Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!chuq From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: Re: Game Survey Results Message-ID: <40735@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 4 May 90 15:36:17 GMT References: <40720@apple.Apple.COM> Organization: Dotty Eye's PI's Lines: 42 garth@cs.swarthmore.edu (Garth Snyder) writes: >chuq@Apple.COM (The Bounty Hunter) writes: >> Here's the results of the survey on favorite mac games. The winners >> didn't surprise me a bit. >I'm not too surprised either, although I wonder if this polling >methodology is really all that valid. I think so, yes. The respondents are obviously self-selected and so it isn't a random, scientific survey but it was never designed as such. >Ask people who have played only >one game what their favorite game is, and they are unlikely to shock >you with their answer. Since I averaged somewhere around 6 data points per person, the "I only played one game and liked it" problem didn't really occur [and, from typing in all the data into Filemaker for collection, most of the letters really did have a five best and many had a number of honorable mentions. People mailing in a very small number of recommendations were few] >The most useful thing for me about these surveys is not reading about >which games people liked, but about which ones they hated, and their >reasons for doing so. The actual comments mean so much more than the >numeric ratings; would you be willing to post what people wrote as >well as the statistics, Chuq? I'd planned on it, but I didn't think most of the comments really said much. They broke down into broad categories like "buggy" or "I hate copy protection" or "I don't like arcade games" or "I thought it was neat!". There were a fair number of comments, but relatively few that I found were worth pulling out of the messages and schlepping into the database so I finally stopped keeping it. It just didn't seem worth it. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] I regret to announce that--though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you--this is the end. I am going. Good-bye. -- Bilbo