So having got a number of people to do my surveys, I've got the majority back and, as I said before, I found it kind of intriguing what people said. I've compiled it into quantitative research, gathering statistical data reflecting whether they felt involved with the culture of their characters.
Aside from only half of the favourite characters being the main character, only 45% of them were game characters. So oddly enough, people seem to prefer passive characters, even when it came to the game characters. Again, this makes me think about what I was talking about with the other half the other day. Maybe for some people that involvement in assuming the role of a character makes it easier to relate to other characters in the game, rather than the playable character who is just a digital avatar of themselves. Of course, this is an assumption I am making based upon what I have read and gathered from my survey thus far. It is still something to take into consideration.
Interestingly enough, I was surprised by the majority answers given when it came to the impact of culture on their characters and them as players.
These four charts show the ratios for whether culture is important in games, the impact of it, the depth it gives characters and whether people picked up on any sort of culture.
Almost everyone stated that yes, culture is important in games, however less than half agreed that it had a significant impact on them as a player. It seemed to be an even split for those who felt they could partly relate because of their characters culture, versus thought who didn't. From a quantitative point of view the large majority see the value in culture, and are able to recognize a prominent culture however the impact on the players appears to be minimal. Over half of the answers given were no that there was no significant impact.
While results show that culture helps to give depth to characters, it didn't particularly add to the character-player relation, more that it helped with character and story development.
Although, to look at it from a qualitative point of view, there were various reasons as to why people said yes or no to these questions. One person stated that actually yes, a character with culture enough to give it depth makes them more relatable because of their values and simply because of the depth of the character - portraying enough attributes on a general basis that the player could relate to.
On the contrary, another said that culture has very little to do with the relation between player and character because it is far more to do with the characters experiences and stress, situations with which players can familiarize. However these situations and moments of stress often happen due to the characters values and actions, which often stem from the character's cultural background, real or fiction.
If I was to draw a conclusion from my current data, from this first survey at any rate, I would say that it is the sub-culture that people seem to be drawn too more than anything like a character's nationality (only a few people really mentioned anything like nation or race) and that where culture appears to affect people most is through the character's actions, personalities, values, mindset and even skill-set - inner attributes as opposed to any physical aspects.
This is intriguing to me given that it doesn't correlate with what I've researched from books regarding storytelling through the character's physical design.
Although, I've yet to analyse the second survey that touched more on marketability.
Almost everyone stated that yes, culture is important in games, however less than half agreed that it had a significant impact on them as a player. It seemed to be an even split for those who felt they could partly relate because of their characters culture, versus thought who didn't. From a quantitative point of view the large majority see the value in culture, and are able to recognize a prominent culture however the impact on the players appears to be minimal. Over half of the answers given were no that there was no significant impact.
While results show that culture helps to give depth to characters, it didn't particularly add to the character-player relation, more that it helped with character and story development.
Although, to look at it from a qualitative point of view, there were various reasons as to why people said yes or no to these questions. One person stated that actually yes, a character with culture enough to give it depth makes them more relatable because of their values and simply because of the depth of the character - portraying enough attributes on a general basis that the player could relate to.
On the contrary, another said that culture has very little to do with the relation between player and character because it is far more to do with the characters experiences and stress, situations with which players can familiarize. However these situations and moments of stress often happen due to the characters values and actions, which often stem from the character's cultural background, real or fiction.
If I was to draw a conclusion from my current data, from this first survey at any rate, I would say that it is the sub-culture that people seem to be drawn too more than anything like a character's nationality (only a few people really mentioned anything like nation or race) and that where culture appears to affect people most is through the character's actions, personalities, values, mindset and even skill-set - inner attributes as opposed to any physical aspects.
This is intriguing to me given that it doesn't correlate with what I've researched from books regarding storytelling through the character's physical design.
Although, I've yet to analyse the second survey that touched more on marketability.
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