In this post, i’m going to share a survey i put out on Various gaming forums and i will explain the results as we go along. Firstly, be aware that this survey was a quick one. The gamers that look at forums get surveys like this all the time, and have a habit of trolling the long ones or just leaving them. Keeping it short and sweet helped itself, as people feel more inclined to do something kill a short amount of time.
So without further ado – the Results!
Firstly, the survey asks the Sex of the participant. This immediately splits the results down the middle, and we can see the majority of which gender plays the most games.
As you can see, the results came out at a good 2/3rds male 1/3 female. Unfortunately, one person answered the “Prefer not to say.” We can assume that this person is either an internet ‘troll’ or is simply uncomfortable with revealing the information
The next question asked was where they lived, and while the country itself was a requirement for the survey, participants had free choice in if they wanted to add more data and specifics to their answer.
Because this was the first variable question ( Where participants wrote and didn’t select from a checklist ) the answers vary. As we go through the survey itself, this will be a repetitive pattern and we can utilise this to our advantage. Survey monkey gives the capability of being able to see an individuals answers. So we can specifically see what this persons opinion are and if they are reflected in their age, sex, or style of writing. This is a good form of Qualitive information, while if we just go for statistics, its Quantative.
As you can see, the responses varied in terms of both writing, grammar and detail. The answers vary from a good amount of detail whilst others write minimalistic answers that may not be entirely serious.
Either way, we can use this.
Next was asking about the Age gaps. Typically most people go for intervals of 10, however i prefer to do it in intervals of 5. Its personal in this case really, however there actual reasons to go with certain intervals over others, i just so happened to use this one.
The information shows the the minimum of people that have responded are of the age of 16. This means we can all safely assume that everyone that took this survey has left school and has either gone and done more education or has gone into immediate working. Its interesting to see that the majority of players are of the 16-20 year old , while the next in line is of the 26-30. This could indicate that during the 21-25 mark, people are looking for jobs or are generally busier, and when they have settled down between 26 and 30, they have slightly more time. This is theoretical and obviously cannot be guaranteed, but when doing audience research we are making stereotypes, and typically that is the order of how things go.
The other age categories saw very little activity, this could indicate families or just n interest in playing it, however the 46-50 skyrocketed above the 21-25 age range. Maybe this indicates people of that age really enjoy spending time on games?
Similar to the age range, we now compare the age range and see if our data and theories where correct.
As you can see, either people spend very little time on it during the week, or they spend quite a lot of their time on games.
So what can we do to prove our theory about the ages? We can look at the individual responses!
When looking at the individual response, we can easily see the specifics. Here is a female that is of an age between 26-30 and lived in Southern Norway untill she moved to California where she has been residing for the last three years. She plays between 16-20 hours of games a week, which is one of the higher numbers. She even met her husband on there? Surely violent video games cannot achieve this?
Apparently they can.
So the next question asks ‘What type of game do you play’, and left it to the participants discretion for details. The results were great, indicting that certain people had a wide variety of genres and play-styles. One respondent talks of Non consensual PVP and Griefing. This is basically being horrible to other players by the means of trying to make the game harder for them or fighting them without their consent, usually resulting in the victims demise. People get a buzz from this and it isn’t surprising, why do it in real life if you can be an ass over the internet? Some answers were very short or only included one game or genre, and we can associate these answers with the people who spend the least amount of time gaming.
Next up: 
Immediately we see responses that go for and against, only strengthening the fact that gaming and violence within gaming can really fluctuate opinions between people. In this post, respondents answered with a majority ‘Yes’, however the influence is spoken of being quite good. Factually, video games are proven to help with hand eye co-ordination among other things, but a respondent tells of increased awareness and patience from playing video games. However one also commented on the matter of the violence being bad, saying that it could inflict damage upon the person playing the games or people around them. This is not a fact, but a possibility that has been harshly concluded with little evidence.
For now, let me leave you with this interesting link.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/noah-crooks-boy-13-killed-1868899
Media Fort 
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