Looking for TEST Subjects: Future Focus Group Study

[vindslav]

*UPDATE* Due to advice from a few of my advisers, I am no longer going to be using any of the people who replied in interest, here within this thread. Thank you for the interest and offers of help, for that I am truely thankful. Maybe next year, when I start my honours thesis I may put out the call again, if there is any interest then. However, I have been told to go with people I know quite well, as due to the nature of the assignment.

Thank you all again, it is truely appreciated.

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Did you enjoy the pun in that title?

If so you should feel bad, because it was bad. So, very, very bad. Yet I have a smudge of pride about it.

Regardless; Fellow minions of TEST Squadron, I come seeking aid, well not really, more interest.
I am a student, majoring in Classics, Anthropology and (more importantly to this post) Sociology. A task has arisen for the latter of which, one where I will need to interview willing people for roughly an hour. This interview will consist of personal questions in regard to yourself, and your actions within and concerning a to-be-decided game. Just to point out again, the interview is roughly an hour in length. Of course, that does not mean that the hour is all questions, it will involve description and reasoning for the interview and questions, but still, it is a deal of time to go on. During this interview, I will be transcribing what is discussed, and if the person being interviewed consent, I will also record the interview. The data of the interview will not be viewed by anyone other than myself and possibly my professors, nor will any actual names be disclosed beyond. Study subjects are usually given number or alphabet classifications in papers for ease of reading and it is highly illegal for me to even talk about the contents disclosed to me in interviews, unless with my professor/advisor, without the consent of the subject.


Everything I do will be reviewed by my professors, and I will be accountable to them, as well as the Privacy Laws of Australia. Though, my questions will really not extend any further than thoughts, emotions and activities revolving gaming experiences. This is one of my first focus studies, that and the fact that my desired academic interest lies elsewhere means that I have no intent on probing into other parts of anyone's life. Still, anyone being interviewed will have the right to pull out at any time, without the need of reasoning, and I will have to delete all data related to said subject in response.


This will not take place for quite some time. I first have to get written consent from my professor before I can do so, and to do that I need to have a topic and rough focus group established. Since my topics will involve gaming and personality construction, I need to at least know some very basic details are set before I can go off and elaborate a topic for my study, such as: Game genre, sex, gender (yes they are different, and not it is not related to intercourse, still, giggity), age, peer details, etc.

As my topic is not yet set in concrete, a main issue that I have is whether to have a focus group from a single genre, or further yet, game, or to allow a variety. Either way, they would have to be games that I have good knowledge of, so I am not just asking questions of the game. Star Citizen, for this reason, cannot be used. However, any game that is actually out is fine, as long as I have played it.

With this, I am not asking people to play certain games so that I can get info, though such power would be delectable, more, if you are willing to sacrifice an hour of your time, sometime in the future (1-2 months away so March/April) please leave a segment of text below, and throw out some games that you have played, considerably.


Thank you fellow minions for giving me attention, it increases my ego ever so much, and,
have a brilliant day.

 

[EpilepticCricket]

I'm willing to help you out, but it might be easier if you provide a list of titles or at least genres that you're familiar enough to conduct an interview over instead of having everyone list all the games they've played a lot and know very well.

 

[MzHartz]

I'm always willing to help with these sorts of things.

But yeah, like Cricket said, lists of games around here can be extensive I'm sure. It's been hard for me to think of much other than Star Citizen (Arena Commander I guess in this context) recently, but in the past I've played Minecraft, WoW, Final Fantasy (most of them), tons of flash games, FTL, a good number of Lego games, Dragon Age II, old school games like Sonic and Super Mario, puzzle games, etc. I'm probably forgetting many.

 

[vindslav]

@MzHartz & @EpilepticCricket I appreciate the interest.
There is a method to the madness of not noting a list, part of it is that I essentially just need an understanding of the game mechanics, content and possibly lore. As such, the list itself would be quite tremendous in length. Secondly, it is a bit in line of technique that I do not note such things. It is odd, but it is just one of those things that was resulted from adoption of theory from other feilds, from best I can take it (most likely another theft from psychology).

Also, at the moment I am just looking for interest, and generally, I intend to work around the people, more then trying to find people who fill specific requirements. I have time to work with this, and am just trying to make the process less complecated than it can be. Which, from experience, can be extremely tedious to find people who do fit that "fine mold".

I will refine a set requirements later on, when I find a few people who look like I can work with, but at the moment just anyone who has a game that they have/had played quite extencively is all I am looking for. At the moment though, MzHarts has a few desirable titles mentioned.

Still, thank you both for the reply, I truely appreciate it.

 

[Orcharyu]

I would be happy to give an interview, though scheduling will be required. What genre gaming are you looking for aside from mmorpg? I have many years of gaming experience with various tabletop rpg's, miniature wargames, and even larp.

 

[Jhonon1]

I'll throw my hat into the ring, as with jury duty you can never have too many to pick from.
My recent gaming, what little is permitted by Work and School, has mostly been Heroes of the Storm or Starcraft 2 but delving into the past I played a lot of Destiny, sssoooo much Halo when i was 'young', EVE Online held me captive for a while, Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, FTL has 17 hours and I've only gotten to the boss once (on easy at that).

