Unit 3: Task 1

Research Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

Carrying Out a Research Project - Researching the Development of a 2D and/or 3D Game

In this article, I will explain with multiple examples the purposes of different types of research and their separate uses within the creative media industry.

Types of Research:

Quantitative research - This type of research is research that always provides numerical data to explain certain things. Any quantitative research is analyzed using mathematical and statistical methods. Some examples of research that can generate quantitative data may include surveys or questionnaires (especially those that utilize closed questions), observations and secondary data. This type of data can also be used to construct things like graphs and tables of raw data.
(https://www.simplypsychology.org/qualitative-quantitative.html)

An example of this could be the number of signatures displayed in numerical form after people have signed a petition.


In this image, there are two instances of quantitative data - the number of results being displayed (157) and the number of people who have signed the petition to 'Adapt gambling laws to include gambling in video games which targets children'. (16,972)

An example of a game that may have utilized quantitative research is Tomb Raider. It may have been important for the developers of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to look at statistical data around games and gender such as what percentage of gamers are female ( this is 41% according to https://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/2017-video-game-trends-and-statistics-whos-playing-what-and-why/).
This is an image from the Shadow of the Tomb Raider launch trailer:


They may have also had to research into what percentage of people are feminists which may have encouraged the idea of a strong-minded and admirable young woman such as Lara Croft herself (Data which was published by Ipsos states that 41% of female respondents in Great Britan agreed that they are feminists, whilst 32% of male respondents agreed.)
I got this statistical data from:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/816438/respondents-who-agree-that-they-are-a-feminist-uk/

Qualitative research - This type of research is empirical and its data is presented verbally rather than numerically. The aim of this type of research is to gain a deeper understanding of the social reality of individuals, groups, and cultures. Some ways in which qualitative data can be obtained includes interviews and questionnaires that use open questions and direct observations. (https://www.simplypsychology.org/qualitative-quantitative.html)

For example, within this interview with Ken Levine, the recording of what he says about the formation of the Bioshock game serves as a form of qualitative data as it is a verbal recording:

Methods and Sources of Research:

Primary research - Primary research, also known as field research, means any research that hasn't been gathered before and can be carried out to answer questions or specific issues. Some forms of primary research include consumer trials and questionnaires. A consumer trial is a temporary offering that allows consumers to examine, use or test products fully.

I used the website I have linked here in order to aid me with my definition of consumer research. (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/product-trial.html)
This type of primary research may be considered significant as it allows those companies to gather information on their product and make improvements to it before it is released. For example, the online video game Fallout 76 used primary research by releasing a BETA version of their game that was available for download. Through hosting this BETA, they were able to quickly come across any issues within the game and fix them before launching it.

This image shows the times that the Fallout 76 BETA was open and available to play before the launch of the game:



The BETA acted as a primary form of research for the developers of Fallout 76 into how it would run and what issues may arise during gameplay as well as giving them an idea of how many people would be interested in playing the full game as it was open to the public.

This link provided me with a short definition and some important examples of primary research:
(https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zd4kq6f/revision/3)


Secondary research - On the other hand, secondary research is research that involves gathering pieces of existing data that has already been produced. This is also known as desk research and can be found in forms such as Newspaper articles or the internet.   I used this link to provide me with some more information on secondary research to develop my definition of the term: (https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zd4kq6f/revision/3)

This type of research can be considered useful as it may save researchers a lot of time as they don't have to go out and collect the data themselves. This means they may have more time available to compare different pieces of data. This type of research may also be useful for companies/ developers as they may use it to gain further insight into things they wish to produce in the future. For example, if in a game they wish to use different materials (e.g different ores) rather than going out to do primary research to learn about the properties of these materials, they may do some secondary research through the internet or articles to find out about their properties.

An example of a game that may have used for secondary research is Minecraft:



Within this game, you can go mining for different materials and ores such as stone, iron, gold, and Redstone. The developers of Minecraft may have had to do secondary research into where these ores are most commonly found and what their different properties are in order to implement them into the game properly.

