Boards›Boards Feedback

[Idea] Demographics

Sir ArmaMalum·7/3/2014, 5:12:44 PM·3 votes·705 views

http://i.imgur.com/4XneLQ4.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/WLLrwOL.jpg?1

Hey, so after my own learning (and somewhat trying) experience of the very basics of statistics and demographic data, I've come to realize how weak the data is for the video game industry as a whole as compared to older, less electronically based industries. It's no one's fault really, just the nature of the beast when it comes to anonymous and worldwide communities.

Riot has been known as a frontier company with one of the largest active playerbases in the world. Wouldn't it make sense for that same company to start tracking specific areas of a record setting, trending market? That being said I'm sure it's already being done in some form or fashion, but can we do this publicly where complete nonprofessionals like myself can both contribute and see the results?

So my idea is this: Have a PvP.net restricted, Riot Official, incentiveized, and public poll for the major areas like age, estimated hours player per week, what season they created their account, etc etc.

More specifically, have a public poll on the home site or forums (where one has to log-in with a LoL account) and provide a very, very small amount of RP (1-5?) for participation in any poll. No poll is without bias or risk of course, but I believe it would get a decent amount of statistical data out there as well as possibly showing some stereotype-breaking results.

Thoughts?

18 Comments

GundayMonday7/3/2014, 8:03:15 PM2 votes

The ESA actually does a really good job with industry metrics. Check out this nice summary as an example: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf

You can find some really good info if you know where to look :-)

EDIT: Apparently that link tries to attach the giant pdf. You can get to the same thing by clicking the link at the very bottom of this ESA site: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

Jivira7/3/2014, 6:34:11 PM1 votes

I like the general idea, so long as the public stuff is voluntary participation and declared at the start. (Aggregating data of course.)

Angry Monster7/5/2014, 6:32:01 AM1 votes

Why should Riot do this? Like literally what is this going to do for the company and therefore share holders? To do something like this takes man hours, this would be literally throwing money away since you are make it GNU.

I understand why people want Lyte to do peer review stuff, it is expected academic thing. Lyte makes claims and the only people that would be qualified to judge him are other scientists. People want a independent verification of claims being made.

The stuff you seem to be asking for is usually paid for. There are plenty of companies that do research like you are requesting but it is expensive. There is a reason why companies just do not random research or hand out the results.