Research - Questionnaire Results Analysis

So as I said before, here it is. One thing I didn't state in my previous post was that it wasn't just you the viewers whom I wanted to hear answers from. I also distributed 100 copies of the questionnaire among various classes from different year groups at my school.

It seems it was a good thing I did as well. It seems that nobody who views this blog was in the mind to answer the questionnaire. Ideally I was hoping to get an interactive online version, but all of the sites I looked at cost money to put the survey up. I don't know if that would've made any difference in terms of responses from you viewers, but I'm not overly perturbed about it.

In total I have 75 answered questionnaires that I got back from my school to work with. What that means is that the demographic for this survey will be biased towards 12 - 18 year olds, although I also got a couple of teachers to answer it too. It would've been nice to get some more varied responses from you viewers but I'll take what I've got. 75 is a good large number.

The way I'll do this is to show the results for each question in either a pie chart for single answer questions, or bar charts for multi-answer questions to show the percentage of people that put certain answers. I'll also provide a short notation explaining why I did the question and then an analysis underneath.

1. How old are you?

As I said before these results are all from other students at my high school, so this one you can expect to be biased towards 11 - 18 year olds. Any other results will most likely be from teachers.

Like I said, if the chart's anything to go by then it doesn't take much to tell what the majority is. More than half of the answers are from 16 - 20 year olds, whilst a further quarter are from 11 - 15 year olds. Only about an eighth of the chart is left that isn't either one, and that is almost entirely from people higher than 30.

Had I received some more answers from viewers of this blog then maybe this question would have more validity. This question is standard on almost any survey you see, but what it does provide is a basis to reflect on when looking at the other, more relevant questions in the survey.

2. Are you male or female?

Again a pretty standard question. It is interesting however to see the ratio of males to females that have filled out the questionnaire, and also how similar their other answers are. I don't actually know who the vast majority of people who answered this are, as I distributed several copies to various teachers for them to hand out in their lessons.

All I did to manage the results was determine what subjects the students who did the survey were in. Since app games was the topic I distributed them in IT, Media and English classes. Naturally it was wise to expect the majority to be male, and results don't disagree with that; a good 2/3 of the total number are male.

I was pleased however with how many of the students were female. A third of the total number was better than I hoped for considering the subjects, IT and Media in particular, are associated mainly with boys. This means I can also get a valid result across females as well as males, even though males are the  majority.

3. Do you play App Games?

Heading straight in directly with this question. I wanted to see what the percentage of my gathered results had Yes as the answer. Naturally it was common sense to ask straight away whether or not they played before asking any further questions. In the case of if they didn't I simply asked for them to answer as best they could. I was meaning the question more as in if they played on a regular basis, which many people don't, as they may still have played app games every now and again.

This was probably the question I was hoping for the most to be answered Yes, since the more Yes answers there were, the more valid results there would be. I wanted mainly to know the answers of people who did play rather than didn't, or at the very lest not on a regular basis. As such I was hardly disappointed with the amount of Yes answers I got back. The chart makes it rather obvious that Yes was the common answer.

Interestingly a good quantity of the people who had answered No also fell into the over 30 category. Indeed out of the 6 people who answered No, three of them had answered Above 30 for the age question, and another had answered 21 - 25 years. Through there weren't enough adults who answered the survey to make it terribly valid, If nothing else it implies that compared to teenagers, where only two answered No, grown-ups playing app games is a minority, as most of those who were over 30 didn't play app games. So already I know that within the teenage demographic, the vast majority of them do indeed play app games, which I kind of gathered already, but you need stats to give you concrete evidence right?

4. How many hours roughly do you spend a week playing App Games?

I was hoping for honest answers with this question, or close to honest. I was contemplating whether or not to make the question per week or per day, and which would a better option. I chose per week on the feeling that in reality time spent on app games each day would be vastly more varied. There could be days where they weren't played at all and others where playing apps would be all that they did during a day. Having it as per week would make for a more balanced average when deciding on an answer.

My initial expectation was for the results to be balanced within each category. As the chart shows however, it seems that idea wasn't as realistic an expectation as I thought. What surprised me mainly was how many answers were put in the two choices for the lowest times. Below one hour and 1 - 4 hours each make up for about 2/5 of the total, leaving only about 1/5 of the other results spread out over the other longer time answers.

The results imply that even over the span of a week the average total time spent playing app games only accumulates to 4 hours at maximum. There are of course some exceptions where some play for longer than that, or quite a bit longer, but the clear average is around 1 hour. Considering these were teenagers that I was getting results from, who are commonly associated with spending a large amount of time on their mobile devices, the time they spent playing games on them was, to me at least, surprisingly low. The implication is that app games generally aren't as immersive as console games, by the time spent on them. It could also mean that the games don't have that much content, or at the very least varied content that makes people want to play to find it. It may also be the structure of the games. Many of them don't have stories and their gameplay is commonly a large amount of the same thing. At any case it isn't deemed important enough to consume a lot of the player's time.

