Wednesday 17 February 2016

Personality test and target audience



Myers Briggs is a way of breaking broke people's personality's into 16 different types. This is determined with four key aspects with have two opposite: 1. Extroverted Vs. Introverted.  2. Intuitive Vs. Observant. 3. Thinking Vs. Feeling. 4. Judging Vs. Prospecting. With these 8 different aspects there are worked out like the image below. Where the outcome is determined by which one you choose in the 4 layers. 





 (Cunningham, 2012)


 When I first took the test (on 16 personalities)first back in the summer. I got 'the campaigner' ENFP . which is Extroversion, intuition, feeling and  perceiving. This is what I got
Extraverted: 76%, Intuitive: 77%, Feeling: 80%, Prospecting: 93%, Assertive: 65%.

But when I did it again I got this: 
Extraverted: 76%, Intuitive: 83%, Feeling: 82%, Prospecting: 96%, Assertive: 71%. 
This shows that this personality test isn't dependent on the person's mood but accurate  on their personality. Personality tests like this can be used to understand what game would an individual better. 



I did another personality test which showed a number of different characteristics of my personality. Esspecially strengths and weaknesses which should be a good indication of what type of games I would be good at and not so good at 





















(Seemypersonality.com, 2016a)

Big five personality test is another form way of determining what type of personal an individual is. In the image below it shows the five areas the a person is judged on. It is with percentage of that area which tells how open they are, how agreeable they are est. So someone with a low percentage with extrovert is more of an introvert and someone who is really open has a high percentage of openness. 





(Dr. Schofield, K.2013)
For myself I this is my result:


(Seemypersonality.com,2016b)



Now focusing on a personality test that looks at what type of gamer are you. Bartle test has types of player: the Killer, the Achiever, the Social and the Explorer. So using the results I got form Myers Briggs and five personalities. Being an extrovert I most have more social skills to be the social player, then I have a high percentage of Intuitive so be an explorer player being that I could use my intuitive for where to go next and not be so observant which would be more of an achiever. Then looking at my strengths which say "always stay cool" and "always calm and balance" so a killer be less likely as I wouldn't  be competitive.   



(MMORPG.com,2015)


Learning there are many different aspects of people's personalities to consider and how that affect what they would want to game. When designing a game it is an idea to understand what type of individual you are designing for? Are they Extroverts who enjoy playing with others? Are they they thinkers who enjoy working out and achieving puzzles. Are your player have an openness to enjoy experiencing new culture and exploring new lands. Personality has a key part to play in a game as you don't want to design a game that won't suit your target audience. 


One of the important parts of any product design is to understand who your audience is. For games the producers need to understand who they are panning to sell their game to. The demographic of the audience which breaks the population into category of a subject like race, age, gender, income est.  So with gender there is three categories male, female and other. For age that can be: toddlers, kids, teens, young adults, middle age, old age.   Knowing your target audience effects all aspects of the development of a game: pre-production planning, pitching, production of game and advertisement. The main goal of the game producers and publishers is to make the game sell- able. If the target audience isn't know then  how can the game be suited any audience? How  would the advertisers sell the game?  It is important because when designing a game you have to think of "player-centric design, you test every design decision against your hypothetical representative player to be sure that the decision helps to entertain your target audience." (Adams, E. and Rollings, A.2014)




(Userreport.com, 2016)


Socio economic group: When companies need to understand what target market to appeal to they have to get research “agencies divide the population into different grouping” (Socio-Economic Group?. 2014). I subject companies have to look at his  Socio economic group. This is where researching They divide the population by their occupation; the categories are in the table below. This helps market agencies to draw comparisons between the different groups and create a produce that would be suitable to that group.  For example in the fashion industry it is very clear which market they are going for; places like primark is more affordable and less higher standards which is suited to social grade E to C . Whereas HarveyNichols would sell to group A of the social grade. In the game market it is less based on social grade than fashion market but the newly release AAA games will be targeted at social grades A to B. Whereas free to play games on Facebook like Farmvile will be suited to the lower grades like D and E. Consoles and computers are a big part to this socio economic group. A high end gaming PC are extremely expensive with someone on the lower social grade wouldn't have to money to afford such a thing. Whereas consoles are normally targeted at people who are earning less money the price of a console is even suited to someone who is grade C.



Age: This stereotype is so often used in media; with games, films and shows. It can be very obvious what’s the  target audience’s age just by the colours and topics of that produce. Game companies often make the cover art suitable for their target audience like the two pictures below. Games for a younger audience like the ‘Lego Movie Video Game’ often have brighter colour, rounder shapes with a light hearted theme and are easier. Whereas games likes ‘MadWorld’ which is for a more mature audience have less colour, more violents, sharper edges and darker themes.

Psychographics:  Psychographics looks at people differently than demographics. Where demographics look at: age, race, regional and Socio economic group. Psychographics looks at personality, attitudes and lifestyle. The best way to do this is by looking at what people do in their spare time and making assumptions about them. For example someone may enjoy doing go-carting as a hobby; a researcher could assume that this person would like a high end racing game without being too car technical like Need for Speed or Forza. It’s a way of knowing what people like and how to make a game which will appeal to them.   

-The 4Cs table:  Young & Rubicam’s 4Cs This stands for "Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization" 
Young & Rubicam There Are Seven Kinds Of People In The World. 1st ed. London: Young & Rubicam, 2015. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.





The ESA: (entertainment software association) Research the statistics of video game market. They research stuff like which Gender, age and what plays do people play.  Esa statement is “ESA offers services to interactive entertainment software publishers, including conducting business and consumer research, providing legal and policy analysis and advocacy on First Amendment.” (The Entertainment Software Association,2015) This shows that the important of this research is to provide game companies and publishers the research to understand what is happening in the computer game market at the moment. This will help companies to target the right audience for their product to be a success. 

(entertainment software association,2015)






Bibliography


Userreport.com, (2016). Demographic profile data on people that visit your website | UserReport.com. [online] Available at: https://www.userreport.com/features/demographics/ [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].



16personalities.com, (2016). Free personality test, type descriptions, relationship and career advice | 16Personalities. [online] Available at: https://www.16personalities.com/ [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].

Adams, E. and Rollings, A. (2014). Fundamentals of game design. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, p.47.

Cunningham, L. (2012). Myers-Briggs: Does it pay to know your type?. [online] Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/myers-briggs-does-it-pay-to-know-your-type/2012/12/14/eaed51ae-3fcc-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].

Dr. Schofield, K. (2013). The Science Behind Personality Types. [online] Good&Co. Available at: http://good.co/blog/2013/03/11/the-science-behind-personality-types/ [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].

entertainment software association, (2015). 2015 sales,demographic and usage data. Essential facts about the computer and video game industry. [online] Washington, DC: entertainment software association, p.3. Available at: http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf [Accessed 19 Feb. 2016].

MMORPG.com, (2015). Which Bartle Personality Are You?. [online] Available at: http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/441784/which-bartle-personality-are-you [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].



Seemypersonality.com, (2016a). Take a Free Personality Test | See My Personality. [online] Available at: http://www.seemypersonality.com/#q1 [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].

Seemypersonality.com, (2016b). Take a Free Personality Test | See My Personality. [online] Available at: http://www.seemypersonality.com/#q1 [Accessed 18 Feb. 2016].

The Entertainment Software Association, (2015). The Entertainment Software Association. [online] Available at: http://www.theesa.com/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2016].

What is a Socio-Economic Group?. 2014. What is a Socio-Economic Group?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.marketresearchworld.net/content/view/2918/78/. [Accessed 18 Feb 2016].



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