Purposes of Research:

Audience Research - This is when you do research around your target audience and it provides you with information such as the demographics of your audience and their attitudes toward certain things. I sourced information for my definition of audience research by combining information from these two sources:  (https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z3k9nbk/revision/2) & (https://www.health.org.uk/sites/default/files/Simple-audience-research.pdf)

This type of research is useful because it allows companies to attract their target audiences to the products and further allows companies to tailor their products to the needs of that particular audience which then will encourage audiences to engage more with their products and increase the popularity of that product to others.



For example, this is an image from the game Fortnite which is an online video game that is extremely popular among young people. Within the development of Fortnite, developers may have had to engage in audience research by looking into what young people are interested in. This may have included simple things such as what colours are most attractive to young people or what do young people find entertaining. This may have drawn answers from younger audiences that may have entailed things like very bright colour and that they like things that are trending like different dance moves. This can be seen in practice throughout the game as within Fortnite you can buy different dance moves and emotes that are very popular currently - in fact, Fortnite is facing lawsuits currently for some of these dances for using them within the game without permission from the owners.

This video shows some of the Fornite dances/emotes as a side-by-side comparison of them being performed in real life:

Market Research - Market research consists of systematically gathering data about a market - which is composed of people and companies - and this data is then analyzed to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and preferences.
I got some information for this definition from this website: (https://www.shopify.com/encyclopedia/market-research)

This type of research can be considered as very useful as similarly to audience research, it allows companies to tailor their products to the needs of their market which can then lead to an increase in their market so they have more people to display such products to (a larger market) which may lead to increased profit and popularity of their products.

For example, the hypertext game Queers in Love at the End of the World may be considered as a game that utilizes market research.  This game's name may be used to target people who identify as 'queer' or within the LGBTQ+ community as their main market. This may be due to the rising acceptance within society of people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community and a way for the game developer Anna Anthropy to embrace her own sexuality through the gameplay experience. For this, it may have been important for her to do some market research into diversity within games and how often people within the LGBTQ+ community and all the different sexual orientations feel they are represented in games (only 16% believe they are represented according to a Neilsen study) and how many members of the LGBTQ+ community are also gamers to see if this type of game would appeal to them.
 I sourced information about diversity in video games from this website: https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/how-diverse-are-video-gamers-and-the-characters-they-play.html
I also learnt a bit about the game and the developer Anna Anthropy from this website: https://rhizome.org/art/artbase/artwork/queers-in-love-at-the-end-of-the-world/

An image from the game Queers in Love at the End of the World:



Production Research - This type of research focuses on how a product is made and provides important information on the characteristics of the product.
I got information for my definition of production research from this website:
 (https://www.slideshare.net/marleylong/audience-27055236)

Production research is very useful as it, alike market and audience research, allows companies to tailor their product to the needs of those on the receiving end. In particular, production research allows companies to work on the characteristics of their own products by observing the characteristics of other productions and seeing how people respond to them in order to determine what features of certain products are most important so they can discard other features that may not bring any positive attention/benefits to their products.

For example, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege may be a game that has partaken in production research.

This is a screenshot from a players perspective within the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege game in online multiplayer:


Within this game, there is no campaign available and the game focuses mainly on playing online against others or as a team online against Artificial Intelligence. When making the decision to omit a campaign from this game, developers may have found it significant to engage with production research to get a grasp of how many gamers actually were interested in the game campaigns and how often people actually completed the campaign. For this, they may have looked at AAA games such as the Call of Duty 3 game in which only 25.67% of players finished the campaign which shows how rarely people focus on this aspect of games.
I sourced this statistic from this website: https://www.trueachievements.com/n32450/exclusive-stats-show-how-rarely-game-campaigns-are-played

Overall, throughout this piece of research I have learnt about many different research techniques, how they can be applied, why they are useful and their role within the creative media industry. This has provided me with a strong insight into how significant it is to engage with different research methods and how they can help to improve the quality of work that is produced within any industry and make the characteristics of productions more appealing to different audiences & markets - which therefore leads to more successful productions being created by companies and developers.


Zalika English