Computer Gaming Documentary research

Documentary Research

I have done quite a bit of secondary research into the issue of whether computer games have an impact on people. Here are some of the main findings:

In 2009 the gaming industry made $10.5 billion 

40% of all gamers are female

60% of all gamers are male

http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp

This is a documentary that I want my 3 minute wonder to be like as it focuses on some of the issues that I want to explore. e.g. the popularity of gaming and why people game. It also has the different types of gamers that are in society. e.g. hardcore and casual gamers.

In this article It discuses some of the ways in which bad health is caused by games. The article is mostly focused on how games affect mental health.

In this article it argues how computer games have a positive affect on us. E.g. This includes making our reaction times faster and it can also raise the players self esteem. This will help me with my documentary as it prevents it from being bias. I also saw that the two documentary's that are on channel 4 have between 1 and 2 million people watching them at the time. This time is also set when 3 minute wonders are placed which gives me an idea of the scale of audience I am targeting.

I have also found gaming sites dedicated to computer games. They keep people updated on the latest gaming news. I also went on to gaming forums online were game fans discussed issues on gaming. On games spot there were discussions on the future of gaming and how much more popular it could get. This was another form of primary research I did.

The first primary research I did was first a questionnaire on the website SmartSurvey to undertake audience research into whether my documentary idea was any good! I ask questions whether or not people were interested in gaming and whether or not they would like to see a  computer gaming documentary. A number of people were interested in seeing a computer games documentary because it was something that they were familiar with as they take part in it a lot. For audience research I created a Pol around college to see if they felt that computer games had been contributing to any missed work or assignments. The response I got was that computer games had been a distraction for them and that it was contributing towards missed deadlines for work.

The second primary research I did was to look on games forums to see how people talked about video games and to see if there were any common attitudes to gaming and things like violence, health etc with gamers.  I also posted a questikon asking whether gamers themselves thought they spent too much time gaming and whether thety thought it affected their health. 

Lastly I did some market research into documentaries to see how many documentaries were on the TV schedules and what sort of topics they covered.  I lookef at Channel 4 schedules because C4 is where Three Minute Wonders are broadcaset.  I also looked at BARB viewing figures for documentaries.

There are many reasons in which people play computer games. Throughout the world there are mixed opinions on gaming. Within this documentary I will be researching these opinions on gaming while showing what people like in games via the game play.