Project Massive's Latest Findings

The ongoing study into the habits of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, Project Massive, has released their latest findings. Next Generation has a breakdown on what the numbers mean with help from the researchers. As always, they have some interesting things to say. From the article: "Saying that developers who are operating a monthly (and not hourly) subscription service have a financial interest in compelling people to spend 40-80 hours a week playing their game ignores the market realities of bandwidth, customer service, and content creation. I had the tools at my disposal to shed some light on this issue and the fact that I have no corporate backing or economic interest in the outcome puts me in a good position to tell the truths that the data reveal." If you're a MMOG player, you can participate in the latest wave of questions.

Comments

Methinks their survey software need work

[david.given]

How long have you played None?
How good of a game is None overall?

Hmm.

Plus, a lot of the questions are badly worded. For example, one question is:

• How many of your online friends have you met through gaming?

The options are:

• I have no online friends
• 10%
• 20%
• etc

Well, I have online friends, but I didn't meet any of them through gaming; I met them via BBSes and MUDs. This means I'd want to select 0%, but there isn't an option --- I have no online friends simply isn't true.

Plus, there are occasional questions like How many hours do you spend attending to work/school/life responsibilities in the average week? What the hell does that mean? In one sense the answer is All of it, but I think it's actually trying to ask how much time I have that isn't what I consider to be free time. It could be much better worded.

A lot of the questions are like that, and some are worse, and I've had to leave a lot of the entries blank. This doesn't give a lot of confidence in their results...

Agree, and survey has preconceived notions too

[Morgaine]

Your example is spot on. There are many places in the survey where their coverage of alternatives is threadbare, and simply doesn't cover existing gaming options.

For example, Guild Wars fans will find the wording about team vs solo play at odds with how their game works, because the solo player can create teams not only with other human players but also with up to 7 "henchmen", so you're "teamed but solo". And the henchmen AI is quite often superior to the natural intelligence shown by humans, so it is extremely common in GW to choose to team with henchies by preference over human players.

Also, the wording in the survey suggests that they have preconceived notions of good and bad with respect to gamers. For example, "escaping from the real world" is inherently an aspersion against gamers, as are the many questions about "trying to cut down", etc. None of their questions pose gaming as a passtime along with other leisure activities which don't get negative fingers pointed at them. It seems that the "researchers" actually have a hidden agenda here.

And finally, there is almost nothing in the survey about challange and tactics! I find this quite incredible, since "good gameplay" is generally regarded as being all about challange and tactics. They like to focus on negative issues, and avoid all the positive ones. Very poor indeed.

It's a pretty wierd survey, and in my opinion, it's slanted to play into the hands of sociologists with axes to grind. It's also crystal clear that it was not put together with much input from gamers, since it addresses almost none of the issues typically regarded as important in gaming.

Try again folks. And tell the sociologists in the team to put away their PC agendas, and hire some gamers. And find out about Guild Wars to understand the solo/team issue ... currently GW isn't even in your games list. :-)