secondary research; I did this because I wanted to see if I got a feedback similar to my theory on the audience profile. For example by doing secondary research I released that star wars made their game gender divest to help attract females to the game although this did not work and the game is in fact played more by male's than it is females. Asking questions like this in my primary research will help 'Back up' the research I found whilst doing secondary methods. For the survey I used multiple choices instead of a text box because in the Quantitative methods you do not really want words as an answer, you want to know the Quantity of something. Here are my questions;
1) Are you Male or Female?
The first question I Asked the participants is 'are you Male or Female?’ This is a simple but effective question because it helps summaries if battlefront audience is mostly male or female. For example for this particular question my feedback came back that only 40% of my participants are female and the rest is 60% Male.
Even though only 10 participants answered my question, knowing that 40% of them are only female it makes it easier to estimate how many females play the game worldwide. Knowing this information means the female storm troopers did not attract more female players like star wars expected. The results came back that more males are playing the game than females; this back's up the research I found whilst doing secondary methods. For Instance Whilst doing secondary research I found out that star wars main audience is mainly male so they created female storm troopers, hoping it will help attract more female players. By doing both secondary and primary research I know that the storm troopers did not help attract more female audience, resulting in an audience profile of mostly male players.
2) What is your Age?
The second question I asked is 'what is your age?’ To get more realistic results I shared the questionnaire on social media so the questionnaire has more of a potential of being seen by a wider variety of ages. For example, If I only shared the questionnaire by email to my colleagues then the age range that see's the questionnaire are going to be similar but because I have a wide variety of friends on social media, young and old it is more likely that different age groups will answer my questionnaire. Having my questionnaire advertised to different age groups makes the results more 'true'. However you cannot always be certain with online questionnaires that the answer is actually a true answer because you cannot see the participant answering the questions so they could be dishonest and create a false feedback. For instance the participant could be a 30 year old male but answer that he is a 14 year old female, because the participant is behind a screen you can never be too sure.
To the right there is a graph presenting the feed back to this question. When analysing the results it was easy to notice that I had a wide variety of feedback. I had answers from participants aged 13 and younger to 35 years old. The most popular age was ages 14 - 22 years old. This means that 30% of the participants was aged 14 -22, this can help estimate how old the audience is for star wars: battlefront. Star wars target audience was children, teenagers and adults, from doing both primary and secondary research it has become clear that the players who usually play battlefront are teenagers and young adults. The result that 30% of players are aged 14 - 22, agrees with the theory that battlefront might be too challenging for young players and that is why only 10% of children aged 13 and younger have answered my questionnaire.
3) Did you ever play starwars: Battlefront online?
In star wars battlefront there is no single player campaign although there are missions. Mission mode which be played either alone or with a friend online/using the split-screen. These Missions have players take on waves of enemies to complete certain tasks. Battlefront supports up to 40 players in online multiplayer with ten modes, but certain modes will be focused on smaller skirmishes for as few as eight players. According to my secondary research I online was supposed to be a 'casual' game and not meant to be too challenging although players thought online was competitive and too difficult for young players. For Question 3 I wanted to see if my participants did play online whilst playing star wars: battle front. All of the participants for the question answered yes. 4) Do you think the game is casual?
The next question I asked the participant is 'do you think the game play is casual or more for hardcore gamers.’ 60% of the participants think that even casual players can play this game and be comfortable doing so. However 40% think that the game is too difficult and you need to make sure you have strategy with your moves which can be a bit too difficult with young players. 5) Are you in employment or education?
6) What Kind of gamer are you?
I think it is essential to know what kind of gamer the participants are because if they think the game is too difficult and they are hard-core gamer that proves that the game would be too difficult for casual gamers because they won’t have the same skill/experience which hardcore gamers do have. I also added a 'non-gamer' option in case the participant doesn’t usually play games but has played the star wars battle front. My results came back that 50% of my participants are in fact casual gamers, 40% are hardcore gamers and 10% is a non-gamer. This means that 5/10 of my participants who have played star wars battlefront do not usually play video games all the time. So maybe star wars battlefront attracts a new audience who does not usually play video games or are not as skilled as hard-core players. 7) How often did you play Star wars battlefront?
