I'm really happy with the amount of feedback I received on the surveys. While I am still waiting for the go-ahead to post the Viscera Cleanup survey on its relevant Subreddit, I'm not too worried if I don't get a response since the subreddit is a bit dead.
The Ooblets survey got 8 responses (as of 28/01/2021) the House Flipper survey got 48 responses. The Ooblets survey was posted on the Ooblets Discord and the House Flipper survey was posted on the House Flipper subreddit. I won't go over all the results, but instead, I'll pick out a few that were interesting to me.
GENDER
The most surprising result for me was the gender demographics. Even though Reddit has a mainly male userbase (which I was conscious of impacting the results) 73.5% of participants of the House Flipper survey were female.
CONSOLES
Pretty much all users primarily used a PC, but the second most common way to play games was on a Nintendo Switch. I did forget to add a mobile option, and only 1 user on each survey wrote it down as an "other" option. I should have included this option, but I overlooked it as we hadn't discussed releasing Moppit on mobile or even if the game would be suitable for mobile.
Xbox and Playstation consoles scored about the same at 34%. While in the future we could consider releasing on these consoles, I think it's more appropriate to focus on a PC and Switch release.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Hopefully, the social media results will help us when it comes to marketing. Excluding the obvious Reddit results from the House Flipper survey, Youtube(78% approx) and Instagram(69% approx) were the highest used social media platforms. Twitter and Facebook coming in after at around 50% of respondents. This is in line with the platforms we had intended to use, but it's reassuring to see our choices backed up in the survey. While Twitter didn't rank as high as I had expected, it is still a good platform to connect with other game developers and shouldn't be overlooked.
RUN, RELAXATION AND WELLBEING
The top 2 results for reasons for playing games were fun and relaxation. This is really promising as these qualities are part of our intended user experience. I wish I had included an exploration answer as this is also core to our game, but I'm happy that according to the survey results we've found a similar audience for our game.
I think that by choosing to play games that were fun and relaxing, this may have contributed to why people found video games positively impacted their mental health. About 77% of House Flipper respondents found that video games had helped their mental health during COVID lockdowns, and 75% of Ooblets respondents.
Wellbeing may be something to look into as a team. As COVID lockdowns in the UK and elsewhere continue to extend, mental health issues continue to be an issue. Anecdotally, while most of my introverted friends have dealt with lockdowns fairly well (not much really changed if you never went out in the first place), my extroverted friends have struggled. In this article, 69% of adults in the UK report being worried about the effects of COVID on their lives. 63% worry about the future and 56% report feeling anxious or worried. I wonder if there are other ways that we can help promote wellbeing other than creating a relaxing experience.
LINKS
Here are the links to the surveys and where I posted them:
House Flipper Questionnaire posted on Reddit:
Having to ask the Mods on VisceraCleanUp Detail if it's ok to post a survey
viscera cleanup detail survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16qE4LfbTtTjPV_kqX3tW6mvA13afYkgNFyjhB7LChck/edit
Newt posted the Ooblets survey to the discord