My questionnaire was created in order to determine what to include and exclude in my final major project. It was also created to investigate the market and discover market trends.
I requested 5 responses to my questionnaire from 5 different people with different likes and dislikes to get balanced and fair responses.
Firstly, i requested their name so I can see who each person was and what each person said for future reference. Afterwards, I asked what their favourite platform to play video games on. This is useful to know what system to design my FMP for as the bigger the target audience, the more the potential players. However license costs and porting difficulty must also be taken in mind. Similarly, I asked what their favourite genre was, as this allows me to see popular genres of games at the current time. If I was producing a game which is under none of the genres listed as favourite, then few may play the game. Afterwards, I asked their favourite theme for the exact same reason.
From this point, I started asking questions about my game itself in order to see how to improve the game. Firstly, I simply asked them if they like the idea of my game. If they didn’t like the idea of the game, then I would likely need to scrap the entire idea and start anew. After this, I asked in what ways I could improve my game. This gives me ideas on how to fix and add things to my game in order to create a better final outcome. This also allows me to see how other people would improve the game as opposed to me. Finally, I asked who their preferred character is so I understand what characters to focus on developing and expanding throughout the game. It also allows me to see what characters are not liked as much, so I can redesign and improve them.
The results of my questionnaire displayed multiple interesting conclusions. Starting with the fact that the most popular platform was the PC. This meant that, I could develop and publish for Windows 7/8 and 10 on PC and get the largest potential audience for my game. As well as that, publishing on PC is significantly cheaper and easier than other platforms. 2 of the five people also voted for fantasy as their favourite theme which goes in the favour of my game. However, not a single one of the responses listed fighter as their favourite genre, although my FMP is a fighter game. As a result, I will try to put more of an emphasis on adventure by focusing on the story as well as the gameplay. Every response said they like the idea of my FMP which means I can move forward with development with no worries over gameplay. As well as that, each person had a different favourite character from each other meaning I have created multiple interesting enemies and allies. Improvements suggested include better pixel art and mini-games. Two people suggested more weapon diversity which means this is an important thing to add if I have time during my FMP production.
I could improve my questionnaire by asking more people and thereby receiving more results. These would allow for more accurate results that cover more ages and likes and dislikes. I would also ask more quantitative questions that allow me to use percentages and charts to display the data. These also have the benefit of being easier on the person taking the survey as they can simply answer the question rather than thinking about what they could respond with. For example, “do you prefer level option A or B?” over “what would an interesting level be?”. This type of data is also easier to categorise and sort.