For question 7 I decided to ask how often they play the game. I think this question is important because it shows how dedicated the participants are to the game. For example if you play a game all the time, you are basically dedicating all your time to playing that game. This must mean that you must enjoy the game and be some-what skilled at the game because of the amount of time playing the game. For instance, If you only play the game often you are not going to be as good as someone who has more practise and plays the game 'all the time', also if you play the game every so often, this means the game is not your main priority and isn't what you want to play in your spare time. My results came back that 50% of my participants did actually play the game all the time, this means that half of the players who filled in my questionnaire enjoyed the game enough to play it all the time. This also means that my participants know allot of information about the game, making my feedback a lot more effective. However 20% of my players played the game 'rarely' this means that they only played the game when they didn't really have anything else to do, they wasn't excited enough about the game to play it all the time. 8) Did you notice there was female storm troopers?
I asked this question because the main thing that caught my attention whilst doing secondary research is star wars decided to add female storm troopers to attract more females to the game. However whilst doing my research I came to a theory that this technique did not work because the female storm troopers look to similar to the male storm troopers. They did not get much attention. In fact by looking at my results, 60% did not know there were women storm troopers in the game. This means that over half of my participants did not notice the female storm troopers, this might be why the 'gender diverse' technique did actually fail to attract more female players.9) In a typical week, which of the following forms of transportation do you use? (check all that apply)
I think this question can be important because it estimates how much the participant’s income is. For example If the participant main use of transportation is a bus then they could be subscribed to a weekly/monthly bus ticket which means they can afford subscriptions or if the participant is driving a car, it means they are old enough and earning enough money to afford driving a car. Asking this question does have a simple feedback but it also opens up more 'ideas' on who the audience is. When analysing my results it became clear that most of my participants walk. In fact out of 10 participants 50% of them use walking as their main transportation. This could mean that they are living close to their school, college or work place and do not spend any money whilst travelling. 10) Did you ever watch the star wars films?
For the last question I decided to ask a question which I think is personally really important to this particular game.
Star wars battlefront is a game based on a world-wide film franchise which has been going on for generations. When developing the game they wanted to target all the same audience who watched the films, which is a bit difficult because the audience who have watched the films are all different ages, nationality, gender and so on. I Asked this question to see how many of the players have actually watched the film and the results came back that 60% of my players have watched the film but 40% has not seen the star wars film. This makes me curious on what has attracted the 40% to play the game if they have not seen the film so I have also created a Qualitative Questionnaire to get more in-depth answers. Qualitative Questionnaire
I made a also qualitative questionnaire using the website 'survey monkey'. I made this questionnaire to get more in-depth answers to help with my audience profiling research. To do this I used a single text box for my questions so my participants can write about their answer instead of using a drop down box where they will have options. I wanted a single text box because I asked open ended questions so I wanted the participants to do an answer with more description than just 'Yes or No'.. Having more in-detailed answers will give me a more successful feedback which will result in a better conclusion on the audience profile for the game starwars: battlefront.
1) Are you Female Or Male?
The first question I asked is 'are you female or male'. This question is simple but really important to know about the audience. I Created the Questionnaire and shared it on social media so it has the potential off being seen by a wider audience. As you can see to the right I have had 5 respondents to my questionnaire. 3 of my respondents are male and the other 2 are female. This means that I have more male respondents than I do females, Just like I did in the Quantitative Questionnaire.
1) Are you Female Or Male?
The first question I asked is 'are you female or male'. This question is simple but really important to know about the audience. I Created the Questionnaire and shared it on social media so it has the potential off being seen by a wider audience. As you can see to the right I have had 5 respondents to my questionnaire. 3 of my respondents are male and the other 2 are female. This means that I have more male respondents than I do females, Just like I did in the Quantitative Questionnaire. 2) Did you watch the star wars films before playing star wars battle front?
For my second Question i decided to ask if they watched the film before playing the game.
I decided to ask this Question again because I think this Question does hold a lot of information to help identify who the audience is. For instance, if the participant has watched the film this means they have always been a fan of the film and it gives you a idea on who they are. If they have not watched the film then it makes me wonder what has attracted them to the game etc. For my results I got a respondent who has never seen the film, One who has seen a few of the films and 3 other respondents who have seen the starwars films. Star wars: battlefront wanted to target the same audience that enjoyed the star war's film franchise and my results confirm that they have achieved the target audience. one out of five of my respondents have not seen this film, this means that 80% of my respondents have watched the film. This can help estimate how many of battlefronts audience has actually watched the film for instance if I had 20 respondents I can estimate that 80% out of the 20 respondents have watched the film.3) Do you think playing online is competitive?
