Greetings,

After days of lurking, reading, and ruminating (…and certainly there’s enough material here that an admission of only having barely skimmed the surface should be a forgivable sin…) I’ve chosen to delurk with my First Thoughts, which I will concisely share momentarily.

I’ll leave the gaming history, and experience to a minimum. Leave it to say that like many of you, I started playing before polyhedral dice were available to gamers, and I’ve played regularly ever since.

Although I’ve played a wide variety of games, some now extinct, rubbed elbows with all sorts of gamers, and been a flame-retarded participant on UseNet for a number of years, I have to admit that I totally missed not only the rec.games trunk, but the “Gaming Theory Movement” as a whole. (For those that care, I spent all my time in the alt.religion corner.)

While I’m fascinated, and inspired by Gaming Theory as presented here at The Forge, I have to admit that I’m a noob to the jargon, but NOT the notions, and conotions they seem to speak to. So, without further ado (…or maybe that’s adieu depending upon how many forum rules I’ve just broken…) my concise RPG product first thoughts are:

I’m lucky perhaps to be involved with a big, I mean really big box Marketing Research Firm. While I won’t name it, if you’ve ever watched TV for more than 30 minutes in your life, chances are you’ve heard of one of its many branches. How does this relate to RPGs, Game Theory, or Indie RPG? Well, there’s only a couple of RPG related Marketing Surveys available on the web to get a grasp of the industry, and all of them have little direct data relating to the Indie RPG Movement, or its products.

So, how interested do you think Indie/Small Press RPG designers, producers, and distributors (likely all the same cat from what I gather) would be with involving themselves with the creation, implementation, and benefits provided by a comprehensive survey of the Gaming Community, designed with their interests specifically in mind?

Oh, and this would be the work of an aspiring Indie game designer, and not the big box marketing research firm afore-not-mentioned.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

Hi,

I'd be very curious what you think the surveyors are truly after from this:

http://www.gamesurvey.org/

To me it seems rather skewed at finding ways for companies to make more money from gamers, rather than at understanding their psychology or values.

How would your vision of a survey for the indie community differ?

Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanx for a reply; I had concerns that this wouldn’t interest anyone nearly as much as it does me.

As to the “Games Research Project,” I’d have to do a little digging with acquaintances at OSU to get any sort of real skinny, but from what I see this survey was likely constructed for two primary goals: 1) Dr. David’s Departmental Agenda, and 2) To afford a marketing strategy tool to GAMA, and The Wargamer, both of which you rightly deduced have commercial interests at stake.

Oh, since this is dubbed a “research project,” there may be grant money involved, aside from the obvious sponsorships, particularly on the social sciences end of the spectrum.

The real telling feature in all of this is who exactly is paying for the deliverable data sets. Marketing Research deliverables are more often than not massaged data, which is then used by the client’s own number crunchers in their marketing, and R&D strategies.

This one is a prime example of the sort of work most clients are going to pay for –
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/br/br20010323a

How the Survey I propose would differ from a typical marketing tool is that it would be designed by, and for Indie/Small Press Clients, of which I count myself by virtue of immediate aspirations to enter the industry.

Essentially, those involved in how it’s put together would determine what sorts of data they want, what sorts of questions they'd be interested in asking the Gaming Community. Those contributing to the design of the survey would naturally have their own agendas. Perhaps they’d like to know how their Game Theories have impacted the Gaming Community, or maybe they’d prefer data that speaks to their commercial, distribution, or marketing concerns. Maybe it would afford some game designers very specific data related to various game mechanics, character advancement schema, etc.

Maybe this might help. The idea for this endeavor hit me as I researched the very niches I want to fill with my own products, and the paucity of information I’m left with by having never attended large game cons, or spending the sorts of time you fine gents have getting to know your market through attending those cons, running your game for potential customers, or Ashcanning, etc.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

Paul wrote:
I'd be very curious what you think the surveyors are truly after from this:

http://www.gamesurvey.org/

Rather than data that might empower me to tweak the purchasing habits of gamers, I'd personally be interested in data that would help me recruit creative folks to gaming, via game design or social means, or provoke greater enthusiasm from creatively marginalized, nearly-lapsed gamers.

