Unit 3 - Research Methods: 2016

Primary-

Primary research is personal research you've done yourself, gone out of your way to record statistics and/or discover new data. This could be interviews, focus groups, questionnaires or any other forms of data collection techniques, as long as you've gone out of your way to find statistics on a question or topic that hasnt been researched. There are special job positions for people who can do this type of reseach as quickly and efficiently as possible.

An example of this would be the website Cannotbetaimed.com is a gaming blog that reviews games, talks about the latest news and streams video games. One of the lables at the top of the website is a questionnaire, it asks many questions like "Who is your favourite game protagonist?" and "What future releases are you most excited about?"

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_research

http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/food-standards-agency/market-research-and-consumer-protection/primary-and-secondary-research.html#axzz4S3Yqpwn9

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/559/

https://www.thebalance.com/differences-primary-and-secondary-research-2296908

Secondary-

Secondary research (also known as desk research) is information that has already been found and/or researched, then released publicly. This type of research can include public records, research papers or the internet. There are businesses that focus on gathering data on a large range of

Sources:
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/food-standards-agency/market-research-and-consumer-protection/primary-and-secondary-research.html#axzz4S3Yqpwn9
https://www.thebalance.com/differences-primary-and-secondary-research-2296908

Quantitative Questions -

Quantitative questions focus on the statistics, for example “rate this item 1-10” or “tell us the number of times you’ve used this product”. They are used by companies to find out which of their products is more liked or what part of their product is not used as much as expected. It means that consumers get the products made the way they want and the company gets more sales. It is also used in game testing, it shows game developers what parts of the game players enjoyed and what parts were too difficult or boring. Survey sites like Survey Money or Qualtrics exist where you can easily set up a Quantitative quiz that people can fill in.

Sources:
http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?site=pc

Qualitative Questions -

Qualitative Questions focus on the person’s opinions and critiques. Questions like “What do you like best about the product” and “If you could change one thing about the product what would it be?” are considered Qualitative Questions because they have nothing to do with statistics. There are websites for products that list information and data about them, these websites have a comment section where anyone can give their opinion and if they recommend it or not. This gives companies a more detailed description of what their consumers want but this it requires people to spend their time writing reviews and the comany spends their time reading through them.

Sources:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/no-man-s-sky-review

Market Research -

Market research focuses on a united effort to discover the likes and dislikes of the consumer so that companies can target and sell more products. Qualitive and quantitive are both part of market research. If you search for a gaming pc on eBay then google can remember your search and tailor their adds so that you see more advertisements for computers than normal, this is one way that companies can find out more about what you've looking for and can then try to sell you their products.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/business/marketing/marketresearchrev3.shtml
http://southernweb.com/2013/03/how-do-some-banner-ads-follow-me/

Audience Research -

Audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on a specific audience to find out information about their knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviours while keeping their research legal and non intrusive. Audience research focuses on finding how a project can be made so the target audience purchases it, this is done so a company can build up a fanbase of people who like simmilar things to the entity the company is selling.

Examples of this can be found at - http://www.slideshare.net/lizmedia/target-audience-research-example

INTRODUCTION

Mario. Sonic.

“SEGA does what Nintendon’t!”

“Nintendo is what Genesisn’t.”

The giants of the 90’s, battling for fame and glory. In a time like this, two men by the names of Arjan Brussee and Cliff Bleszinski had a breakthrough, after many sleepless nights coding away at their trusty computers, getting a small team together and working their hardest and pushing themselves to the max they had created one of the most recognisable platformer on the DOS. Released in 1994, the game became a big hit as the shareware version spread around, people from all over the world were playing as the crazy and cocky green rabbit.

There were several expansion packs both based around the holiday setting. The fantastic success the game brought Arjan and Cliff made them get started on a sequel under the name of Jazz Jackrabbit 2, they worked unrelentlessly to make the sequel a game twice as great as the original but alas it was met with poor sales, only managing to pump out one main expansion before it was abandoned for good, even with its bad sales it grew a cult following and is still an enjoyable game the runs perfectly on modern computers.

In the late 90s to early 2000s there was a large trend of 2D platformers transitioning to 3D, there was Super Mario 64, Sonic Adventure and many other great games, Jazz jackrabbit was no stranger to testing the waters and a 3D jazz jackrabbit game was in development, sadly it was not meant to be. The game was cancelled due to Epic not being able to find a publisher despite the large amount of interest for the game.

The most recent Jazz jackrabbit game was released on the Game Boy Advance, it was named “Jazz jackrabbit” but most people refer to it as “Jazz Jackrabbit Advance” or “JJGBA”. The game was met with backlash from the fans due to the change of characters and story yet most admit to purchasing it only to support the Jazz Jackrabbit franchise.