5. What sort of smartphone/tablet do you play your games on?

This one was put on to determine what the favourite mobile device was for playing app games on. It's significance also played towards the software I'd be using to make the game, and what platform I would primarily have in mind when making the game.

My original plan was for it to be a single answer question, since I didn't think people would play them on multiple platforms but the people who answered fought differently, and the question became multi-answer instead. As such the results were shown as individual percentages rather than total results. As I may have said before I don't own a smartphone, nor do I have enough knowledge about smartphones to know all of the popular brands. I took an educated guess out of the smartphone varieties that I was aware of for the different choices on this question, hence the Other option. Through people answering the Other option the brands Sony, HTC, Nexus and Kindle were also brought up as well, though they take a minority spot.

I can't say I was surprised at the results I got back. By a good 30% margin above the next highest answer, Ipod/Iphone got the highest percentage of ticks, and was the only one that was a majority answer above 50%. The second highest was also an apple product - Ipad. Considering that downloadable applications was an idea that originated from the Ipod, it's not surprising that apple and iOS dominate the majority on this chart. App games and Apple products pretty much go hand in hand, although other platforms incorporate them as well. Blackberry and Nokia, though not very popular, both got responses.Samsung was ticked on almost 20% of the responses, only about 10% below Ipad, so app games aren't singularly played on Apple products, but Apple products are what the vast majority are using to download and play app games on.

6. How many app games have you downloaded approximately?

This question wasn't quite as important as some of the others. Whilst it is useful to know the average amount of games that people have, I was using more as a means to introduce the next few questions. Additionally there was the possibility that it could provide insight into how many different kinds of app games people generally play. If it was a large amount then how long were they devoting to each one, and also if there was any correlation between those that had bought a lot of app games and those that played them a lot.

This chart as you can see is a bit more varied. Yes there are still majorities, but compared to the other graphs the minorities are quite a bit larger. The biggest section 5 - 8 games takes up a bit less than 1/3 of the total results and can be seen as the majority for this chart, though there is only a small difference between this and people that have bought more than 15 games. As a combined total the results for those that have between 1 - 8 games take up a good half of the results though this is largely made up of the 5-8 games section.

Coincidentally a good proportion of those that had answered more than 12 hours for question 4 had also answered either 12 - 15 games or more than 15 games for this one. There were some exceptions. Some that had answered the same thing only had between 1 and 4 games, implying that some of them may devote a lot of time to single games whilst other ay spread it across multiple. The majority that had put either 5 - 8 hours or 9 - 12 hours also had answered that they'd bought at least 9 - 12 games, if not more. That considered these didn't by any means cover all of the results in the higher choices. There were several that had downloaded a lot of games that didn't spend a large amount of time on them, which implies that people may buy games, play them and perhaps grow tired of them and look for different games. All of these are valid ideas, and among the people that have answered these there's probably at least one example of each.

7. What was it that compelled you to buy/download the games that you have?

Finally getting to the knitty-gritty with this question. All of the choices for answers that I put on this question were based on my prior experience and knowledge of how people might come across and buy app games. I wanted to see how well the the choices that I had put down fit with the actual reasons why people buy app games. I put the None of the Above option as well to cover my tracks in case I hadn't covered anything, which I was fairly confident that I had. Even so there are always a few exceptions. As before with Question 5 each one is put as a percentage.

Looking at the results it seems I was almost dead on with the choices I put down. Through closer look into my results I also found that the ones who'd put None of the above were all people who'd also put that they didn't play app games anyway. As for the other results the most popular one becomes readily apparent. 70% is the large majority of the total, and people putting down that they bought a game because it was free was picked the most by more than 20% of the other choices. I myself fall victim to the second most popular - Seeing someone else play it. Since I don't own a smartphone, looking over other people's shoulders at the games they're playing is the primary way in which I end up playing the games myself. It seems that was the case with almost half of the people who answered for at least one of their games too.

One thing I do need to think about when I make my game is how it will be priced. Through looking at the percentage of people who put It was free, my choice on pricing is now fairly set. Besides I can understand the logic behind it. The others play into how I can advertise the game. By popularity among the results, the top two were people seeing it being played by someone else, or by looking at popular apps on the app store itself. Word of mouth also seems popular. When it comes to advertising the game, it seems that app games rely a lot on the games being passed around by social interaction rather than the internet. By pricing a game as free they can maximise the amount of people that may download it, which alongside letting socialising do the advertising can cause their popularity to increase, leading more people to buy it still.