Paul

Paul,

Well, you seem to have drawn me in from the blue. How creative I am likely remains to be weighed.

Getting useful data from “creatively marginalized, nearly-lapsed gamers” in order to “recruit creative folks to gaming” might be a little tricky. So long as they’re only nearly lapsed there are ways of reaching them…and in true Indie style with little or nothing aside from time invested, and collaborative resource management.

Considering we could get a reasonable sample size of the sorts of people you’re interested in “enthusing,” what is it you’d like to learn from them?

What I’m interested in learning is how to empower gamers to get what they want out of gaming, rather than essentially being told what to want. I'm also interested in guaging how well the sorts of things I'd prefer to write might be accepted.

Personally, I like to operate at the higher end of the Enlightened Self-Interest spectrum, getting what I want out of life by helping others do the same. What I want is to understand better what the sorts of people you describe above want out of independently published products, and accessories.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

If I could get a hundred people in a room, made up of gamers (Video, Table Top RPG, LARP, and otherwise), Game Managers (Game masters, Storytellers, Narrators, etc), game spectators (siblings, romantic interests, parents, friends, etc), game developers (designers, producers, publishers, etc), and game researchers (scholars, marketers, writters, etc) what I would want to ask them is fourfold.

What are the ten most important aspects of a game, in your opinion?

From the first question, I would like to compile a comprehensive list of the ten most mentioned and then request that they:

Rank these ten attributes of a good game from most important, to least important.
What are your interests, mark all that apply:
Player
Manager
Spectator
Developer
Research

Then I would ask them to name three games that they feel are the best.

At conclusion I would ask them to list the interests they hold that lie outside of games. Weather they are employed, what conventions/events do they attend or would like to attend, and what organizations are they involved in outside of their gaming activities. (such as the Society for Creative Anachronism)

Now that I actually started thinking about it, there is more information that I would want to know, but I need time to gather my thoughts and express them succintly.

Ian,

Good questions one, and all…they add to the list of questions I’d like to ask as well.

Ian wrote:
Rank these ten attributes of a good game from most important, to least important.
What are your interests, mark all that apply:
Player
Manager
Spectator
Developer
Research

Hi, Two Crows (I guess you can't use your normal name),

What if gamers can't really, actually tell you what they want? They can only demonstrate it through play? For example - do you know how your liver works? Or your eyes? All the chemicals and stuff and what each organ needs? I can't - but I can demonstrate them in action, to various extents.

Lets say gamers are using an organ in their brain/a particular part of their brain. That doesn't mean they know how it works, just like I don't really know how my liver works. So they can't really answer questions for it.

Perhaps a survey that asks for actual play accounts, snippets of play in relation to X, Y or Z, might yield more. Then look for the patterns in those actual play accounts.

I meant interest in the capacity of categorizing, or grouping individuals by their invested interest in the realm of gaming. So it would be player [of a game], manager (Game Master, Narrator, Storyteller) [of a game], etc.

The purpose of the two questions, that of ranking and that of background game is to support or disprove a hypothesis that I have. I think that the outcome of the ranking would be that players will rank things highly and that those who run games (manage) will rank the same things lowly.

In reply to Callan. The assumption is that gamers know what they like in a game. They maybe less then technical about it, and they may give misleading information intentionally or unintentional, but they none the less reveal portions of the territory. It is up to those analysizing the statistics to discearn signal from noise.

What you purpose, Callan, is as I understand it playtesting. Which is similar though distinct from marketing. Playtesting accounts can supplement a marketing survey, but will inevitably have more information than is necessary. Just some thoughts, and as always I might be wrong but this is how I understand it to generally work.

Hi Callan,

I intend nothing nefarious by my choice to use a screen handle until I know people IRL, and the name “Two Crows” is one I’m known by to a great many people. It also seems that I’m not the only person doing it here on The Forge. If I meet you at GenCon, ask me, and I’ll probably tell you more about me than you’d really like to know.

The internal organs analogy probably wasn’t the best choice, as I went to college for pre-med, and nursing…although I think I know what you’re aiming for by using it.