I Wanted to ask if the participant thought online was competitive. Two of my respondents said yes it can be competitive because you are fighting against each other and the other players obviously want to win so it is going to be competitive. One of the respondents just replied with 'No' which isn't that helpful but my other respondent explained how online can sometimes be competitive but it depends because some times it can be casual and 'chilling.' From looking at my feedback I Come to a conclusion that online is a lot more challenging than battlefront designed it to be although it cant be 'too difficult' as some of the respondents explained how sometimes online can be casual, it just depends on who is playing. I personally think this means that online can be casual and easy to play although when hardcore players are playing online it can be a lot more difficult and more competitive than they originally thought. 4) Do you think the game is suitable for children, teens and adults to be playing together?
Star wars battlefront was designed to played by children, teens and adults. I decided to take this question to my participants and see if they think it is possible for everyone to play together. My first respondent thought teenagers will enjoy the game but it might be too boring for adults and children. The second respondent explained how he thinks the game is suitable for all ages because it has minimal violence. The third respondent said he thinks they can all play together because the game is not difficult to play. The fourth respondent also thinks it is suitable for a family to play this game together whilst the final respondent thinks teenagers and adults will be more interested in the game than children because they are more likely to have watched the film although the respondent still thinks the children can enjoy the game because its easy enough to play. By reading through the feedback it became clear that basically all of my respondents do actually think the game is suitable to be played as a family but children are more likely to think its a boring game because its less likely they have seen the film's so they wont be as interested as star wars fans might be.
5) Do you prefer the missions or playing online & why?
I decided to ask this question because whilst I was doing my secondary research I found that most of the audience was being affected by how difficult playing online is. So I decided to ask if my participants prefer playing online or playing missions then asked them why to see if i get a similar feedback which I did when I did my secondary research. The feedback came back that 3/5 of my respondents prefer playing missions because online can get a bit to much and missions are a lot more fun although 2 respondents think online is better because missions get boring after a while. This means that 60% of my participants think that missions is a much better gameplay than playing online. 6) How often did you play starwars: battlefront?
This question will help me get a better understatement on how long the game can keep its audience entertained for example if I asked 40 participants how often they play the game and most of them responded back with "Not that Often" It basically means that the game isn't keeping entertained enough for them to be playing the game "all the time.".
This question helps open up a lot of information about the audience profile. As you can see to the right, my feedback is mostly 'not that often' from analysing the respondents answers I know that they dont play the game that often because they usually played it only with their friends. This means that the game is more of a 'social' game than a game you sit and play online. When I have previously played this game It was rare i played this game just online, I also preferred playing co-op/split screen because the atmosphere when playing the game with someone else is so much better than playing the online. 7) Would you say the game play is to casual or too difficult?
This question is similar to one of my previous questions although this time I do not want to know if the online is too competitive, I want to know if the game play is casual or too difficult. Battlefront was designed to be a casual game but there has been some complaints that it is to difficult for casual players resulting in a audience of hard-core players. My feedback came back that most of my respondents think the game play is to casual because its easy to kill the bad guys and their isn't no violence or blood. Although the game play online is different because you are competing against real life people, some respondents think that online is too difficult but others think the game play is more better whilst playing online. 8) Do you think fans who love the star wars films are happy with the game?
Seen as the game developers targeted to get the same audience as the same audience who watched the starwars film's, I wanted to see if the participants who have played the game think that people who have once loved the films can now love the game. This helps the audience profiling because its helping me get feedback to see if the same audience who has watched the film can possibly be the same audience that are playing the video game. Whilst looking at my feedback i could tell I had two different opinions. Some of my respondents thought that the game was a disappointment, more of a attack a clone sort of game and it didn't actually meet up to their expectations whilst other respondents disagreed and thought star wars lovers would like this game because the game has brought starwars back to the main-stream attention again. For instance, I never watched the films before playing the game although after playing the game I thought Id give starwars a chance and now I have watched the whole franchise.
9) What made you play this game? ( Is it your usual game genre)
10) How old are you? Do you think this game is suitable for young players?
For my final question I wanted to see how old my participants are and if they think the game is suitable for young players. The first respondent answered that they are aged 18 and they think children too young will be too stressed out whilst playing this game. The next respondent is 21 and thinks it is suitable for young players because there is no gore involved in the game. The third respondent is 17 years old and thinks children at a young age will be able to play the game as well as a 19 and a 16 year old who both think the game is suitable for young children because it is easy to control. This means that most of my respondents are a teenager/young adult and the majority of them think the game is in fact suitable for the young players. Audience Profile Research
To help research who the audience is for star wars battlefront I have decided to do a 'focus group' with two Players who play battlefront as well as sending off a few surveys to other players who have played battlefront. I Decided to do a focus group because It’s the easiest method to be able to ask open ended questions, for instance in a focus group you are able to ask as many question as you like and it won’t be as time consuming as finding a specific audience and then filling out open-ended qualitative questionnaires which can be difficult because some people do not have the time to answer a questionnaire. Another benefit of doing a focus group is that you don’t have set questions; you are able to change the questions as you go along to try and make the research more effective. Another advantage of focus groups which I personally like is that in focus groups you are more likely going to get more in depth questions because the participants can talk as long as they want and be able to communicate with other participants which will give them motivation to explain their answers more in-depth and with more information. Below you can see my video which I personally did myself for instance I interviewed, recorded and I edited the video.