Must be tons more though, depends on just what you are looking for.


Edit: Orcharyu your games please me (judging by your profile pic). I wish I could say I played but I don't have enough time for that, let alone painting. And the money to collect, yikes...
I'll just sit here with most of the 30+ HH novels/FFG's Rogue Trader line and meander my mind into the fluff...

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

Hello!
I have taken a smidge of University, so I know what you are talking about. My study was on fish, and whether they like to have tracking devices shoved into their Cloaca or a Floy Tag speared through their various fins. So I'm a willing TEST subject. (I had to look twice to see what you did there).

I am not a smart man, but I am the man for the job!

 

[Bishop]

For the Science of Gaming I gladly spend an hour of answering questions.

Games lists starts at EGA Trek, CalGames, ... {continues for a while} ... is currently at Star Craft 2 and goes over all genres there are (Puzzle, Simulations, Platforms, Indie, Adventure, Online Casino, ... up to MMO).

 

[Ill-Tempered Monkey]

Ah...the sociology degree, wait until you start throwing applications out and interviewers are baffled as to exactly what you are qualified to do...

I digress, I am more than happy to volunteer as a test monkey!

Remember: There is no Psychology without Sociology. :)

 

[vindslav]

Thank you fine Ladies and Lads for the interest.

@Orcharyu the interviewing process won't be happening for quite some time. It is hard to find people to do specific studies, and since this is for a degree, and not for set research, I have the liberty of being able to modify the topic. As of yet, it is not set in stone, so aspects such as genre and whether it is online, multiplayer or singleplayer is not really all that important. It also helps that the topic I am looking at is quite flexible, so I can adapt it to any genre or classification of game. All that matters is that the game is quite intement to you, and you are able to recall your time in the game fairly well. Since memories somewhat fragment over time (for most people, the brain will generally combine core aspects of a memory, with others as time goes on, an example would be you remember an event, but remember it taking place in a different location, etc), something fairly recent (within the last 5 years) would be ideal. I should clarify, while I could use other media, at the moment I am focusing on video games, mainly due to the current piss poor treatment of the media in sociology.

@Jhonon1 While I say that I have yet to settle on a specific title, I am aloso playing with the idea of using people who play different games and looking for corolations. Which is something that is conducted with elsewhere, hip hop culture for example is studied to a great degree due to its diverse nature internationally, such as the main stream US, underground US, South African and Japanese hip hop cultures are four heavily observed cultures, and each extremely different.

@CrudeSasquatch Interesting, I take it that the results were based upon observation of reaction? There was an interesting look at something similar fairly recently. They came to find out that spiders have personalities, and specially those that were social, which I think there is only 25 species world wide. It effected their actions and reactions to different stimula. Not sure why your statement reminded me of that... Also, never understate one's owns smarts, you made your way to TEST afterall.

@Bishop Starcraft definately could be used, technically any game could. The core aspect is personal interaction with the game, and there is no limitation in this view by mechanics or genre. If it is considered personal, then it is a pretty good contender for what I am looking for.

@Ill-Tempered Monkey The people being interviewed, well I can expect that from them. Thr manditory action of explaining what I am doing every time to the family is what wears me down sometimes... Thank you, bud, for the interest.

Actually, thank all of you again for the interest. I truely appreciate it.

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

I look forward to having my brain dissected by you, good sir! Just keep your dirty mitts off of my cloaca! (Are you an 18-35 yr old lady? Okay you can mitt me.... :D I'm so lonely )

 

[Derkerter]

I will more than willingly submit my brain for inspection!

 

[vindslav]

Updated

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

Updated

Too bad! I love talking about myself. Good luck withthe project!

 

[Bishop]

Updated

No probs.
Still post the result in here if it can be made public.
Might be a curious read.

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

post the result

Agreed! I like to read science things. Leaving university cut me off from free science journals. Lately all I've been reading is Facebook rants about American Politics.

I take it that the results were based upon observation of reaction

Some of the fish would ejaculate when "handled". It got to the point that we had to wear sunglasses while doing the insertions.

 

[vindslav]

You want the results ey?

Well sure. I will post a TLDR here after I have submitted it. Though that won't be for some time though.

The current topic is explores how gameplay can constitute as personality, working of the theories of presonality constructiong, most notbaly, Goffman's The Projected Personality.
This is based of gameplay, not character creation or visual customisation.

This is basically a practice work for my thesis next year, which will be going down a similar avenue, though will be much larger in scope, and won't focus so much on videogames, well, at least as it currently stands.

 

[vindslav]

If you need it, I will write up some abbreviated entailings of some of the theorem I am working with, if it helps. I will state though, some people have found some of these a tad offencive. Personally, I am not quite sure why, but then again we do live in a culture that is obsessed with being offended. Still, hence the offering instead of just blurting them out.

 

[Jhonon1]

Now that you've told us it offends some people, we HAVE to know!

 

[CrudeSasquatch]

I'm personally offended that you think we can't handle your theorem without being offended!