8. Are any of the games listed below ones that you have on your phone, or have at least heard about?

I will not lie here. This was a question where I was being a little biased with the choices. My intention was to see whether or not the games that I myself had interest in, some of which I've reviewed were popular among other people too. I
was basing my choices off of what what I'd seen being played, what was being played the most, and the general conversation and hype on the media about certain app games. I deemed them all as well known and popular, but as I said I wanted to double check that I was looking at the right material to get my answers and inspiration for making a commercially successful game.

Because of the way I structured the question, I made two graphs rather than one - one for those that had bought the games (top graph), another for those that either bought or heard about them (bottom graph). I was hoping to see if there was much of a difference. Whichever ones scored highest would also help decide on which games to analyse or 'review'.

Quite the turnout on this question with every single game. With the exception of Jetpack Joyride, all of the games claimed a majority of the results by more than 50%, whilst overall all of them achieved a majority over 50%. It's worth noting that at the time of making this post I'd already done analysis for Angry Birds, which overall got the highest percentage at just over 80% and has been around for a while, and Candy Crush Saga, which is more recent but is gaining popularity very fast, which received close to 70% of the answers. In between those two Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja both received a little above 70%, whilst Temple Run came very close to Angry Birds in the overall chart, being only 1% lower and actually came equal in percentage to Angry Birds in terms of purchasing. From this I can safely place my choice on Temple Run being the next game I analyse. If I have time I may also do one of either Doodle Jump or Fruit Ninja, but that's if I have the time. What is also worth noting is that whilst the four that scored below Angry Birds and Temple Run are only single games, Temple Run currently has two games whilst Angry Birds has become a fully fletched franchise with merchandising and multiple games to its name. Therefore it's not entirely surprising that they would have the highest scores.

9. If a game wasn't free to download how much would you be willing to pay for it?

Again another question to get the gist of the price I could put on to maximise sales, would I be selling this in real life, which I'm approaching as if I am. It also ties into question 7. I wanted to cover tracks and get some idea of what/whether people would pay for a game if it did require payment to download. Though I've never bought an app game I know enough to know that they tend not to cost much more than £5 at maximum, and that in the very rarest of occasions. Obviously the option of I wouldn't buy it is again to cover tracks because there will always be people that will only go for things that are free, especially if they only deem it as something to pass the time.

The results this time very much followed the same pattern that the other charts followed. Clear majorities of results with individual answers whilst the others fit into minority choices. In this case the majority was split with an equal amount of results for the two highest scoring answers - I wouldn't buy it, and 50p - £1. To be fully specific about the totals, both received 27 responses, which out of 75 is a bit over 1/3 of the total. This also means that the other four choices, even combined don't even amass to 1/3 of the total.

I was pleased at least that even though I wouldn't buy it received the joint most, it didn't amass to a majority of all of the combined votes. It seems that 50p to £1 was the most popular out of the others, whilst either side of it there were more results amassed to £1 - £3 than there were for Below 50p. Some feedback I did get from people that had answered the questionnaire said that it would depend on what the game was that would determine how much they would spend. If the results are what I'm going by, and considering the answers for question 7, it seems that it would be wise business wise to either make the game free or charge very little for it. Having as many as 1/3 answer that they wouldn't buy isn't a good number at all for sales. As such I'm more likely to make the game free to download. That doesn't mean money can't be made from it however, but we'll get to that later on.

10. What genre of app games do you generally prefer to play?

This one was also rather self explanatory. Important as well. I knew that were a lot of different app game genres out there, but I couldn't say I was entirely sure on which ones were the the most popular. Although I was fairly sure about which genre I wanted my game to be, I wanted some valid feedback to see if I was making the right choice before declaring it official.

I tried covering all of the different genres I could think of that app games fell into. I was confident I'd covered all of the bases but as usual the Other option was there. I was looking for which genres managed to achieve a majority above 50% to help me determine the genre of my game. It seems from the results that it was made rather easy for me. Puzzle was the clear winner, and the only one to amass more than 50% of the votes. Sport and Motorsport came in second, about 10% lower than puzzle at just above 40%, with Action and Survival coming third and fourth between 30% and 40%.

I was intending to go with puzzle as my genre anyway, but these results managed to concrete that decision as a wise one. I myself also found the most enjoyment from playing puzzle based app games and it was a puzzle based game that made me want to make an app game myself. Now I'm not an huge expert at genre merging but I know enough to know that Puzzle and Sport/Motorsport aren't put together, and if they are they certainly haven't been heard of. The two just don't mix. I could imagine a puzzle game having elements of action and survival however, and I may end up implementing either of them or both into the game.

