What is audience research and how can it provide value for customers?
There are instances where a creative may think they have devised the next best product but without carrying out market research they cannot be sure that it will be well-received by potential customers. It could belong to either niche or oversaturated markets and because of this the product will more than likely fail to capture any essence of significance amongst audiences. Prioritising quality of a product is a given and incentivises audiences to interact with products in any way, shape, or form. If there is an evident lack of craftmanship, then having users embrace your product will be a difficult feat to achieve. However, audience perception and knowing what is best for the customer is the most vital element of any product’s achievement: how we acquire and review the many varieties of crucial information and data through market and audience research methods, and whether it is understood properly and implemented effectively could ultimately result in either a successful or unsuccessful product.
Types of Audience Research
When ideating and prototyping a new product, it is beneficial for the game developers and designers involved to know their target audience by thoroughly assessing their own projects as the designer might understand a feature of the product differently to that of their intended users. It is essential to have properly coordinated and effective methods to obtain a true understanding of how individuals differentiate.
There are two approaches that go hand-in-hand when obtaining such valuable information to be acted on:
Qualitative methods
As the name suggests, this relates to obtaining information or data that could help a product garner superiority over others of the same market by ensuring uniqueness and thus generating greater audience appeal. This could entail:
· Researcher’s self-reflections, what we are doing at this moment in time: our critical reflective journal.
· Interviews, in which the main focus’ are the interviewee’s interests or hobbies, etc. and usually consists of either structured or semi-structured questions.
· Cognitive walkthrough, in which the user is examined as they experience playing a game or utilising an app. In the case of assisting game developers and designers, this is essentially a player commentating constantly on their own playthrough as they progress through a level for example. Researchers would often observe participants whilst play testing and would query the users on the what and whys of certain decisions to get a better understanding of their in-game interests and choices and incorporate these into the product in the development stage.
· Group interviews, which do not differ too much from the usual interviews other than the fact that the interviewer is leading a group discussion. This could be for instigative purposes; one answer of one interviewee might influence another interviewee to answer in a certain way, i.e., being in support of an answer, or making a point against the answer.
· Focus groups, in which a group discusses their thoughts surrounding a product or idea. This is commonly used for designers also at the very early stages of ideating before these ideas are passed on to potential users for scrutiny.
· Journal logs, in which contributors are asked to log how they use a prototype of a game or app on a regular basis. There are often a set of questions to be answered by the user at the end of every period, whether it is daily, weekly, etc.
Quantitative methods
When performing such methods, the researcher is wanting figures for statistical analysis, this comprises of:
· Questionnaires
· Physiological measurements, in which the user’s attention span is measured through Very Low Voltage Electric Brainway Activity, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), and/ or Sweat Secretion.
· Technology logs, in which the user’s usage of the game is monitored, for example, when it is turned on or off, the amount of time it was played for and which inputs were pressed, etc.
· Observations. Now, this differs from the observation method for obtaining qualitative data as the questions that the researcher asks will be based around when, how long, and how often participants do something.
· Physio-psychological testing. This correlates with the five senses, for example, the user being able to identify the differences between screen resolutions, or for sound, being able to hear dialogue over the soundtrack and/ or sound effects.
Mixed Methods
Using a blend of both of these types of research, stakeholders will understand their audience of which they are able to define their intended conventional consumers, help with establishing identities, and assists with developing online communities.
Market/ audience research in practice
In the past in the pre-production phases of my films, I performed very basic market research to determine the target audience(s) and this consisted of solely basic primary and secondary research but nothing as extensive as what is mentioned here. The primary research that was carried out was mainly surveys that were posted on social media, and I practiced focus groups a couple times to help me decide on which ideas to carry on pursuing at that moment in time. The secondary research consisted of information that was available online such as favourite genres of films in 2017, etc. Market research was performed somewhat but no where near to its full potential, and audience research was was not utliised in the slightest which is somewhat embarrassing I must confess. As I was more focused on finishing the rapid ideation prototypes I did not spend any time on audience research, although for the future I am very interested in drafting in participants to perform cognitive walkthroughs of the games in which we will be developing as this will streamline the development process in the sense that it will become more and more evident as to what our target audience actually wants and expects from us. Not only this, but it shows that we value audience input.
Integrity and Ethics
Paying consideration to integrity and ethics should always be factored in with audience/ market research and are extremely important to great project design research. Individual researchers are wholly responsible for ensuring integrity and ethics are respectfully utilised in research. Principles, outcomes, and rights are subjects of ethics that must be considered. However, the crux of it is that others should be treated in the same way that you would want to be treated.
