[Marek]

Other than anecdotal evidence, we often have no idea about who our site visitors really are. That's why we'll soon be running a survey on both the forums and the main site to find out.

What kind of games do visitors like? What kind of gaming platforms do people own? How excited are the AG readers about the genre? We'll try to find answers to these kinds of questions, and more. Unlike forum polls, which usually get no more than a hundred responses, we're aiming to get at least a thousand, and hopefully much more.

After the survey has ended, I will be sharing some of the results on the staff blog. As an experiment, I also thought it would be fun to ask the community for input on the contents of the survey. What are the questions that you guys would like us to ask?

If any good questions show up in this thread, they'll be included in the survey under 'community questions' along with the username of who suggested it. We can do multiple choice, but also input fields, ratings, matrix questions, or anything listed here. This is a rare opportunity to ask a question and get 1000+ responses from your peers!

I have no idea what to expect, but that's why it's an experiment...

[Melanie68]

A personal preference - I really, really dislike the 5 point choice questions as shown at that Lime Survey site. I've taken surveys where that was the predominant question and I usually, I don't want to say lie, but I don't give the numerical value a lot of thought. I find my thoughts difficult to quantify in that manner.

Now ranking type questions, I quite like those and I don't mind the other examples they have there. I think it's good to have questions that can have more than one answer too.

I'll have to see if any questions pop into my mind.

[Marek]

Heh, I guess no one has any questions. Fortunately I've got plenty of questions of my own. But maybe I should just have a look at all the polls that have been done on the forums throughout the years for some potentially entertaining questions.

[stepurhan]

Probably already thought of

When did you start in adventure gaming?

What other sorts of games do you play apart from adventures?

Do you regularly visit other gaming sites and, if so, which?

If you could change one single thing about the site, what would it be?

[Marek]

The first two were indeed already in there, and I'll add the third for sure.

The fourth one deals with something beyond the scope of this survey, though, and would probably get skewed results anyway because of the recent design change. Fortunately, there's no shortage of ideas for the site right now. (But sometime next year, when the new design is a bit further developed, we can do a second survey that's exclusively focused on AG itself).

[PolloDiablo]

Something about the way one decides which games to buy e.g.
- always play demo before buying, and if there's no demo I don't buy the game at all
- if the AG review is three stars or more, I'll buy,
- always read a couple of reviews before buying,
- buy at friend's advice only,
- buy anything remotely adventure-esque etc
(with better options ofcourse, probably open ended question would be better).

[Trumgottist]

Here are some more or less random ideas, discovered in my brain after a couple of minutes of pondering the subject at hand. Suggested options are only included to help show what I meant by the question, and may not reflect a good way to ask the question, if the question should happen to be good enough to be asked.

- Would you like to make a game of your own one day? (*Yes *No *Been there done that *I'm a professional.)
(Might be interesting to see how many carry that dream. Maybe follow it up with "Do you think you will make one?")

- Do you play "underground" games? (*Yes, all the time *Yes, I follow some engine-specific forums (e.g. AGS) *I read the Underground articles and try the games that seem interesting *No, I like higher production values in my games *No, I haven't tried any *No, they're all crap *I like Samorost)
(Maybe this question is better split up into a couple different ones.)

- Do you like walkthroughs? (*Yes *No, but I use them a lot anyway *I have nothing against getting help on puzzles, but I prefer getting hints in a forum or from a friend *No, I try to solve the games on my own.)

- Do you visit the AG forum?
- Do you post there?
(Since you said this will be on the main site, it might be interesting to see how many non-forumites that care to answer the survey.)

- Geographical location, age, gender.
(These I'm sure you've already thought of, and decided if that's relevant or not.)

[Marek]

Ah yes, great stuff! It'll be an anonymous survey, so it'd be interesting to see what people have to say about using walkthroughs, or actually completing the games they buy.

[Lucien21]

What about:

What kind of stories would you like to see in adventure games?

* Sci-Fi
* Fantasy
* Romance
* Murder Mystery
* Political Thriller
* Horror
* Other

[Panthera]

Originally Posted by Trumgottist

- Would you like to make a game of your own one day? (*Yes *No *Been there done that *I'm a professional.)
(Might be interesting to see how many carry that dream. Maybe follow it up with "Do you think you will make one?")

You should probably have a few more options on that one. I wouldn't know what to answer on a direct question like that, since I would like to write a game manuscript/story, but not exactly make a game. I would rather let others do the programming and designs..

maybe you can add a question about why people are drawn to adventuregames as a gamegenre. Is it because of the stories, the non-fighting, the puzzles, the graphics, the environment, the characters.. etc. (probably should allow multiple answers there, since I would've wanted to answer both story and no fighting)

[colpet]

I'm not sure how detailed you want to get, but I've always thought most adventure gamers (at least older ones) are also avid readers and that marketing adventures in book stores would be a way to get more people interested. So asking about hobbies might be illuminating.
Asking whether English as a first language (or knowing multiple languages) may help when thinking about subtitles.
Lastly, how computer savy are you. Some people may shy away from PC games because of difficulty getting them to run smoothly. This may not be pertinent to the internet generation, but for some older folks tweaking computers to play older games (or even trying to follow directions to do so ) may be impossible, thereby limiting the game repertoire to recent releases.

[Fairygdmther]

I'd like to see relative ages, say 11-20, 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61+

first language, esp if not English

country residing in

place of purchase - ie, eBay or other auction sites, online stores, in trade, brick and mortar stores, as gifts, thrift shops

condition of game packaging - ie, mint condition-as collectors do, new, used, any way - even if only in jewel cases, or download

Approximate numbers of games owned (not counting 4 copies of some games, but only unique games), but including downloaded games

Write-in of their favorite 5 games

game sub-genre, such as - indies, proprietary games from other media (Indiana Jones, eg), fantasy, romance, empty world ( Myst, Aura, etc.), Sci-Fi, mystery (Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, etc.), comedy, horror, vampire, archeological (Egypt games), room escape, and those which go into other genres, like action-adventure, RPG-adventure, MMO adventure

do they prefer series of games or unique, stand-alone titles

Then the most argued about - 2D, 2 1/2D, 3D, and 1st or 3rd person, and nodes or free exploration, and linear or relatively non-linear, and automatic or user controlled camera angles, and mouse only or keyboard/gamepad controlled.

Types of puzzles they hate - mazes, sliders, arcade style minigames, etc.

Types of puzzles they prefer.

Do they do it all alone, with other(s), use hints, ask in the forum for help, use a walkthrough (rarely, occasionally, sometimes, frequently, always)?

Will/would they buy games released as downloaded segments?

Do they preorder games they most anticipate?

What improvements to AG would they like to see

I hope you do get a good sampling, and leave it open long enough to catch the more irregular users of the forum and site. Good luck!

FGM

[Trumgottist]

Originally Posted by Fairygdmther

Then the most argued about - 2D, 2 1/2D, 3D, and 1st or 3rd person, and nodes or free exploration, and linear or relatively non-linear, and automatic or user controlled camera angles, and mouse only or keyboard/gamepad controlled.

Just don't forget to allow people to answer sensibly to questions like that.