The developers of Jazz Jackrabbit have stated that the Amiga game named Zool was inspiration for them during the early stages of Development, I will study this game and see if the developers have followed in it’s footsteps or if they’ve branched off from it and done their own thing.

MARKET RESEARCH

Jazz Jackrabbit was first released as “Shareware”, this meant that the first level/world of a game would be released for free and at the end they would be told that to continue they need to order (yeah, you needed to contact the developers and send them money for the game, then you would get the game sent to you, all over mail) this was a clever way of peaking the player’s interest and making them want to buy and continue playing, this type of marketing turned into the more modern practice of making free demos people can download and play.

The game was once sold on a website called “epicclassics.com” sadly this website seems to have disappeared and can no longer be accessed, after its shutdown the game was officially marked as “abandonware” meaning that you can’t officially purchase the game from the developers any more. By using the wayback machine I can find out that Jazz jackrabbit was sold for $25.00.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and Jazz jackrabbit Advance both met the same fate, the games sold horribly due to lack of advertising and hype, due to this finding a sealed copy of the games is almost impossible (if you don’t feel like selling your kidneys that is), the advance games can go from $50 to $100 and a sealed copy of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 can cost you an insane $200! Originally the Jazz jackrabbit 2 went for $29.99 depending on where you purchased it. Jazz Jackrabbit 3 had little to no advertising, if it did end up being finished it would probably have been a commercial flop like the second and advance games.

In December of 2010 Development kits were released for the iOS Unreal Engine, one of the tutorials featured was how to develop a top down twin shooter, curiously the main character featured in this tutorial was a stylised Jazz, even if this was just a tutorial it shows that Jazz Jackrabbit is still on people’s minds, hopefully we might see a continuation in the future, perhaps a remake of Jazz Jackrabbit 1?

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

After the release of Jazz Jackrabbit 1 it became a classic dos platformer, if people were discussing old dos platformer games you could bet jazz jackrabbit will be mentioned with a fond smile. The game was released during the Nintendo vs. Sega war and managed to pull in the interest of children who didn’t own a console but wanted to play a game with fun platforming like Mario or fast paced thrill rides like the ones in Sonic games.

The sequel to the first game released in the year 1998, It followed Jazz jackrabbit along with his brother Spaz trying to get back Jazz’s wedding ring, even with the improvement in graphics, music and gameplay it went over the radar of many potential players due to little to no advertisement. The game is still played on dedicated servers and has its own website where fans can talk and share news. People hold this game in high regard, making maps, sharing tips and having a great time even after all these years.

Jazz Jackrabbit on the Game Boy Advance was the black sheep of the series, while a perfectly fine game it was missing something, from the generic enemies and music to the metroidvania style gameplay, that feeling that made jazz the game everyone loved was absent. Fans of the series felt indifferent to its release, some reviewed the game and gave it middle of the road ratings, people brought it to support future jazz games but it never stuck in peoples mind and is barely spoken of these days.

PRODUCTION RESEARCH

The first Jazz jackrabbit game was developed by Arjan Brussee in the Netherlands and Cliff Bleszinski in California. They worked to create a video game inspired by the Zool on the Amiga computer system, a colourful and energetic platforming game. It was developed and published under the name of Epic MegaGames for the MS-DOS in May 3rd of 1994. It had several expansions, from extra holiday themed episodes to completely new worlds to play through. In 1995 the magazine “PC Format” named Jazz jackrabbit the “Arcade Game of the Year”.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 was released April 13th of 1998, worked on by Arjan Brussee, Cliff Bleszinski and several other people, one of which was the artist who worked on the first and second Jazz Jackrabbit game, Nick Stadler. The artist discussed several things during his times being interviewed, in 1997 he was asked what his influence was, he was stated saying “Obviously Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario.” And “Sonic really turned me on to the whole potential of video game development, since he was really the first video game hero who had some personality in his animation. “ He discussed the tool he used to make the art called “Deluxe 2 Animator” and how it took him the entirety of Jazz jackrabbit 1 to get used to the program.

In 2010 another interview was hosted, in this one Nick Stadler was asked what he thinks about Jazz Jackrabbit 2 still being popular after all these years, his response was “The games are fun as hell, and Cliff and Arjan’s work in making the game as pleasurably addictive, as well as Robert Allen and Alexander Brandon’s painfully catchy music, was always enough to keep us all coming back to it again and again while we were in development hell.” And “I wanted a genuine environment that would make sense visually. Cliff was all about making a game that was all about the game. He wanted to develop mazes with secrets and puzzles and everything else”. These interviews show how much love and work was put into the games, the developers worked close to make sure the game was fun to play and could last a century, a goal that was definitely achieved.