Maybe it would help if I explained exactly what I’m pitching here, to whom, how much it might cost to do it, and what I hope to get out of the deal.

The Pitch –
Independent, and Small Press Game Designer, Developer, Distributor, or Retailer:

Would you like a chance to be involved in the formulation of a professional quality marketing survey designed specifically for your unique niche industry, and created according to the very questions you’d like to ask the RPG community?

Would you like to have access to the thoughts of potentially thousands of gamers, and ask them burning questions about their preferences, values, playing style, and expectations left unmet by the traditional gaming industry?

Would you like to know how your own currently published game, or game design concepts stack up against the competition, or your own original design goals?

Would you like to know how to better reach your intended audience, or inspire the hordes of creatively marginalized nearly-lapsed gamers that have all but given up on gaming?

Would you like to have access to one of the same tools as the really big RPG companies?

Typical marketing services cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some cases well into the millions.

If you would like access to statistically accurate, professionally presented data relating to:
What gamers really want from independent gaming products
Specific game mechanics, and how they relate to any aspect of gaming
The experiences of game dysfunction in a variety of settings
Scientifically valid numbers for your own gaming theory
What the discerning gamer really thinks about any aspect of gaming
Or questions designed just for you

Then this is your ticket!

Cost to You the Game Designer = Perhaps Nil or LESS! Otherwise on barter for web space, link hosting, and word of mouth legwork.

What I hope to get out of it –
Information on the Indie Gaming Phenomenon, and the same sorts of data anyone else involved in it might want.

Payoff –
If it goes well you get the answers to your burning questions, tools for better reaching, and expanding your customer base, and a saleable product for which all contributors will not only get free access, but perhaps also accrue royalties.

Above all you get the joy of knowing that Indie RPG not only CAN use the same professional tools as the industry leaders to their own advantage, for way less than they’re paying, but better yet that Allen Varney might someday have to take back the “positively monastic” comment in regards to what you earn from selling your games.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

Ian,

You seem to have a grasp of exactly what I’m aiming at here. Your understanding of how marketing research generally works is right on, particularly the part about discerning signal to noise ratios.

What’s more you have a good idea of the sorts of information you’d like to get from the gaming community, and how having it might impact your own work.

On the Playtesting end of things an Afteruse Survey can finger the trouble points, and unmet expectations of gamers/customers, but that’s another pitch.

What I’m proposing is that the Indie RPG Industry can have access to the same kinds of tools the big boys have, for less, and designed for the sorts of uses consistent with the values of Indie Gaming.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

Very interesting ... Two things :

I would be very interested in the perception of games. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I get a feeling that if someone says he likes X in a game, he might not even be playing a game that does X, but still might have the perception that the game does. Or maybe that's something else, in fact, that he likes. Maybe my game does X, but is mostly perceived as doing Y (let's say because it has the indie tag on it).
Anyway, sure, it would be a great, useful ressource.

Cost to You the Game Designer = Perhaps Nil or LESS! Otherwise on barter for web space, link hosting, and word of mouth legwork.

Hi Pellsie,

Two Things? You kill me…nothing new here. I’ve been called Two Crocks, Two Cows, Two Twats, Two Cocks, Tookers…the list goes on…C+ for effort! It’s the thought that counts.

You’re getting me right, approximately, with some caveats.

Yes, what I’m proposing is one hel of a lot of work in human hours, but between the people I have on my end there’s over 40 years experience in the really real top shelf marketing research industry…the kind people pay phat lewt for just to talk to us. With the professional consulting hirelings I can call in that experience tops 100 years.

The lovely thing about professional marketing services is that surveys are designed specifically for the clients that contract for them. This means that any sorts of questions can be asked, and you have professionals on hand to help you figure out what you need to ask, whom you need to survey, and then they do you up better than you could on your own. Want to know the most prevalent color of underwear gamers wear? No man, I’m not kidding!

What I’m talking about is just the tip of the iceburg. Imagine a cheap way to professionally handle customer response cards placed in your newly published Indie RPG product, or someone who will distribute your Ashcan to hundreds of people, and then professionally survey them very concisely on what it is they thought of the product.

