The Gothenburg Gaming Survey

Dear r/aoe2,

My name is Theo Toresson and I am a student of Science in Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden - currently writing my master’s thesis. The survey aims to gain understanding of the different aspects of gaming that affects psychological well-being. The survey will take about 10 minutes to complete. At the moment of writing, the survey has around 5000 replies, but I am lacking your community. I hope that as many of you (from the Age of Empires-community) as possible want to help me by doing this survey, because in order to make something out of this I hope to get data from a broad variety of gamers. That means that even if you have a different game that you currently play more, I am interested in you anyway. Also, you should feel free to post this survey anywhere there might be gamers - to friends or on forums, twitch, twitter facebook etc. So if you have a few minutes to spare in between games, use it for this survey - it's for (actual) science. Thank you for your time!

LINK TO SURVEY: https://samgu.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2rvhBqqSVrTycC1

All the best, Theo Toresson, Master of Science in Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

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FAQ:

I have received a few questions and comments on the survey. I can’t change anything in the survey due to the fact that it would corrupt the data. Please refer to the FAQ below should any confusion occur during or after the survey.

What counts as “my most played game” in the survey?

It’s the game you chose on the first question, your most played game in the last month.

I live in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Hong Kong, Faroe Islands or United Kingdom – where is my country?

The list is lacking a few countries. You can choose any country on the list as long as you make sure to specify the correct country in the very last question of the survey. If you live in England, Scotland or Wales, please select Great Britain.

What kind of device is Nintendo Switch? And what if I play my most played game on both console and computer?

Choose the way you play the game the most. Switch can count as either portable device or console, answer according to your most frequent type of usage.

You ask for streaming, but what about Youtube and other sites for non-streaming video content related to gaming?

Use the “other”-alternative on the question about gaming related activities and fill in your preferred alternative in the corresponding box. For the content to count as “streaming” in the other questions of the survey however it has to be live (e.g. live on Twitch, Mixer or Youtube LIVE).

Some genres are unrepresented, for example fighting games, what can I do?

Use the “other”-alternative and fill in your favorite genre in the corresponding box if it’s missing.

You ask for money spent on games each week, but I only buy one game each month, is my spending 0?

No. Calculate your weekly expenditure by dividing your monthly by four, for example.

How can you know that my mental and physical health is related in any way to my gaming?

I can’t. Your hand injury might be because of an accident you had yesterday. You should still fill in the box, because even if I can’t see the underlying causes of your health (as an individual), I can analyze it on a group level and look for patterns among thousands of replies. If there is no connection between a particular way of gaming and a particular mental or physical state, I won’t find any connection. There is no need to worry that you’re messing up the data! So try to be as honest as possible in the survey, even if you know that your state is not related to your gaming.

The questions in the end seem focused on the negative side of gaming. What is your motive?

I am a gamer myself, and have been for all my life. I have had several amazing experiences with games, and also a few bad ones. Gaming has many positive effects, there is research to support that. For a minority of people, gaming can have negative effects (just like alcohol, work, sex, candy, exercise, therapy, TV, horseback riding or really anything that can be enjoyable). This particular study is done to explore correlations (not causality) between different kinds of gaming, social and mental health problems (I myself work as a therapist, therefore my focus). Neither I (the author) nor the institution is biased towards gaming in general in an either positive or negative way.

Will I get to see the results?

Yes. The thesis will be in Swedish, but I will post a summary of the results in all subreddits that have been participating in the study, most likely sometime in June 2018.

What is your favorite game?

No one has actually asked me this, but for the record it’s Super Smash Bros. Melee!

I have more questions!

Feel free to send an email to gustoreth@student.gu.se and I will get back to you as soon as possible.