Primary Research
Primary research is research that we conduct on our own and
we don’t use any other sources. Primary research can be the most reliable as
you are the one who is researching the things and finding out the details of
it. Primary research also shows that you do things yourself and you don’t take
others peoples research so you can get the most correct information. Primary
research is used all though the game industry and also in other industry also. For
example, many video game companies use surveys to gather information about
their game, this information is used to improve the quality of their product
such as Riot Games, they have previously sent surveys to their players because
they wanted an opinion on their idea for recoloured champions (Chroma Skins)
which alters the colour scheme of the champion/character. They wanted the
opinion of their players because they wanted to create new “skins” that cost a
lot less then proper skins. They also wanted to know if the players would buy
them. Primary research can take more time then secondary research as it’s all
your work. Not only big companies do this, everyday people can do surveys to
gather information about certain things, for example people can go into town
with a survey that they give to people so they can gather information, this
could be used for a vast amount of things. You going out there and researching
the topic that you are interested in without help from other sources is primary
research. Another example of primary research is scientists, they do experiments
to test the theories other have come up with, this is still primary research
due to them discoing if the theories are correct. Throughout all media there
are always research done and if the people doing the research want the most
trustworthy results they would do it themselves and not anyone else’s. The
point of this new research is that there can be a lot of wrong/outdated
information in books and on the internet which makes people not trust
everything they see as it could be wrong or outdated. This is the reason
primary research is done, so it shows that you can do this research and that
you want the most accurate results possible.
Secondary Research
Secondary research is research gained from a separate
source. A form of secondary research is reading something on the internet.
Reading research from somebody on the internet is secondary because the
research has already been completed by somebody else. In other words secondary
is your take on somebody else’s primary research, you take the main points of someone
else’s research. Secondary research is the most used research as it is a lot
quicker then primary and it can be very accurate, although there is the off
chance that the information could be wrong. A good example of secondary
research is me researching about this task; I looked online at lots of other
people’s definition of secondary research and determined my own definition of
secondary research. Secondary research is used more throughout the various
industries due to the fact that it can be a lot quicker then primary research
as its already been completed by another person. Another time secondary
research is used over primary is due to time constraints, many types of media
have to be completed within an allotted amount of time to reach a deadline. If
the amount of time given is quite short there may not be a lot of time for
primary research as it can take a very long time and the time used in the
gathering of information first hand could have been used making the end product better rather
then it being 100% accurate.
Quantitative
Quantitative research is a style of research where lots of
statistical information is gathered by using surveys and questionnaires. The
purpose of this type of research is to gain hard evidence about the product so
the person who has the information has an idea of what people think of the
product and what they could do to improve their product. The act of giving
surveys in prominent in the gaming industries as developers give some players
opportunities to complete surveys and questionnaires for the future of the
game, some developers even give rewards for completing these tasks. Quantitative
research allows the researchers to directly interact with the consumer as the
research comes from many of the consumers and that gives you a good idea of
their opinions, it can be used to gather the consumer’s opinions on future
additions to games. An example of this is Riot games giving surveys to people
to gather opinions on their future skin concept. This information lead to the
creation of Chroma skins which only alter the colour scheme of the champion’s
base skin. Even though the overall outcome must have been positive some players
still complained over the small things such as the price. This shows a flaw in
this type of research especially in games with larger player bases, you can’t
gather information and opinions from every player as it would take too long to
go through them all and in the end you won’t be able to please everyone. This
type of research can be done either quickly or slowly, if you did it quickly
you would only have a small amount of people who take the surveys so the
results won’t be as precise. If you were to take more time to give more surveys
you would have lots more results which leads to more precise data which is
better. This isn’t only used by Media industries, other industries also use
this research type but they sometimes go out in to public areas with a stack of
physical copies of surveys, or they would just ask people the questions whilst
on the streets.
Qualitative
Qualitative research is where people try and find the
behaviour and patterns that people have to specific things like topics. This
research types gives a different look into people as the response would be
different as it would be a lot more interactive then a standard survey since it
can be done in groups. This way of research allows the researcher to gain
deeper knowledge of the people taking part as they would be enticed to ask
questions and seek more knowledge which in turn gives more information to the
researcher. With this research being done with people to people the researcher
is able to observe more things like body language which gives the researcher
more information. This type of research would be done in a group of 2-10 which
gives the researcher a good opportunity to observe each person equally. This
research can be done through physical meetings, phone calls and even over the
internet via skype. Over the internet and over the phone could take away some
points from the research such as the observation of body language as it’s hard
to see over skype and it’s impossible over the phone.