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Serious Games: A Serious Opportunity for Respondent Fun

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Games as a source of research innovation were a popular topic at The NewMR Virtual Festival. For instance, check out “Gamifying surveys – continue or quit?” for Brian Tarran’s recap of Tom Ewing’s presentation “Game On”. Brian Fine, CEO of Australia Online Research, kicked off the day’s discussion of games with his presentation, “’Serious Games’ has a place in future MR”.

Serious games are a genre of games where the primary purpose is something other than entertainment: for instance, training, education, marketing and simulating real world events. “To date most serious games are for education and training, but market research could be part of the next wave,” said Brian.

What would be the goals of using serious games? To improve response rates and engagement levels. Traditional surveys have low response rates among 18 to 24 year olds, for instance; “river” recruitment needs to engage potential respondents in new ways.

Serious games seem especially suited to researching youth. “Kids learn by trying and making mistakes. Their brains are making patterns, and learning to analyze patterns,” said Brian. “Playing a game exercises your brain until you master the pattern: once you master it, then it becomes boring. The real challenge is when you are always at the edge of your ability.”

For examples of the serious games market researchers should aspire to, Brian gave some common and uncommon examples:

• Second Life – “Though waning in popularity,” Brian said, “one interesting phenomenon is Second Life, with its virtual landscapes, some based on cities, some fictional. It’s a place for people to explore, organize, meet people, even fall in love. Players can portray themselves like comic characters or can create an avatar that is realistic.”
• Darfur is Dying – We go from life to death, with Darfur is Dying, a game designed to build awareness of the experience of 2.5 million refugees in Sudan. The player’s goal is to keep the simulated refugee camp functioning in the face of possible militia attacks.
• Peacemaker – Next we go from war to the possibilities of peace. Peacemaker is another “game for change”, enabling players to take the role of either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president. Settings range from calm, tense or violent, and show you virtual news events using real news footage. Will you bring the region into disaster or win the Nobel Peace Price?
• America’s Army – The next serious game that Brian covered was designed to encourage military recruitment:  America’s Army provides an authentic military experience, from deployment to different missions.
• FoldIt – The FoldIt game encourages players to “solve puzzles for science”. The number of ways  to fold a protein is infinite, and among those infinite possibilities may be proteins to help in the fight of diseases such as HIV and cancer. The game takes advantage of human puzzle solving capabilities to identify possible proteins for scientists to test.
• Re-Mission – From fighting cancer in the future, we move to fighting cancer now. The game Re-Mission is designed to help improve the quality of life of young people with chronic illness. The game offers patients health information and has 20 missions to choose from.

So these are not the types of games we typically think of. How can market research include games? One way is for surveys to adopt more engaging, more game-like user interfaces. Another opportunity is to embed games within surveys: such games would need to be short, of course, given the setting. For instance, one “game” that could fit within a survey is to incorporate a prediction market. Researchers would need to be aware of the potential bias that such game-enabled interfaces might provide. However, serious games present an opportunity for researchers to experiment and—yes—play!