Commentary

Rationale For Online Gaming

by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, August 17, 2009

At the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, WorldWinner a provider of online game competitions, announced the results of a survey in which more than 500 online game lovers revealed how playing casual games affects their mood, particularly during the current state of the economy.

Key findings of the survey include:

87% of game lovers report a positive mood boost from playing online games
59% play games online to help forget their worries and problems
44% play to keep their mind sharp between job hunting, working or studying
62% play online games as a de-stressor when job hunting online

Mood Enhancer: Does Game Playing Online Boost Your Mood? (% of Respondents)
*Boost mood?*	*Yes*	No
	87%	13%
Source: WorldWinner Survey, July 2009

Peter Blacklow, president of WorldWinner and EVP of GSN Digital, concludes that "The state of the economy is affecting our leisure activities just as much as it's impacted our working lives and stress levels... our business is... a welcome break... "

Play Games Online To De-stress When Job Hunting (% of Respondents)
*Play to De-stress*	*Yes*	No
	62%	38%
Source: WorldWinner Survey, July 2009

Importance of Competition
*Reason for Competing*	*% of Respondents*
Thrill of winning money	55%
Forget worries, problems	59
Keeps mind sharp	44
Improve score	36
Victory over skilled player	44
Intensifies thrill	25
Source: WorldWinner, July 2009

Reason for Playing Games
*Reason*	*% of Respondents*
Currently unemployed	12%
Cutting back on other entertainment	7
Inexpensive hobby	28
Need extra money	5
Relief from stress	30
Boosts mood	14
Source: WorldWinner, July 2009

For additional information from WorldWinner, please go here.

gaming, research

4 comments about "Rationale For Online Gaming".

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Eric Scoles from brand cool marketing, August 17, 2009 at 12:32 p.m.
Of course this has all the usual weaknesses of self-reporting surveys administered to people engaged in a stimulus-reward loop.
Much more interesting would be a survey that assessed these factors obliquely. I.e., we know they think they're destressing, but are they? We know they think it keeps their mind sharp, but does it? We know they think it picks them up, but what if we discover that people who game are more depressed than those who don't?
Put another way: People rarely have insight with regard to their own relationship with drug of choice. Even (and perhaps especially) when they think that they do.
Reply

Grahan Cooley from namet.ag, August 18, 2009 at 10:26 a.m.

Can a person believe he is reducing stress without reducing stress?

A recent study does suggest gamers suffer from more depression:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/081709-study-adult-video-gamers-fatter.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

Teagen Densmore from GameHouse Studios, August 19, 2009 at 3:40 p.m.

In 2006, we conducted a survey that found similar results, for example, of surveyed men and women ages 18 and over who play casual games, 64 percent do so as a way to unwind and 53 percent do so for stress relief.

Studies like these provide interesting data, but what I appreciate more is talking to customers in person about their experiences playing our games.

I love it when a mom of two tells me "I LOVE playing your games, its my way to relax for five minutes after the kids go to bed."

Comments like these give extra meaning to the work we do.

Eric Scoles from brand cool marketing, April 9, 2010 at 3:35 p.m.

"Can a person believe he is reducing stress without reducing stress?"

Sure. Happens all the time.

One example: Suppose you're addicted to a drug. Withdrawal produces stress; you take the drug, and that relieves the particularly distressing aspects of withdrawal. But you could still be at a higher stress level than you would be at without ever having taken the drug, and you could have increased your stress level in other regards that offset the particularly present aspects of withdrawal (e.g., pain).

An analogy: People who drink, or smoke pot, often believe quite strongly that they're better drives after they've consumed their drug. Yet I'm not aware of a single study that didn't find exactly the opposite.

Anyway, my questions were rhetorical. My main point was that self-reporting studies like these are more or less useless for divining what's actually going on. As Nielsen likes to put it, with a self-reporting survey you get what people think they remember about what they think they did. A good ethnographer doesn't leave it at that -- s/he looks at what they're actually doing.

So until we can wire people up and look at actual data, this kind of self-reporting reportage is actually worse than useless, insofar as it leaves people thinking they know something about what gaming actually does for people.