Hello everyone!
First of all, thank you so much for your interest in my research and your amazing support! I’ll soon close the survey (maybe in one or two weeks), as I’ve already reached enough responses – much faster than I ever expected, thanks to you!
I also wanted to respond to a few questions and hopefully clear up some confusion that came up. I’ll make sure to share the results with you once the data analysis is complete – though that might take some weeks.
1: The "healing" problem
I’ve played some Baldur’s Gate 3 myself, so I know that “healing” isn’t necessarily the best metric in this particular game. However, in social science research, we usually try to use questions and scales that have been successfully used in previous studies (especially considering I'm only a Master's student; using established scales keeps the supervisor happy). This also allows for easier comparison across research and provides some assurance that the questions make sense.
Sadly, gaming still doesn’t get much attention in social science, so there’s not a lot of existing research I can draw from. My study is mostly based on prior research on World of Warcraft, where healing plays a much more prominent role. Also, I didn’t define “healing” strictly as restoring HP — it included supporting the party through buffs or spells, If you read closesly. But I definitley see the problem. I chose the term “healing” because it’s an established label within the traditional RPG trinity (DPS, tank, healer). That said, I definitely see room for improvement here in future research!
I can’t reveal my exact research question or hypotheses just yet — in case someone still wants to take the survey. I can’t just go around spoiling it. Like, literally — that would be a cardinal sin in science. What I can say, though, is that the focus on healing, tanking, and damage dealing isn’t random. It makes theoretical sense — trust me on that one (for now!). You’ll just have to believe me until I’ve analyzed the data and can share some proper results.
2: The cute measurements for “hours played”
I got a lot of feedback from people who found “101+ hours” to be a cute upper limit — and I agree! My own playtime is over 500 hours (not great considering I still have 40 pages of thesis to write).
However, the point of the question wasn’t to measure playtime exactly, but rather to distinguish between newcomers and more seasoned players. There’s a theory that suggests the more time someone spends in a game world, the more they become “socialized” into it (I’ll cite that below; Bergstrom et al., 2012).
So whether someone has played 101 or 600 hours, they’ve probably spent enough time in the world to be considered highly engaged. That’s why I didn’t differentiate further. I hope that makes sense.
The “average playtime for one full run” was based on a statement from one of the game developers in an interview (I’ll also link that below). I needed a somewhat credible source, and I figured a BG3 dev is trustworthy enough.
3: The „profession“ Problem
For the question where I asked for more detailed information about your job, I used an established scale — one that’s also used in surveys like the European Social Survey. And yes, I totally agree: it's a bit of a pain to answer.
That said, I can assure you that this question isn’t crucial to my analysis. I included it mostly out of curiosity, to see if there might be any interesting patterns between professions and play styles. But there’s no hypothesis behind it, and no specific research question tied to it. That’s also why I placed it at the very end — it’s easily the least important question in the whole survey.
Finally, let me know if you have more questions! I really appreciate your interest and the thoughtful feedback!
Sources:
Full citation for Bergstrom et al. (2012) – should be open access
Bergstrom, K., Jenson, J., & de Castell, S. (2012, May). What's 'choice' got to do with it? Avatar selection differences between novice and expert players of World of Warcraft and Rift. In proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 97-104).
Link to interview:
https://www.ign.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-standard-playthrough-takes-75-to-100-hours-larian-says Another source I considered:
https://howlongtobeat.com/game/68033
