Thank you to EVERYONE that took part in the recent Gaslands survey. I closed the survey at 870 responses, so I could read through everyone’s answers and comb through the data. It made interesting and enlightening reading for me, and I want to share the results with you.
In particular, I’d like to thank Erik Walton–Gaslands community member, data scientist and all-round Good Dude–who offered his expertise in looking at the data with a more critical eye. I’ll share Erik’s insights as we go through.
Building & Playing
It’s worth saying up front that I regard this data to have a natural engagement bias, so the data isn’t going to give a good overall impression of what’s important to new players (although there were a few in there). This bias is clear from the answers to the first couple of questions: we know the folks answering the questions are mostly building and playing.
What’s cool is that Erik was able to confirm from the data that, broadly, if you are playing, you are building, and if you’re building, you’re playing. I was pleased to see that. I was worried that a bunch of folks were just building but, for at least these 870 lovely people, that’s not borne out.
Playing with the Sponsors and Perks
I was really curious to know if people tend to ignore the sponsors and just play with the vehicles and weapons. My suspicion was validated: even given the engagement bias in the data, more than half of Gaslands players are playing without sponsors and perks at least some of the time. That’s a really useful data point for me as I think about the right format for any future releases for the game.
Scenarios
There were a few surprises for me in the answers around scenarios. Firstly, there’s not a ton of variety in what most people are playing. I think I expected more variety in the scenarios, but at least a quarter of people are really only playing one, and 80% are playing only a small variety of scenarios.
So what are people playing? Well… the data is pretty conclusive on this one:
I expected a skew towards Death Race, but not to this degree. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I feel vindicated that sticking to my guns on making this a racing game has resonated, that’s good. However, it also means there’s opportunity I haven’t tapped yet. I think this chart speaks loudly that there is value in finding ways to allow people to play out different fantasies using Gaslands, with the wasteland survival fantasy definitely being one.
As a side note: Zombie Bash bubbled up as having a serious cult following! That’s kind of awesome but I don’t know what it means yet. It might not mean much more than running over people, sorry ZOMBIES, is fun, but it might be saying something about a wasteland fantasy or urban fantasy that’s missing. I need to think about that some more.
What attracted people to the game
Here’s what people said attracted them to the game initially:
I expected low cost to play a bit higher here, as its such a commonly repeated refrain about the game, but the predominance of theme and setting as the initial hook for people is both cool to see, but also an opportunity, as I think I could do more to elevate that both in the game and in the community engagement I do.
Currently digging
Here what people say they are currently digging about Gaslands:
I’m really happy to see the red slice of pie grow so much in the jump from the last chart to this one, that (obviously) makes me happy. It’s also noteworthy how the hobby and gameplay really dominate as a pair, squeezing out the theme and setting (I guess it probably transitions into the hobby aspect) and the low cost (which makes sense, I guess, as you are already bought in).
Recruiting New Players
What are people highlighting about Gaslands when they tell their friends about it?
Players tend to focus on the theme and setting first with others, go 50-50 with the low cost or gameplay, and in third place if the hobby side of things.
Some curious insights from Erik here:
- If a player themselves was first drawn in by the theme, then they more than likely focus on that when they talk to new players. If they didn’t say theme was their first draw to the game, then it was a pretty even split between the other options of low cost, gameplay, or hobby when then sell the game to others.
- Those folks that say that theme is currently what they are digging the most, then they are definitely focus on that more with new players.
What you asked for…
I read all the comments that people left, and there was some really interesting food for thought in there. One of the most important things I heard was the need for clearer and more consistently applied community rules (particularly in the Facebook group) and you’ll be hearing more about me on that topic real soon.
I collected together some themes of other requests and comments that people made. This last chart is a bit more anecdotal than the other charts, but I think it gives a good flavour of what folks are interested in seeing. The count is the number of people I tagged as having ‘voted’ for this.
Again, I want to thank everyone that took the time to respond. I really enjoyed reading your feedback, and I can’t wait to share more as I figure out the best next steps for Gaslands.
Cheers!
Mike