University student in need of survey data for thesis

[Nixl]

Hello friends.

I'm a 4th year university student who is working on his final thesis which discusses storytelling in video games in terms of user/player experience. As a part of this I'm looking to gain data which I can analyze regarding the subject on top of the theory. So I've made a survey.

The survey consists of 13 questions. The most private questions being age and gender. All responses are anonymous.

If you could take a few moments to fill out the survey I would be very grateful.

(Especially so if you take some time answering the open questions in detail as open questions are generally where you can gain the best type of data.)

Survey - https://goo.gl/forms/JwOQ50w4fsHHNsDg1

[anaxie]

As far as gaming thesis go. I would say yours actually asks important and relevant questions to actually gain inaight.

The majority we normally aee ask geneic fucking terrible questions that tell you little to nothing. Reccomend people actually go into the link.

[Deleted]

Answered. Good luck on whatever you are doing.

[Xargoth6634]

Filled it out, good luck!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Answered, good luck!

[Poppincaps]

Thank you for creating a survey with actual compelling questions. Kinda wrote an essay though, because I don't necessarily believe that the whole "ludonarrative dissonance" (fucking hate that word btw) is a bad thing.

[Blueobelisk]

I'm sort of interested in what your paper will be about, after seeing the survey questions.

[Eldar45]

Filled out, I hope my answers helped you.

But I'm probably gonna be that one weird guy in the pool that throws all your data out of whack.

[kasuke06]

And done. Good luck!

[ali725]

answered have fun

[Crutos]

Answered and good luck

[Nixl]

I'm sort of interested in what your paper will be about, after seeing the survey questions.

The paper discusses story telling in video games and how it effects the players experience be it positively or negatively.
The theory portion at the current moment simply goes through some history, why story telling is important (how it effects the person), how story telling has changed through out the years of video gaming, some forms of story telling (text block, dialogue, environmental story telling and cutscenes.), some examples of good/bad storytelling and lastly a some talk about "ludonarrative dissonance."

The case study part will shape up to run through the survey itself with why/how/when/who regarding the survey and its preparation before going into the data analysis part where i'll spend some time discussing the results (duh).

Thank you for creating a survey with actual compelling questions. Kinda wrote an essay though, because I don't necessarily believe that the whole "ludonarrative dissonance" (fucking hate that word btw) is a bad thing.

It is fine to disagree and I'll try to run through that point as well. Thank you for taking the time.

Filled out, I hope my answers helped you.

But I'm probably gonna be that one weird guy in the pool that throws all your data out of whack.

No such thing unless you intentionally trolled and I've yet to see any obvious trolls. Thanks everyone for that!


So far I've gotten around 107 during the first few days while only expecting 20-30 overall. That went better than expected. Appreciate it.

The survey will be staying up till Wednesday for the 1 week window.

[Fleckens]

One thing that annoys me, although it's not really an issue with your survey as much as genres in general, but what exactly is action meant to be? It's such a vague term, adventure also somewhat, not sure exactly what games you'd fit into that catagory.

Now I'm assuming action generally means 3rd person games that are combat focused such as dark souls or devil may cry, as I couldn't really fit them into any other catagories as while dark souls does have rpg elements it's not really the main focus.

[Filathorn]

I have an issue with the 2nd to last question: "Have you ever stopped or continued playing a game solely due to its story?". I can either answer that I have stopped playing a game due to the story, or that I've kept on playing a game purely due to the story. How about if I've done both? I've played games with horrible gameplay (witcher 1), where the story compelled me to keep playing, and I've played games where the story/storytelling was so bad that I couldn't keep going despite the gameplay being fun (dead space because horror sucks, for instance)

[Nixl]

I have an issue with the 2nd to last question: "Have you ever stopped or continued playing a game solely due to its story?". I can either answer that I have stopped playing a game due to the story, or that I've kept on playing a game purely due to the story. How about if I've done both? I've played games with horrible gameplay (witcher 1), where the story compelled me to keep playing, and I've played games where the story/storytelling was so bad that I couldn't keep going despite the gameplay being fun (dead space because horror sucks, for instance)

Ugh, you're right. That was a bit of an over sight from me, not sure what I was thinking there. A question like that should have multiple answers as a possibility. Apologies for that.

I'm not going to change the question format but I'll definitely note it in my writing so for now I'm going to say that you should just tick the box which you find to happen more often.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Seems like market research for a studio.

[Nixl]

Seems like market research for a studio.

Not sure if I should be flattered by that or not. But no it isn't.

[frogger237]

What the hell is with all these unis letting you do surveys? Back in my day you had to do actual experiments or get on the job training in your field.

[Witchblade77]

I probably should have mentioned in my answers that ludonarative dissonance doesn't actualy bother me. I notice it, but more often then not - i find it amusing, rather then distracting. it is pretty cool when the game makes an effort to avoid it, while still keeping variety of combat mechanics in it. Dishonored is probably one of the better examples of it, where wholesale slaughter results in worse endings (and in case of 2, also changes how your character reacts to in game events).

[Marrilaife]

Hard to remember every case from the top of my head, so just wrote 3 things that came to my mind first, I bet if I thought it overnight I would find more examples but no need to make it too long, right?

It is fine to disagree and I'll try to run through that point as well. Thank you for taking the time.

There are cases where gameplay > story / logic and it's completely excused. Let's say, the prime example: your character being 100% combat effective at 5% health remaining. Most games work like this no matter the genre.

It's also hilarious when devs try so hard to invent backstory for something obviously there for gameplay reasons, like several MMOs trying to put lore reasoning for corpse running.

When some things try to be realistic, they're becoming cumbersome, cue any game with realistic inventory size (read: pathetically small for any gamer).

P.S. I remember now the turn from "lore to explain gameplay" to "lore to be just cool lore", it was in League of Legends, they started from all this lore explaining there is place like summoner's rift, and summoners who "summon" the heroes to fight for them and decide disputes etc. and it was super lame, some time ago (could be few years) they decided to scrap all that and just concentrate on the lore of the fictional continent they created, each country on it and different heroes and their backstories and them interacting with each other etc. Now it feels more like another fictional universe you can actually immerse yourself into if you care, and if you don't care, you can keep playing as always.

Lore subservient to backup gameplay always sucks and usually is more disruptive than immersive.

We know for example in wow rezzing a player is a spammable button but rezzing an npc lorewise is often a no-go. We don't really need lore explanations why is it so, no matter how they would put it, it would suck.