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Help a student out — take this survey

June 6th, 2007 (Visited 2996 times) Tags:

Matt Penfield, a student at UCSD, asked me a bit ago for help getting this survey out there for his academic work. Here’s the scoop. Go help him out!

This survey is part of a market analysis project focusing on digital distribution. The question I’m interested in answering is “Given supporting evidence from adjacent entertainment industries that both demand and infrastructure exist to support digital downloads, why is adoption so low in the game software segment?” If anyone has any questions/insight about the survey or the project, please email me at mpenfield <at> ucsd <dot> edu. As a special bonus, I’ll be drawing a name at random from the survey respondents to award some factory sealed PSP games. If you’ve got a PSP (or know someone who does) be sure to enter your name and mailing address on the last page of the survey.

Survey link.

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Timbre of Tempests wrote on June 7th, 2007 at 12:05 am:

If you’re gamerish, help-a-student-out. Raph is opening the distribution box and I figured I’d continue the propagation a little. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/06/06/help-a-student-out-take-this-survey/ I’ll take it later today. I’m linking to Raph’s post because Penfield answers a question there that may be of interest. I have only peripheral knowledge of what this is about (digital distribution and games), and no connection to the study (UCSD)

Matt Penfield said on June 6th, 2007 at 9:21 am:

Thanks, Raph! I really appreciate the help.

For the record (since this has come up a few times now), the PSP games in the grab bag are TBD.

–Matt

Azaroth said on June 6th, 2007 at 12:33 pm:

I’m not totally sure if the question refers to lack of adoption from the industry or the customer (of course, this could be the same thing… the industry doesn’t adopt BECAUSE..).

As far as ME:

Aside from the fact that I’ve always cherished the box of my video games since I was a small child?

My guess is that songs are like 2-5mb, whereas games can be… well, significantly larger.

If I have to pay (even if I don’t, but I don’t think I’ve ever illegally downloaded a game.. I know, I’m such a lamer), I’d much rather just rip out to the store and pick up a box than download that huge, unyieldly file 3 times (because my internet keeps disconnecting OMG!).

Now I’ve got the disc to reinstall quickly and easily any time I like. No need to refind, rewait, redownload, and THEN reinstall if I reformat (or whatever). I also have something physical for my money. Which probably isn’t a good thing, considering what a mess my desk is.

I also think that a lot of casual customers, this likely being your main target audience most times, are a little less internet savvy than we give them credit for. That combined with the fact that games ARE more expensive than CDs and other such forms of entertainment and thus more likely to be given as christmas gifts to kids, etc.

At the same time, if a game doesn’t HAVE a box and is attempting to be successful on digital distribution alone, I can jive with that.

Regardless, I’m sure digital distribution will become the norm more and more in upcoming years. WoW is already shelling out BC digitally (but they’ve already got their customers rounded up and branded). If you’re after big bucks, I’d suggest to you that you only make it a supplemental source of distribution for now. For indies it’s easily the best choice for primary distribution, though.

I have no idea if that answers the question. Or even addresses it.

Matt Penfield said on June 6th, 2007 at 2:30 pm:

Azaroth, the number one qualitative response I get when I ask gamers why they don’t digitally download more often is some variation on wanting to have the physical media. So I think your response *exactly* answers the question.

There are three of us working on different parts of this project right now. We have a lot of analysis left to do, but my guess at this point is that we’re going to have to lay a ‘psychology of consumer behavior’ framework over that particular component. It’s too pervasive to ignore, and it becomes more pronounced the more expensive the item is. You touched on this as well.

Thanks for the feedback. Be warned that I might footnote you!