11. If in-game content/updates were available in an app game would be willing to pay money to obtain them?

This is where we come back to the point I made in Question 9. It's also where a lot of the cleverer companies make their money from. Often times a game will be free to download, enabling you to play it and get into it, and then after you've gotten a good way through it you'll discover that more features are available to enhance the game or help you progress through tricky levels that you can't quite complete, however they may cost money to obtain. What I'm interested in with this is how many people actually go ahead and decide to purchase this content.

With this question I did choose to include the option of It would depend on what it was, where I didn't before with Question 9, since content can vary immensely, and the appeal of it may be very strong or insignificant. It seems from the results that I made the right choice in doing so, as it gained a bit more than 1/3 of the votes. Despite that however, No still won through on the question, being answered on more than half of the results, and while Yes did amass a few votes it still remained the clear minority.

What does this imply. Probably that people are smart. The strategy of buyable in-game content is used in almost every popular app game, and most consumers are aware that even if something doesn't cost much, it can be extremely effective at getting profit if it's bought multiple times. Considering how many  people put It would depend on what it was however implies that there may be some content that they're willing to buy, even though they may be against buying it otherwise. If this is anything to go by it means that in order for in-game content to sell it has to have enough appeal and use to make people want to use it. It's quite a skill for app game developers to have, and it seems not many can pull it off.

12. How much money would you be willing to pay to obtain the update/extra content?

A follow-up question to 11, this was to figure out the amount that the people that were buying the content were spending. What it would be aside, if I was to incorporate in-game purchases into the game I would need to know what sort of price to put them at, to generate enough profit from it but not be enough to put people off.

As such I put together this question, using the same prices I used for Question 9, but this time leaving out the the option of I wouldn't buy it, and as such only took the results that answered either Yes or It would depend on what it was from question 11. In total this chart had 34 answers going into it. Slightly less than 1/2 of the original total. Like with Question 11, there was a clear majority straight away. 50p - £1 took more than half of the results, claiming the majority, whilst a bit more than 1/4 voted for Below 50p. Interestingly, whilst £1 - £3 had a few votes, the other two had not one vote given to them.

I myself don't know what the average price is on in-game content, but in the games that I've played it averages at around 70p - 80p. Then again there may be games that charge lower amounts, and similarly ones that charge more. It seems however that between 50p - £1 is the price that people are used to, and is what they are prepared to pay to get a hold of the content. I personally haven't thought hard enough to decide on in-game content, although knowing the price is useful if would so choose to do so. Since I'm not currently making the game commercial I most likely wouldn't spend time thinking about it, but it may be worth contemplating at a later date when I have the framework for the game's set up sorted.

13. What is it about app games that makes you want to play them?

This was the only question on the questionnaire that required a written answer. I did this because I wanted personally to hear the reasons why people played app games, whatever that reason may be. I didn't want this question to be structured with set answers that people just ticked if it was mildly accurate. People have all manner of different reasons for doing what they do. What my plan was was to  look at each one, group any similar answers and see how many different answers had been given, as well as how many fell into each. This was the tedious part of the questionnaire, but it would provide the most truthful answers.

As I trawled through the papers I was doing what I said - grouping the papers into answers or creating new categories if they were different answers. What became clear as I went further along was that the answers were all very similar to each other. Different wording but certain keywords kept coming up on the answers. Often times I found questions where multiple reasons had been put in, but they all still fitted with the pattern. By the time I got through them all I'd grouped the reasons into 10 different categories:

- Passing the time, particularly on car journeys or waiting in queues,
- Relieving boredom,
- They were fun to play,
- They were addictive,
- They were challenging and gave a sense of achievement,
- They were quick and easy to play and put down again,
- They provided entertainment,
- They looked good, either aesthetically or graphically
- They provided the chance to compete with others and get high scores
- They were recommended the game through one of the answers on Question 7

One person also stated that there was no point in even owning a smartphone or Ipad if you weren't going to use it to play games.

Everyone that answered the question had an answer or multiple answers that fit into one of those 10 groups. Some got more answers than others, but passing the time and boredom relief got more results than the others, which all gathered around the same amount.

These it seems these are the criteria I need to fill to make my app game successful. It needs to look good, it needs to be fun and but also challenging, whilst not being tedious, it needs to provide a form of competition, and it needs to be simple enough to play quickly and easily. The real challenge however is what I said before at the start of my work, making the game addictive. It'll definitely be something I look into as part of the research later down the line, but this information has been ideal for helping me decide on the direction I want my game to go in.

So with that, that's every question analysed and looked into. Big thank you to all of the people who took the time to answer the questionnaire. The results have helped me big time with the project and I'll make sure to put them to use. There will be another piece of primary research for audiences that I do, which will be coming up as my next post. Look forward to that and until then thanks for viewing the blog.