No, I’m not talking about some free survey gimmick, or online polling scheme. I’m talking about professionals (folks that make five figures+ in their day marketing jobs), using industry standard high-end (way not cheap) software, professionally creating, analyzing, and reporting the findings in formats that speak to the client’s needs. I’m talking about professional business services that the Indie Community could most likely never afford under normal circumstances.

In fact what I’m proposing is the exact same types of services that big companies all too often pay thousands (or millions, I’m not kidding) of dollars for, but done in the focused interests of the Indie/Small Press/Freelance Designer niche industry.

How do we do all this? Sounds too good to be true? Sure it does, but I’m convinced it can be done, AND earn money (for some folks) in the process. I’m also convinced that this CAN change the lot of Indie RPG Designers by not only putting a professional marketing tool in their hot little hands, but putting them in direct contact with lots of gamers that may never even have heard of them. Eventual result – Indie/Small Press folks earn more money selling products to gamers that really want them.

We the Community collaborate on the sorts of questions we’d like to ask lots, and lots of gamers, doesn’t matter what flavor of gamers either, the survey will handle sorting them out into useful groupings based on the design of the questionnaire, and data analysis.

My Team builds the Questionnaire, the eSurvey, the Survey Frontend GUI, the Databases, Coding Frames and Coding Lists, the Analysis Specs, and conducts the survey just the same damned way any of the really big top shelf marketing research firms do.

We fund the whole thing through sponsorships, and then sell the deliverable data set to any interested parties that want them. Who are the potential Sponsors willing to shuck out the cash to make this happen, I hear you asking? Retailers, Hobby Shops, Manufacturers, Publishers, big dollar Freelancers, and anyone who has a vested interest in learning what Gamers really want. Maybe I’m off base, but I see the results of this being a hot commodity among some parties, who will in fact pay for it just like any other product if they’re not involved in it as collaborators from the beginning.

Collaborators get to be involved in the creation of the Questionnaire, and their reward for grass roots helping out in the work is the deliverable data for FREE, with a professionally written, in-layman’s-terms analysis of the data. And man, let me tell you people need this latter, because the tables generated in really real top shelf marketing surveys are more often than not analyzed by PhDs on the client end. Oh, I have access to a couple of those sorts of guys too!

Now, on the list you posted –

pells wrote:
If I understand you well, we (as a community I guess) could build this specific survey maybe like http://www.gamesurvey.org/, where people would come and take it. This would mean :
- finding a webhosting, a domain name (maybe)
- building the webpage and the database
- building the survey in itself (with the help of people who know exactly what they are doing)
- attract people to the site to take survey after taking it ourself (people here at the forge, for instance)
- analyse the data (we'll need people for that as it seems a whole job in itself)

Ian wrote: In reply to Callan. The assumption is that gamers know what they like in a game.

What you purpose, Callan, is as I understand it playtesting. Which is similar though distinct from marketing. Playtesting accounts can supplement a marketing survey, but will inevitably have more information than is necessary. Just some thoughts, and as always I might be wrong but this is how I understand it to generally work.

Callan,

“Marketing Survey,” is merely a term used to describe a process of systematically questioning a number of people, and empirically handling the information collected in the process, essentially an empirical tool. It can be called “polling,” “interviewing,” or any number of other things depending upon the application. I classify it a marketing survey, because the aim is to survey a class of individuals that also buy things.

The assumption that Gamers know what they like is one that Pells & I are making, for good or ill. The survey would be predicated on no such assumptions; otherwise it wouldn’t be a proper empirical tool. Furthermore a proper empirical survey tests the ability of the respondents to articulate their preferences. It can identify discrepancies in what a person says they like/dislike, and yield information that might help better determine what little fiddly amorphous thingy they’re not saying, or not able to say in the format of a survey interview.

What is it that you’d like to learn from the gaming community at large? You’re a gamer…the rules of this exercise are to articulate what you’d like to learn from them, and not necessarily the wording of the questions to get at that information.