There are typically two types of approaches to research:
Absolutist
This approach is centred around and comprises of solidly dictated moral principles in which there is no wiggle room and no bending the rules regardless of the potential results. A rule must not be postponed, weakened or modified for the sake of research. “The ends justify the means” is an approach that cannot be used here.
Relativist
Most notably, this is where moral predicaments occur in research. In relativist terms, the gains of the research conducted must outweigh the expense to the contributor(s), thus this could be why these methods are regarded as acceptable. An example of this would be the Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials that are conducted on humans to produce a vaccine, because it improves the human condition it is deemed necessary by the majority. This being said, research should not be conducted with a disregard of anything or anyone else and should be deemed acceptable by this majority.
There are a number of ethical quandaries plaguing research, this could be: including individuals without proper consent, coercing involvement, concealment of information, deception, tempting participants to carry out acts that would weaken their self-esteem, violating rights of willpower, invading confidentiality, withholding benefits from some partakers, not treating involvement equally or with contemplation or with respect. An example of coercion could be someone of superiority convincing someone to take part on the premise that they would be promoted purely by doing so. Deception is a grey area, as some is considered okay so long as it is moderated correctly in relation to the experiment’s subject matter. It is absolutely crucial to exhibit a duty of care, openness, objectivity, and admiration for those contributing to the research.
Informed Consent
There are a number of factors to be visible on a typical audience research consent form including the identity of the organisation and/ or researcher, the title of the research and the reasoning behind it and a thorough overview of what the research entails and the procedures that will be taking place, the length of the research, what risks are to be involved and the benefits for taking part, other substitutions to contributing, how the researcher/ organisation will or will not utilise the participant’s sensitive information provided, the expense of taking part, the participant’s rights, any accompanying information, and finally the participant’s signature.
This is all well and good, but it is also worth taking into consideration as to whether someone is able to give their consent.
Vulnerable Participants
Vulnerable participants can include a variety of different types of individuals that cannot give informed consent, some less obvious than others: children and young people, adults “who is or may be in need of community care services by reason of mental or other disability, age or illness; and who is or may be unable to take care of him or herself, or unable to protect him or herself against significant harm or exploitation” (No Secrets, 2000), and those with significant cultural differences.
Children are those who are younger than 16 and always require the informed consent of parents, carers or guardians, and young people are those between the ages of 16 and 18 years of age; commonly those between 16 and 18 are believed to be able to provide informed consent although it is not entirely uncommon for these individuals to also require the informed consent of parents, carers or guardians. As we proceed down the list of those unable to provide informed consent researchers are expected to be more delicate and ought to refer to the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and seek expert legal advice if it is deemed necessary for adults who are at risk and wish to take part. Significant cultural differences refers to those who come from or associate with an entirely different philosophy or background, these individuals may not fully understand the nature of informed consent and because of this, the researcher must utilise socially suitable processes to permit the potential candidates to come to definitive conclusions.
Duration can be a crucial factor for the researcher in particular because for an experiment that lasts for only a few minutes people are far more likely to take part than that of an experiment that lasts for 8 hours, etc. The organisation and/ or researcher must be able to incentifise potential candidates with pay or rewards for contributing so that they feel valued and appreciated; the best way to do this is to offer them incentives that are equal to or even more than that of their time devoted. Of course to motivate people further, a person wants to know why they should put themselves forward. To do this, it is good to be transparent about how this experiment may either benefit those taking part or in some cases a vast amount of people. Of course, this could be for something as vital as vaccinating an entire country more quickly and efficiently (as allusively aforementioned), or something of lesser significance for the masses but rather benefiting existing and potential consumers, for example, giving members of the general public a say via a demo or open beta testing of an upcoming release of a game studio. Not only will their feedback potentially assist the developers to create a better game for them and others, but also this can be seen as great marketing, not just for a specific title, but also to add to a studio’s credibility and integrity: feelings of gratitude could arise within targeted or untargeted audiences as it becomes evident that this studio really cares, not just for the quality of their games and products, but for their player-base rather than just focusing purely on profit.
Ethical considerations and business integrity.
It is not to say that it is inevitable for a product to be successful purely based on research alone. As mentioned before, the quality of the product is crucial, and advertising will also play a key role, but even if you have devised a product that appeals to the masses or your intended target audience, a lack of ethical considerations relating to the consumer can also drastically affect company integrity, and in turn, sales.
