If you’re feeling as if you’ve been in a bit of a video gaming recession this year, like certain genres have lost their appeal, you can blame the coronavirus pandemic. That’s the consensus in a new gamer motivation report, recently published by the gamer market research company Quantic Foundry.
The report, titled "COVID-19 Reduced Appeal of Challenge and Excitement in Gaming–But Only Marginally", was published on July 2nd on the QF website. QF saw how the COVID-19 pandemic was drastically affecting every aspect of our daily lives, and wondered what effects it was having on gamers when it comes to choosing the games we're playing during this time.
The primary conclusion QF found is that the appeal of playing challenging and exciting games changed the most, while the appeal of playing games focused on community and completion changed the least. These conclusions were derived by looking at Gamer Motivation Profile responses both pre- and post-pandemic.
According to the study, the Gamer Motivation Profile is QF’s “5-minute survey that allows gamers to get a personalized report of their gaming motivations, and see how they compare with other gamers.” The survey measures and statistically analyzes 12 gaming motivations and how they cluster together to show gamers what truly drives our gaming choices and playstyles.
For the study, QF first established a pre-COVID baseline period - from 1/1/2019 through 3/31/2020. Then they selected a post-COVID baseline period - from 4/1/2020 through 6/15/2020 - for comparison. The study was further controlled by precisely limiting the impact of gender, age, and casual/core/hardcore gamers, and by limiting the surveys selected to the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. This culminated in the study drawing on 45,277 pre-COVID surveys, and 10,810 post-COVID surveys.
QF discovered that, even with their largest sample size, changes in the appeal of Community (chatting, teamwork, social interaction) and Completion (collecting stars/trophies, completing quests/tasks, collecting collectibles) motivations were “not statistically significant”. This finding suggests that having to stay socially distant in meatspace has no real effect on gamers seeking out social interaction in our video games.
The study also unveiled what has changed in our gaming motivations is a decrease in playing games centered on Challenge (high difficulty, challenging bosses/missions, practice & mastery) and Excitement (fast-paced action, thrilling, adrenaline rush). However, these motivations diminished only slightly, but still enough to suggest that we’re currently more motivated to play less challenging and more relaxing video games.
You can read the full "COVID-19 Reduced Appeal of Challenge and Excitement in Gaming–But Only Marginally" report on the Quantic Foundry website, as well as discover your own Gamer Motivation Profile. If you’re interested in staying up to date on the motivational science of gamers, follow Quantic Foundry on Twitter.
Source: COVID-19 Reduced Appeal of Challenge and Excitement in Gaming–But Only Marginally