Game Research - The art, business, and science of video games

Date posted: May 11, 2006
Updated: Nov 15, 2006

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This article describes the basic results from our survey on online gaming habits. We are currently planning a report that will go into greater detail with some of the most interesting findings and explore the consequences for the business, arts and design of online gaming. These results will be complemented by other surveys. The report will be the first publications from this site and will try to live up to our mission: to bring together the art, science and business of computer games.

Methodology
The survey was conducted online at www.game-research.com and was hosted by the web bureau Framfab. A total of 680 online gamers took the survey within a period of two months. We would like to thank these gamers for taking the time to fill out the survey.

In this period the survey was advertised on the largest game sites and on sites dedicated to one specific online game (on message boards, community and link sections). We made an attempt to include as many both and international sites as possible to get the full picture.

One may expect that experienced online gamers will be more inclined to take such a survey than newcomers. Thus the numbers may be higher than if we had access to all online gamers.

This weakness will always be present when respondents are not somehow ‘forced’ to fill out the questionnaire (for example as a school assignment). The most interested and experienced in a certain area are more inclined to spend time doing on survey about it.

Basic findings
Who is the average online gamer? According to our findings the average age of the online gamer is 23 years and 95% of the online gamers are between 15-31 years. It’s hard to find girls among the online gamers. Even though we made a special effort to attract girls through portals specifically aimed at female gamers, they didn’t show up at the survey site (for a comment, see the column What Women Want). The respondents are mostly male (95%).

Although the data for gender analysis are weak, the initial analysis shows that there are gender differences for online gamers.

One of the conclusions must be that online gaming is not for newcomers. The numbers below clearly show that online gaming is not for the inexperienced gamer and Internet user.

* 75% of online gamers have played from 1-5 years online.
* 96% have been on the net for more than a year.
* Only just under 10% have played less that a year.
* 64 % have 256 kbps connections and above
* 75% have bought articles online within the last 6 months
* 95% have a computer that is less than 3 years old.

Preferences
What do they play? Action games are the most popular and within this genre the most popular game is Counter-Strike followed by Quake. However, the dominance of Counter-Strike is not complete. Pople do play other games.

The majority of players are conservative when it comes to paying. Despite different payment options for playing, the time-honed concept of buying the game in a store is by far the most popular.

Social issues
One often-heard proclamations concerning online gaming is that that the players create some sort of social community. As we see below it is not that simple. Most play at home but at the same time they say they usually are physically together with someone when they play.

The majority play both alone and with others physically located in the same place - 91% state that they play from their home and 41% are physically alone when playing. Interestingly the gamers both play against real-life friends, random acquaintances and friends from the net. What is perhaps even more intriguing and in line with the hypotheses that gaming is a social community/phenomenon is that almost 50% have met friends in real life that they first encountered online. For women this figure is as high as 80%.

Playing time
Much has been said of the all-consuming nature of online gaming and much more will be said. Our survey seems to suggest that it is indeed a time-consuming activity while for some it is life itself.

* 54% play from 0-12 hours online
* 6 % play more than 30 hours a week
* 90% state that they play too much online
* 33% usually play too much or always too much.

This is further supported by the fact that online gamers play considerably longer online than offline measured both in total playing time and hours in a row. It seems that online games are even more engaging and fascinating than traditional computer games.
The attractions are legion and it seems that there is something for everybody. The first two attractions are by far the most popular while the last three follow somewhat behind.

The attractions ranked:
1. It’s an entirely different universe than offline
2. I can play with my friends
3. The game is continuously developed and improved
4. I can meet others and talk about the game
5. I can always play with qualified players

Some didn’t seem inclined to ponder the issue and merely stated: “It’s fun, you doofus”. Another respondent replied: “I can destroy opponents on a daily basis”

As the tabels below shows the players have played for quite some time and continue to spend a large amount of time playing online.

How many years have you played computer games online?

TABLES MISSING

However, there is trouble in paradise. The players pay a large amount of money each month and they are experiencing great distress in several areas.

* 66% found that there were too many cheaters
* 65% found that there was too much lag
* 33% found that team play is not developed enough
* 25% thought that the unbalance in the game is a problem
* 22% found there were too many bad players

This problem is the most complex part to analyse, as it seems to vary across game genres and people have very different opinions. Furthermore, people were very eager to supply other problems like player killers, level chasers, too few servers, immature players etc, which shows that there are indeed major problems with playing online.

One of the most common, almost defeatist, statements where that there simply were “Too many immature idiots” and “Whiners”, who wrecked the game for others.

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