En To Pan!
Two Crows

For folks that weren’t aware a thread clarifying this this idea has been moved to the Connections Forum.

Thanx Ron. Help with the netiquette here is appreciated.

Brad

Maybe a dump question, but how are those data going to help us exactly ?
Should it affect design ? Help us target our audience ? Promote our games ? Help us to see how the indie community is perceived ? See what we can add upon our existing design to match some kind of needs ?

Isn't it a little bit too project adherent ? What I mean is that we're doing a lot of different games ... A plot/setting oriented project, a LARP one and a pure narrative one do have very different needs ... well, at least the way I see it. Can a survey covers all those needs ?

I'm really interested here in your perception of the use of the tool (and not hypothetical or poll related).

Pells,

Good questions. The best one is the first one…”how are those data going to help us?”

Yes to every one of your dump questions, and then some! Generally speaking a professional survey could yield a wide range of useful information. This Wikipedia article lists some of the more common sorts of data a survey could yield. (Curiously the company I contract for is mentioned in the first paragraphs of the article.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_research

Some of the data that might be of particular use are these:

Ad Tracking – How are my ads working for me?
Consumer Awareness – What brands/products are gamers aware of?
Believability – How do gamers feel about the believability of my ad copy claims?
Brand Equity – How favorably do gamers view my Press/Company/Product?
Concept Testing – How acceptable is my game concept (prior to production)?
Consumer Decision Process – How do gamers decide to buy xyz?
Customer Satisfaction – How well did my game satisfy those who bought it?
Demand Estimates – What is the demand for my product?
Like/Dislike – What do consumers like or dislike about my products?
Market Segmentation – What sort of people are interested in what I produce?
Market Segmentation – What can I produce to reach a given segment of the market?
Price Value Ratings – How do gamers view value for price of my product?
Product Positioning – How does my product rate against other similar products?\
Psychographics – How do personality/values/attitudes/interests/lifestyles impact IRPG?
Purchase Intent – How likely are consumers to purchase my product?
Purchase History – What were the last n products purchased over the last n period?
Name – How do gamers feel about the name of a product?
Name Recognition – How many people are familiar with my company/product?
New and Different – How do consumers rate my product for being new & different?
And Then Some…

Very Indie specific data could relate to such things as:
Format – How do gamers view pdfs vs. xyz book formats?
Product Plussing – What additions might add value to my product?
Diversification – How interested in xyz follow on products are my customers?
Con Presence – How can we improve con presence?
Ashcanning vs. Test Product Placement – Which works better for the feedback I want?

A professionally designed, analyzed and presented survey, created for the Indie/Small Press niche market, could yield any number of useful data. Again, the focus of collaborators would determine the vector of curiosity, and therefore the nature of the survey itself.

The ingenuity of individual collaborators would determine the range of applications for the resultant data. Imagination is the speed limit here.

Vincent was clear on his aversion to using such data to “tweak consumers to get more money out of them.” Surveys that are explicitly designed to alter the potential consumer’s opinions, or spending habits are unethical, not least because they are at best advertising posing as research.

Other unethical market research techniques (ie. Prohibited by Marketing Industry Standards, and Associations) include:

Applied Research – Research intended to deceive the market, consumer, a government authority, or the client; eg. Paying to have researchers deliver data that says cigarettes are good for you, or that global warming isn’t related to fossil fuels

Push Polling – Surveys designed to pose as empirical research, but actually intended as an elaborate, and subtle smear campaign against a competing product, candidate, or service

SUGGing – “Selling under the guise of research;” essentially pretending to do research, but actually pressuring respondents to purchase a product, or service

FRUGGing – “Fund-raising under the guise of research;” just like it sounds

What is ethical, and desirable is that carefully collected, and analyzed survey data inform the business practices of interested parties. Essentially it’s nothing much different than asking one’s partner what they prefer for dinner, and then making it for them.

The Industry Ethics Standards I adhere to can be viewed here:
http://www.mra-net.org/pdf/expanded_code.pdf

Regards,

Brad

Hey guys,

Take all discussion of this topic to the thread in the Connections forum, please. This thread needs to stop here.

Best, Ron