Quantitative research is where closed questions are asked to a large amount of people with quite specific answers that are then totaled up to create numerical data. They usually cover the 'what, where, who and whens' questions. This is used to gather this most amount of research data and usually has a large quantity of questions. This method mainly uses questionnaires and surveys to find data, and questions asked usually have choice box questions which can be useful to gather opinions on he matter. For example, choices could range from 'Very good' to 'Very bad' which enables the researchers to get stronger data. On these surveys, there are usually lots of choice box questions and could even use scales out of 10 if necessary. Video game-wise, quantitative research is mostly used to get statistics such as what genres of games people play or to find out which audience would be most interested. An example question would be " Do you prefer Action, adventure, FPS or RPG?". This question would be asked to a large amount of people and then the results would be turned into statistics and look like (for example) Action=10%, Adventure=20%, FPS=20% and RPG=50%. From this we could gather that the majority of people prefer RPGs to the other genres. A lot more questions similar to this one would be asked too so a bunch of statistics could be created.
Here is an example of Quantitative research:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2008/09/16/teens-video-games-and-civics/
Example: "Fully 97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games."
Example 2:
Example 3:
Here are two very good examples of data which have been gathered and turned into statistical data:
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2. Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is research that has been gathered specifically to a high degree of quality ensuring questions asked are the most useful. This usually covers the 'whys' by getting detailed responses. This research prefers quality to quantity, and can usually have a low quantity of data. This research is largely led with a discussion around ideas or concepts with open questions. This means that those asked can provide detailed opinions, new possible ideas and descriptive information which could prove very useful to the company. Video game-wise, qualitative research would be used to find out reviews of the game for example or opinions for different parts of the game. An example question would be "Do you like Pokemon or Zelda more and why?" as this sets up a large open question in which the respondent could easily state their favourite and give us ideas on what makes these games good and bad.
Here is an example of somebodies qualitative research on what they think about the game Mine-craft as well as useful comments which also portray many different peoples views on various aspects of the game:
http://kerileebeasley.com/2012/02/16/massively-misunderstood-minecraft/
Here is an example of a focus run which was created by Atari many years ago:
This type of research helps as we are able to understand the public's opinion and fully understand what is good and bad about our game.
Audience Profiling
Audience profiling is gathering a profile of your audience beforehand so that the final product can be the most effective and what the audience actually want. For example, you could gather a bunch of people and ask them how many people play games. With this, you would either get a yes or no answer, and could split the audience into two groups - those who play games and those who don't. This method is mainly used to separate groups such as age, gender, qualifications, moods, interests and similar groups. From the results gathered, you can then select your target audience and gather even more information from them. For example, if you ask 100 people if they play games and get the results Yes=87% and No=13%, you would then let the 13% that said 'No' go home as you only need to ask people who play games. You can then ask more questions and whittle down the audience to get specifically the group you want and this group could be useful to find out what they want from the game you are making. Below is a good graph demonstrating this.
There are two types of audience profiling. Demographic and Physchographics. Demographics profiling whittles the audience down into usually six groups which represent various statuses based on the amount of income you get. We can use the information gathered to distinguish which category the person falls into.
Physchographics is a way of defining an audience based on their behavior or personality. Questions or studies can help determine the personality of an individual, so they can be placed within the right category. A group called Young and Rubicam invented a good physchographic table in which could determine what kind of person you are. It can be seen below and is used widely for its purpose.
Here is and example of Audience profiling in the games industry:
http://iabblog.brandrepublic.com/2011/09/26/10-uk-video-game-audience-stats/
http://www.bl.uk/bipc/resmark/qualquantresearch/qualquantresearch.html
Geodemographics
There is also another technique to use with research. Geodemographics. This technique chops up countries, states,cities etc. and splits them up into sections depending on what is needed to be known. For example, if you wanted to find out where in the UK people play video games the most, you could take your research and create a geodemographic map in which will display the UK in segments. Each segment will have a specific colour depending on how many people play video games in that area and from there, you can establish whether there are any hot spots on intense areas where people play game whilst also being able to see if there are any areas that do not play games as much as others.
Example:
Above is an example of a geodemographic map which displays areas in the UK that donate to charities the most. The redder the area, the more people spend, so from this we can see that a lot of people around Manchester, Birmingham and London donate quite a lot of money, whereas in areas such as Scotland, we can see a pale yellow colour which means they do not donate as much.
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