knowledgebase
{ online research }
marketingnews
02.15.09
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BY DEBORAH L. VENCE//FREELANCE writer
MATT PENFIELD, ASSOCIATE BRAND MANAGER FOR SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT; AND JEN DROLET, VICE PRESIDENT OF CLIENT AND MODERATING SERVICES AT IMODERATE, AN ONLINE RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY COMPANY More consumers—particularly between the ages of 18 and 40—are spending their free time today in the world of virtual reality. In fact, the massively multiplayer online game industry (MMOG) takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in subscription revenue. By 2011, MMOG revenues across North America and Europe are expected to reach more than $1.5 billion, according to a March 2007 report by Screen Digest, a Londonbased company that specializes in news, research and statistics on film, cinema, television, video, cable and interactive media worldwide. To find out more about the interests and intent of devotees of the popular online roleplaying game EverQuest, Marketing News spoke with Matt Penfield and Jen Drolet about their research study, “How Sony Online Entertainment Uses One-On-Ones to Capture the Passion of Gamers,” which they presented at the American Marketing Association’s marketing research conference in September. The goal of the study, conducted in January 2008, was to help San Diego-based Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) determine customers’ interests in new business models and content offerings for the game, which was created in 1999. Q: What are the origins of this research? What prompted you to want to do this study? Penfield: What happened was that we had a lot of initiatives swirling around internally as far as marketing, but we didn’t have hard data. We needed a company that could react very quickly to set up an online survey that was quantitative, but that also captured qualitative elements. We knew a lot about certain types of customer behavior, but not a lot about perception or intent.
online research//kb
Q: Is this the first time Sony Online Entertainment has engaged in this type of research?
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Penfield: It’s the first time we’ve done a moderated chat about our primary content. In the past, feedback mechanisms have been mostly exit surveys. We asked people what they didn’t like about [the programs]. We also have used bulletin forums, where our player base lists their likes or dislikes or concerns. Q: Jen, can you go into more detail about the research you conducted for SOE? How did iModerate build the study and research questions based on what Sony Online was trying to achieve?
Drolet: The way iModerate worked is that we sat down at the beginning with SOE and they gave us a thorough understanding [about what they wanted to accomplish]. We looked at the qualitative design, [what they wanted to learn] from the sessions, and built a discussion around that. We crafted the qualitative discussion guide concurrent to the survey being developed. We made any final changes to the discussion guide once the quant instrument was approved and moved forward from there. We did monitor the quantitative findings in real time to ensure that we were capturing granular details surrounding the [main] issues. We had 1,000 respondents, 100 of whom participated in the iModerate chat sessions. We talked more specifically during those sessions, which were each about 30 minutes long. We used some answers from the quantitative surveys to help customize questions for the [qualitative] survey. It was a very literal discussion about what they liked or didn’t like. The conversations were robust and covered a lot of ground. The [respondents] clearly articulated how they felt about things. Q: Can you provide some examples of the types of questions that you asked in the qualitative research sessions? Drolet: We asked [respondents] to start out [by answering some] overarching questions, such as what do they enjoy most about playing EverQuest, what are their playing habits, how do they spend their time playing EverQuest? We went into why they do [certain things] specifically and how much they enjoy doing that. [We asked] about adding holiday events to enhance the game. Is that something that they [would want] added to the game for more enjoyment? Q: Matt, how have you used this research and what sorts of qualitative findings have you gotten from it? Penfield: What we were trying to do was find out what types of content would be most engaging for players. … We wanted to be smart in the creation process. We used iModerate to help us determine which [content] would gain the maximum amount of players. We proposed in a quantitative survey a half-dozen different directions to explore [with new content]. And then we wanted to get more feedback on that with the qualitative study, which gave us more insight. We used that to direct us to content that would have the biggest impact.
Q: What did the findings determine? Penfield: The most compelling piece was a surprising amount of interest and acceptance of micro-transactions—purchases that are self-contained in the game. So, I want to buy this potion and this spell for 99 cents. That was really compelling. We rolled out a new business model [from that information]. The other piece was the response to the type of frequency of content updates. Our specific business model called for annual content updates, so every 12 months we release a content update for a [certain] price point. There was feedback from people, though, that said they would want to receive quarterly content updates. Q: What did you do as a result of this feedback? What did you accomplish? Did you add or change anything to the EverQuest game? Penfield: A new program was born out of this research—the Living Legacy program for EverQuest and EverQuest II. [Living Legacy is a celebration of the millions of players who have played EverQuest in the last nine years with in-game events and promotions.] That has specific content that was basically inspired by responses to the quantitative and qualitative surveys. We targeted all former players of this game. And we sat down with the game developers and used specific information that was provided by the iModerate chat participants. We picked game zones and characters that had a high level of nostalgia and involvement and created content around those zones and characters. Also, [SOE] created a new micro-transaction program [that enables players to fund a virtual wallet, called Station Cash. Once a wallet has been funded, Station Cash can be used to purchase premium ingame items through the in-game marketplace in EverQuest and EverQuest II]. Q: Matt, overall, what would you say has been the biggest impact of your research? Penfield: The Living Legacy win-back promotion had significant revenue implications. And I would say that this was a specific study that kicked off a lot of internal activity regarding consumer research and provided a lot of benchmarks that we’re still using as we refine customer relationships. m Deborah L. Vence is a freelance writer based outside of Chicago.
1/16/09 10:36:35 AM