Sometimes it just all becomes too much and you feel like you’re drowning. That was me this past Monday and that was the Executive Producer that I am working with on The Solar Games day today. When trying to get a new project off the ground everything needs to be done and there is never enough time or resources to go around. Research is just a part of the work that needs to be done and if you don’t understand the value of the research then it becomes hard to put it on the list of things to be done.
The Solar Games it is a start up company so for the most part we are working from the ground up. One of the challenges that we face right now is determining the value of the company before a game is actually made. One of the big questions that we have (as well as some potential backers that are looking at this project) is market size and expected revenue. To add to the challenge of finding answers to these two questions, we have to also consider the impact side of this project and how that will affect in-game purchases for this game.
For research into market size and expected revenue we will be looking at secondary research and using data already available. The big time consuming part of this is collecting the data from various sources examining it and turning it into something usable. For this research I feel we need to use both Qualitative and Quantitative research. For data on market size we will want to look at a large and random sample to get an idea of the size and that is Quantitative research. Quantitative research can also be used to look at what the average spend for game users in current games is. However to get an understanding of how the social impact of the game will affect revenue we are going to want to look at open-ended responses, interview and observation to identify patterns and trends is Qualitative research. To research more into the effects of the social impact of the game and how it will affect in-game purchase I think we are going to need to delve into the field or primary research. I am thinking about using a survey of gamers that are into “Games for Change” type games might be a good way to conduct that research.
Some of the Questions we are going to need to consider are those that fall under Qualitative research:
– Number and demographics of mobile and console game players?
– Percentage of game players that spend money in-game for freemium style games?
– What types of game elements are being purchased in-game?
– Growth of mobile and console device sales?
There is a lot to cover here so any thoughts are more than welcome.