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Researching Our Player Persona

  Part 1: Reflecting on myself and others: 

I took some time to think about what is important to me when I play a game (educational or entertainment) and the things that I dislike:
-I want educational games to still be fun.
-I like a good narrative but this is not super important to me.
-The rules/directions should be easy to understand (should be able to play without taking too much time to learn).
-Feedback should be given- I like when I can see how previous attempts compare.
-I like when I can explore a game environment and find new things (this might be cool for a geography themed game because exploration goes hand in hand with geography). 

Reflecting on others: 

Gathering information on our audience was somewhat easy for me as I was lucky enough to have a first-hand source, family members who are freshmen in college! Not only that, but they are college students specifically interested in gaming, who then volunteered to send the survey out to their friend groups! 


Part 2: The survey

I chose a simple yet effective method of data collection, a survey. Here is a copy of the survey I sent out: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3lONeo0crDGViAUzSplQezVDRQubDuxPdta3JbYOgH4UPPA/viewform?usp=sf_link
In total, I received 3 responses. Here are some key points of the results:
3 Males
2 Freshmen, 1 Junior 
_ say they play games a few times per week.
All 3 have previously played an educational game.
The preference of games vary from action/adventure, first person shooters, role-playing, battles, etc.
The frequency of game play also varies from everyday to a few times per week to once per month. I think I would categorize these as casual gamers.

I found 2 main similarities in the preferences of myself and the survey participants. Story/narrative is important to a game being entertaining and it is not an uncommon belief that educational games can be boring. Given this information, I think it is clear that a strong narrative can increase the entertainment value of an educational game. 


Part 3: 

Like I mentioned in part 1, I had access to a source so the data collection process was not too difficult. However, had I not had this source, I believe I would have found the process to be somewhat difficult as I am still not sure where the best place to access data regarding the preferences of college aged gamers would be. 

Deciding what information to gather took some time. I started off by using the article from the Interaction Design Foundation for inspiration.
Here is a breakdown of the questions I chose:

Basic demographic info:
Age, Gender, Grade

How often do you play video games: We want to gauge if our players are frequent or more casual game players.

Have you ever played an educational game: We want to see if our players are familiar with educational games.

What is your favorite type of game: Of course, we should examine the players favorite types of games. This info could also show if there are any trends in the types of games they enjoy.

We should examine their general likes and dislikes about games in general and educational games:
Is there anything you like about games for entertainment?
Is there anything you dislike about games for entertainment? 
Is there anything you dislike about educational games? 
Is there anything you like about educational games?  

It is also good to note that all of these questions were optional in case someone did not want to or know how to answer. 


Going back to the blog by the Interaction Design Foundation, I wish I would have included questions about the player’s occupation/major. At first I thought that it would not be relevant in our situation but thinking about it now, that info could have been useful in identifying possible trends of what types of games certain majors/occupations enjoy. 

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