Underneath the video I am going to include, the questions as well as explanation of why I have asked them the certain questions and how it helps define the audience profile. Once I have finished explaining the feedback from the focus group I am going to explain the feedback from the online surveys.
All the writing in black is what I asked in the video. All the writing in Red is an explanation why I asked this question and why is it effective in audience profiling.
Intro: In this video I am going to e asking you questions to help define the audience profile for star wars battlefront. These questions will be about your demographics, psychographics, Geodemographics and other factors that I will consider whilst analysing the audience profile.
The reason why I am asking Questions about their demographics, psychographics, Geodemographics and other factors is because they all contribitute on profiling the video games audience.
Demographics = Demographics determine who the audience is. It explains their income and status.
Psychographics = Psychographics makes it easier why the audience is a certain way for instance psychographics looks into the personalities and the traits of the audience.
Geodemographics = Geodemographics principle is that there is every neighbourhood is different and holds different gamers. For example, someone in one neighbourhood could not have the same characteristics than in another neighbourhood.
Q1: The first question is about your demographics. Demographics describe who you are and what work you do. To define who you are and what work you do, what class best describes your income and your status?
Finding out what working class the majority of the audience is will help know what status the audience is and how much income they get. For instance someone who is working class will have a better income than lower-class. But someone who is working class also has a 'low' status and is for wages, in some way of manual labour.
Q2: Next, I want you to find the best psychographic which best suits your behaviour and your personality traits and why?
Knowing what psychographic the audience is, is really important simply because it will help game developers understand why their audience acts in a certain way. It is a study of the audience's personality, values, opinions, traits, life styles and more. For instance if the majority of the audience profile is Mainstreamers then they like being dominate but if the majority of the audience is strugglers then the audience has traits of buying alcohol and struggling with things they do.
Q3: Are you both from the same neighbourhood? Do you think people from a different location could still have similar characteristics than you? Does this affect the games you buy?
Demographics are based on two different principles; the first principle is that people who live in the same neighbourhood are meant to have more similar characteristics than people chosen from random locations. The second principle is that the neighbourhoods can be categorized by characteristics which the population contain. Any two neighbour hoods can be based in the same category for example if two different locations had the same people with similar characteristics then they will be put into the same category even though they are widely separated from each other. Knowing where the audience from is vital information for the audience profile.
Q4: I am now going to ask you a few questions
- What is your age?
Knowing the audience age is obviously important because it is vital to know what ages are playing the game so there are no inappropriate contents for an audience which could be too young. Knowing the age makes it easier to know how to advertise their products for instance if the game has only younger audience then they will make their advertisement more attractive for the younger players.
-What is your gender?
Knowing whether the majority of your audience is female or male is really important. For instance if the audience profile is mostly males the developers could try and make the game more gender diversity and try and attract more females. Females and males are usually (Not always) attracted to two different things, so knowing if your game is attracting a specific gender could say a lot about the game.
-What is your sexuality?
-What is your highest education?
Knowing the highest education of the audience will explain how 'smart' the audience is for instance someone with a diploma could understand more advanced words and more difficult control's than someone who left half-way in high school. Another reason why knowing the highest education is important because someone who has a higher education can get a more 'advanced' job which means earning more of an income, Although this isn't always guaranteed.
-What is your disposable income for a month?
Disposable income is basically the income they have left after they have paid all the bills. This income is usually what is spent on 'treats' for them self so for instance if the majority of the audience has a high disposable income and they like spending their money on games then they are more likely to spend more.
-What is your current life style & whets your desire lifestyle?
-What is your media interest?
-Whets your nationality?
-What are your buying habits?
Knowing your audiences buying habits explains what the audience spends their money on. For instance if there is a profile audience which the majority of them spends their money on clothes but a different audience buying habits is games then the audience profile with the buying habits of buying games is probably going to be buying a game whenever they have disposable income.
-What brands are you loyal too?
Pictures In the video include:
Online Survey:
