Community Relations Archive
Thread: Bay Area Discussion Group... Everyone not eligible... Please Read
On Wednesday, August 31st, 2005, Nielsen Interactive Entertainment would like the experienced opinions of current Galaxies subscribers.We will be holding discussion groups (2 hours in length) in Santa Clara, CA for you to consider ideas for the next Galaxies expansion pack and to give us your opinions about what you want to play in the future!
The research pays $100 cash for your participation.
Please call our confirmation department toll free at (877) 862 - 3456 between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM, and state that you are interested in the "SANTA CLARA GALAXIES research" on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 to determine if you qualify for this exciting study.
ALL SF / BAY AREA WELCOME
*Please be aware certain terms and conditions.
Sounds awesome doesn't it?.I know i was really excited when I read it. My favorite part is ALL SF/BAY AREA WELCOME.... Well I happen to be a Bay Area Resident but guess what I am not welcome..... And here's the kicker.... it's because I am FEMALE!..... That's right NO WOMEN ALLOWED. Love how they left that bit out. They're perfectly happy to take my husband, who refuses to go without me, but not me. I love the "please be aware certain terms and conditions"... Condition #1 you must be male.
Now this wouldn't bother me so much if they were having a seperate discussion group for women. I can understand them wanting to have opinions from both sides seperatly as men and women do tend to think differently even if we come to the same conclusion. But women are being completely excluded. They aren't interested in what we have to say. I know I am not the only woman that plays SWG. I have several friends that are also female that play. Besides SWG I have also played EverQuest and EverQuest 2 for over 5 years. Heck I met my real life husband in East Commonlands at level 9 in Everquest. I've owned a gaming console of one fashion or another since I was a child. I think I'd qualify as a experienced gamer, which was the main focus of the pre questions they ask before they schedule you for your group time. You can't tell me that there aren't other women out there like me who love gaming and have valid opinions. I met MANY other women in my years in the multiple MMORPG worlds who don't just play cause their husbands do but have a love for it themselves.
I can appreciate them wanting the opinions of men as they are the highest gaming demographic but I can't understand why they don't even want to invite women to join their discussion or even create a seperate discussion for us. Are our opinions not valued?
Please understand I am not here to flame and that is not the intention of this post. I'm not flaming anyone nor am i whining. I am simply expressing awe, shock, anddisappointment for something I feel is not right. I figured "Community Relations" was the best forum to put it in.
Lesa Starstrider - Gorath
Edit: Corrected spelling error and modified subject to be more of a reflection of what's in the post.
Message Edited by LesaStarstrider on 08-27-2005 09:56 PM
-BihKehHeOn the other hand, it's not SOE's fault that Neilsen folks are setting their own rules. It's possible they are just trying to get a certain demographic and maybe will do one for a different one later?
These things also have quotas and other hidden qualifiers so it may be that all female slots are already filled or you failed on some other qualifier that they don't want to tell anyone about and just said it's because you are a girl. Focus groups usually have a very specific question they are looking for an answer to and they go to great lengths to make sure that the people in the focus group don’t know what that question is.
ObiQuixote wrote:
Something to keep in mind. Focus groups are expensive to do. If they have a specific question like “Why are 24-30 and 30-36 year old males leaving the game in droves,” they would want to get the answer to that particular question. So spending $50,000 to get the opinions of 50 people not in that demographic would be mostly a waste of money.
These things also have quotas and other hidden qualifiers so it may be that all female slots are already filled or you failed on some other qualifier that they don't want to tell anyone about and just said it's because you are a girl. Focus groups usually have a very specific question they are looking for an answer to and they go to great lengths to make sure that the people in the focus group don’t know what that question is.
like all the focus groups for any kind of compagnie.
ObiQuixote wrote:
Something to keep in mind. Focus groups are expensive to do. If they have a specific question like “Why are 24-30 and 30-36 year old males leaving the game in droves,” they would want to get the answer to that particular question. So spending $50,000 to get the opinions of 50 people not in that demographic would be mostly a waste of money.
These things also have quotas and other hidden qualifiers so it may be that all female slots are already filled or you failed on some other qualifier that they don't want to tell anyone about and just said it's because you are a girl. Focus groups usually have a very specific question they are looking for an answer to and they go to great lengths to make sure that the people in the focus group don’t know what that question is.
yes it is for 18-28 year old males only. And the woman that called back... hehe dont' you love that it was a woman that was doing the call backs for the group...... told me that this discussion group was not for women. It has nothing to do with me failing anything or not being quailfied it was simply because I am female. I answered all her questions on behalf of my husband since he was at work and all of my answers save my 2nd favorite genre of gameswould have beenthe same. But I was never asked. The first thing she told me when she called for my husband, and I explained that we had both submitted our names, was that this group discussion was not for women that it was only for men from 18-28.
The focus of this discussion is not whya specific demographic isleaving. If it was I would understand them wanting to speak to a specific group of people that fall into a relevant statistical category because they were trying to find out information about that specific demographic. This discussion group is listed as a discussion on future expansions and things we'd like to see introduced to the game.
"We will be holding discussion groups (2 hours in length) in Santa Clara, CA for you to consider ideas for the next Galaxies expansion pack and to give us your opinions about what you want to play in the future!"
If all the other demographic groups are filled up the screener may say “We are only looking for males 18-24 “ and not bother to ask you the screener questions because there is no point to it if your demographic is filled up.
And it may be SOE is just cheap bastards and they are only going to spend money and time developing the game for it’s largest demographic and they don’t care what anyone else thinks. If they are only going to spend the development time and money on one thing it best be to please the greatest number of players in which case the opinions of fringe groups in the game like females and people older then 24 don’t matter and would actually get in the way.
Not to get of on a rant here:
But I don’t agree with that, in fact I think creative design by committee and focus group is just a safe way to create a pile of bland cr@p that will be acceptable to largest number of people. Great creative projects that win awards need passionate crazy people with the right vision managed by tie wearing pinheads that are smart enough to stay out of the way as much as they can. In the case of this game I think pinheads have beat the creativity and vision out of the development team entirely with persistent marketing driven design and deadlines. If the developers came up with a recipe for some great bread the pinheads just take away the flour and pull it from the oven before it’s done cooking.
LesaStarstrider wrote:
ObiQuixote wrote:
Something to keep in mind. Focus groups are expensive to do. If they have a specific question like “Why are 24-30 and 30-36 year old males leaving the game in droves,” they would want to get the answer to that particular question. So spending $50,000 to get the opinions of 50 people not in that demographic would be mostly a waste of money.
These things also have quotas and other hidden qualifiers so it may be that all female slots are already filled or you failed on some other qualifier that they don't want to tell anyone about and just said it's because you are a girl. Focus groups usually have a very specific question they are looking for an answer to and they go to great lengths to make sure that the people in the focus group don’t know what that question is.
yes it is for 18-28 year old males only. And the woman that called back... hehe dont' you love that it was a woman that was doing the call backs for the group...... told me that this discussion group was not for women. It has nothing to do with me failing anything or not being quailfied it was simply because I am female. I answered all her questions on behalf of my husband since he was at work and all of my answers save my 2nd favorite genre of gameswould have beenthe same. But I was never asked. The first thing she told me when she called for my husband, and I explained that we had both submitted our names, was that this group discussion was not for women that it was only for men from 18-28.
The focus of this discussion is not whya specific demographic isleaving. If it was I would understand them wanting to speak to a specific group of people that fall into a relevant statistical category because they were trying to find out information about that specific demographic. This discussion group is listed as a discussion on future expansions and things we'd like to see introduced to the game.
"We will be holding discussion groups (2 hours in length) in Santa Clara, CA for you to consider ideas for the next Galaxies expansion pack and to give us your opinions about what you want to play in the future!"
With this focus I don't see why women are being excluded. Are we not intitled to give our opinions on the future of our game? And then they have the audacity to say that all of the San Francisco\Bay Area is welcome.
Just so that we are perfectly clear I do not blame SoE for this in anyway they have no control over Neilson.
ObiQuixote thank you for making that link for me I guess my permissions don't allow it yet.
Lesa Starstrider - Gorath
They shouldn't NEED to focusgroup. They can see our play habits, what we do and do not enjoy in real time, there is no need to poll.
Just a database query would do it, then pick some samples at random (or by demographic) and then ask the player for consent to contact them and do a survey, and give each of them some sort of reward (say 2 months free).
I just don't see any need for this whatsoever when SOE/Lucas could simply do something like that.
Message Edited by wildcat84 on 08-29-2005 06:51 PM
LM wrote:My guess is that they HAVE determined that a certain demographic (the one they have chosen for the focus group) is leaving in droves and they want to stem that flow and/or they can't seem to attract that demographic.If that is NOT the case, than LucasArts/SOE and Nielsen are making a terrible mistake not including women in this focus group, since at least 1/3 of the people I play with happen to be women -- so I bet this game is made up of at least 20% females. (Actually, I'd like to know if they know the percentage and how they determine that). AND -- this demographic (female) is one that the gaming industry has not yet fully exploited.I think we need to hear an answer from someone at SOE and/or LucasArts on this.
My guess is that you are probably right on, that the focus of this focusgroup is to see why male players are leaving, or to see what it is that they like.
I think you are a little off on how many actual women play the game. My guild has a handful, but not nearly 20%, and not even 5%. The ones that we do have are dedicated, hardcore MMO players. And yes, SWG definately has an older population than do most MMO's. I'd say the average age of my guild is definately over 25, and middle 30's isn't uncommon, but even that may not be representative, as we were started by older players, and naturally, tended to gravitate towards inviting those most like us
In this day and age, no one in their right mind would discriminate against women in that kind of manner. I gurarantee that the reason why they aren't part of this focusgroup is that the questions they want answered revolve around male players.
If I had to guess, I think the focus group is going to be finding out what SWG is missing that causes male players to pick WoW over it. Since WoW is the king of the hill, naturally SOE would be interested in improving how we attract players against it.
- I wish all girlfriends would understand games and not give you a beasting for playing them all the time.