So let me get this right.
We are commenting on an article; that was written based on another article; that wrote the OG article to sell research data. What the actual f***.
I am in the wrong line of business, if all it takes to make money is to throw up some bullshit bar graphs and convince people that I conducted actual scientific research. Nothing in the OG article made claims about how the research was gathered. Nothing in the OG article convinced me this was nothing more than BS pandering.
Snippets from the article
DEFINITIONS
Gamer: People who play games on a mobile device, console, and/or PC.
Mobile: This includes a mobile (smart) phone, iPod Touch, iPad, or any other tablet or mobile device.
Console: This includes Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, DS, PSP, and other consoles.
PC: This includes PC games that can be downloaded from websites or services such as Steam or purchased as a boxed product (CD/DVD), but also games played in a browser.
How much we want to bet the data was cherry picked? How much we want to bet the data was skewed to formats favored by women? How much we want to bet the responses were aimed at platforms/game communities that catered to "diverse & inclusive" groups. Just look at some of the quotes they picked out for their article.
- “It’s male-dominated and designed for male minds.’’ – straight Caucasian woman (age 41) talking about a FPS title.
- “The protagonists of the game tend to be dominated by males and the online gaming community of this franchise tends to follow suit.” –straight Asian woman (age 28) talking about an adventure title.
- “Seeing game companies paying attention to social movements lets me know they are listening.” (Straight Asian woman – age 26)
- “So we know that the game supports the rights of its players and wants change too.’’ (Straight black man – age 19)
- “They have a broad reach into society, and they create worlds and characters that can represent so much more than they currently do.’’ (LGBQ+ Caucasian woman with a disability – age 22)
That last quote hit three checkboxes in a single response. Damn did they circle-jerk at that person or what? Almost had that victimhood-pyramid peak respondent but missed the minority checkbox. pffft.
What triggers me about this type of crap. It masquerades as scientifically sound data results without providing actual data. People must eat this shit up if they are willing to regurgitate an article verbatim.
www.gamesindustry.biz