With the power of the internet and the games industry being susceptible to criticism, it is worth mentioning some unethical practices within the games industry that have been exposed and has understandably led to controversy among audiences, critics, and even lawmakers. Several AAA studios have come under fire and had their reputations tarnished for a few reasons, this mainly seems to be because of arguably avaricious-minded executives who dictate questionable business operations that ultimately lead to poor working conditions for company staff/ shareholders, i.e., crunch time (company executives forcing developers to work overtime to meet deadlines) and/ or poor consumer experiences which results in audience recoil that is upheld by negative press. In turn, this negatively impacts not just company integrity and the existing foundation of customer trust, but also sales. I will be discussing a case of the latter.
EA’s ludicrous and obvious exploitation of audiences
In recent years, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) has received backlash, primarily for two mainstream titles that featured game mechanics commonly known as “loot boxes” or “pay-to-win”: These were Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017) and FIFA 18 (2017) – FIFA 21 (2020).
Star Wars Battlefront 2 – “Pride and Accomplishment”
Even before Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017) was released EA was faced with angry consumers “when the first game of the ‘Battlefront’ series reboot and the third title in the franchise was released, EA also sold a $50 season pass of extra downloadable content (DLC), causing consumers to accuse EA of selling an unfinished game and finding an excuse to raise the price tag to $110. Following the fan outrage, the company announced that the DLC for ‘Battlefront II’ would all be free.” (Fernandez, 2017) For a while, most AAA studios have opted for free DLC and shifted their focus to including in-game microtransactions and loot boxes. Whilst originally, consumers did not have too much of an issue with these systems as they were mainly for cosmetics for clothing, weapons, and character skins, etc. However, EA since developed a strong reliance for generating income through “pay-to-win” monetary systems which affects how accessible gameplay styles are within the game and seeing as consumers would pay around £40-£50 for the standard edition of most AAA titles at the time of their release date, it goes without saying that there was going to be trouble when they required more money from the customer to deliver the true gaming experience; particularly when it was not additional content but rather a large chunk of content that was already a part of the core game that had to be unlocked through spending real-world currency or playing for what can only be described as an ungodly amount of time. “It would take 4,528 hours of play to unlock all the content in the game or 2,100 dollars (on top of the purchase of the game).” (Stauffer, 2017) The most frustrating aspect of Star Wars Battlefront 2 was that the main characters, i.e., Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, who you would imagine you could play as seeing as they were one of, if not the most important selling points of the game, were also locked behind these pay walls. EA was even provided the Guinness World Record for the “Most-downvoted Reddit Comment” with a staggering 667,822 downvotes after responding to a post on the “Star Wars Battlefront subreddit” in which customers were voicing their outrage and frustration relating to these exploitative practices. (Moyer, 2019) The comment made by the EA Community Team reads, “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.” (The Pride and Accomplishment Thread, 2018) The thread was renamed “Pride and Accomplishment” as an understatement of EA’s manipulative methods of which the community saw right through. One disgruntled customer wrote, “I paid $60 for BF2. The hours I worked at my job to get the $60 for this game already gave me all the sense of pride and accomplishment I need.” (The Pride and Accomplishment Thread, 2018)
Following on from such feedback, EA made the loot boxes within Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017) feature cosmetic-only items and have since tried to win back audiences with backtracking and releasing regular free content. EA have been scrutinised by Governments of several countries for violating gambling acts: most famously surrounding FIFA’s Ultimate Team loot box mechanics. “Loot boxes have been likened to gambling, a comparison that Electronic Arts and the Entertainment Software Association dispute.” (Diaz, 2019)
FIFA Ultimate Team – Ultimately Gambling
“In FIFA 19’s Ultimate Team mode, players can earn FIFA Points in-game or buy them with a credit or debit card. These points can then be used to purchase packs of players known as FUT packs. The quality of the players inside each pack varies, though as of FIFA 19, EA does now share the odds (or ‘Pack Probabilities’) of gamers finding each class of player.” (Vincent, 2019) In Ultimate Team, “the better the players you have, the better your team is. It's really that simple. Of course, player skill is involved. Tactics come into play. Your knowledge of how FIFA works stands you in good stead. But ultimately, if you have brilliant players, you have an advantage over those who do not.” (Yin-Poole, 2018) In 2017, New Zealand watchdogs came to the same understanding. In 2018, the Netherlands and Belgium found loot boxes to be a form of gambling and both Blizzard and Valve were made to alter their games so that they fit with regional regulations. Since then, South Korea, China, and Japan jumped on the bandwagon and began policing these mechanics. The British Parliament investigated developer’s integration of loot boxes in their games due to the concern that they could be deemed as gambling, and that they could lead to harming children reinforced by anecdotal evidence and research. BBC News reported that “GambleAware's chief Zoe Osmond said the charity was ‘increasingly concerned that gambling is now part of everyday life for children and young people.’” The GambleAware charity had conducted and amassed active research to compare the similarities and differences between the randomised in-game awards and gambling mannerisms. “Of the 93% of children who play video games, up to 40% opened loot boxes”, “about 5% of gamers generate half the entire revenue from the boxes”, “twelve out of 13 studies on the topic have established ‘unambiguous’ connections to problem gambling behaviour.”, and “young men are the most likely to use loot boxes - with young age and lower education correlating with increased uses.” (Loot boxes linked to problem gambling in new research, 2021) When providing evidence to the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, Kerry Hopkins, EA’s Vice President of legal and government affairs, tried to persuade them that these loot boxes were actually “surprise mechanics” (Kobek, 2019) and attempted to compare them to Kinder Eggs. This only sparked outrage further as EA again tried to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes to ensure their customers be addicted to their gambling-like mechanics. Belgium announced that they would be banning loot boxes as they deemed the loot box practice an “illegal game of chance.” (Vincent, 2019) At first, EA were reluctant to admit any wrongdoing but have since made a U-turn and adhered to the measures that were introduced, which in turn forced EA to stop selling “FIFA points” in Belgium as of 31/01/2020, Belgian players will still be able to utilise their existing FIFA points and can still earn them in game but will no longer be able to purchase them.
In October 2020, “A Netherlands District Court” “ruled against Electronic Arts in a case over FIFA loot boxes, allowing the Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, or Ksa) to proceed in fining the publisher €10 million for violating the country's Betting and Gaming Act. ‘The Ksa believes it is crucial to shield vulnerable groups, such as minors, from exposure to gambling," the regulator explained. "For that reason, the Ksa supports a strict separation between gaming and gambling. Gamers are often young and therefore particularly susceptible to developing an addiction. As such, gambling elements have no place in games.’” (Sinclair, 2020) EA tried to sway the court by arguing that FIFA Ultimate Team packs do not constitute as gambling as they do not provide objects of monetary value. Of course, the court were very aware that Ultimate Team cards can be valued by players for as much as 2000EUR. In addition to this, EA tried to convince the court that it is not gambling as FIFA is a game that requires skill instead of chance. This argument was also ignored as FIFA Ultimate Team can be played as its own entity within FIFA; players could ignore the core FIFA gameplay and go straight to Ultimate Team packs to gamble. EA attempted to argue that the decision made by the court was violating their “rights to property and freedom of expression.” (Sinclair, 2020) however, the Ksa made EA aware that they had ample chance to review and revise the FIFA games to avoid fines or sanctions, but they refused to do so. The court iterated that EA are more than welcome to express freedom of expression so long as they adhere to the confines of the law, and in terms of creative freedom being restricted, the Betting and Gaming Act prioritise “the interests of society to regulate games of chance.” (Sinclair 2020) EA were eager to hide the fine from the public as they believed that this would hurt their reputation, and they were more than right. This being said, the court deemed it necessary to be common knowledge for members of the public as they have a right to be interested about unlawful commercial practices. "’The game's providers are the parties that decided to include a gambling game within the game, thereby breaking the law,’" "’The Ksa has pointed this out to Electronic Arts Inc. and Electronic Arts Swiss Sàrl repeatedly. Electronic Arts Inc. and Electronic Arts Swiss Sàrl are therefore itself responsible for changing the game such that it is no longer in contravention of the law. How exactly it accomplishes this is at their discretion.’" (Sinclair, 2020)
Despite the backlash from customers, EA have no intention of changing their methods in other countries unless forced to do so, FIFA Ultimate Team is a billion dollar industry and even though impact of reputation has undoubtedly affected sales due to mass boycotting, as stated by GambleAware’s chief Zoe Osmond, “It is now for politicians to review this research, as well as the evidence of other organisations, and decide what legislative and regulatory changes are needed to address these concerns.” (Loot boxes linked to problem gambling in new research, 2021) As I keep mentioning, I am not in favour of exploitative practices within film and because of this it should now be fairly apparent that I am also not a fan of exploitation in the games industry either, especially if it is exploiting the consumers of which EA claims to represent. As much I understand that the games industry is evolving and that companies must find new ways to keep players engaged and at the same time generate income, I personally believe there are better ways to go about operating successfully as a business whilst maintaining integrity. In my eyes, EA must remember that their audience should be at the heart of everything they do. Either they carry on with being as greedy as they possibly can and pushing away their existing fan base and arguably eventually fading away, or they revert to pleasing their consumers and in turn rebuild their credibility back to its former glory to stay successful for years to come.
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