Game playing as a qualitative research tool

Let the games begin!

Editor’s note: Bernard Schwartz is a senior project director at Genactis, a Fort Washington, Pa., research firm.

Qualitative research is a complex combination of art and science, designed to improve our understanding of respondents’ values, attitudes and knowledge, for example:

• how respondents perceive a product, service, or concept;
• how two or three variables might impact respondents’ perceptions of the product or service or concept, and;
• what knowledge, values, and attitudes respondents bring to their evaluation that impact decision-making and product selection.

Focus groups provide insights into individual behavior in the context of a group where members’ ideas are subject to evaluation, give-and-take, revision, refinement, and rejection or acceptance. Behaviors, values, and attitudes are modified, group norms set, opinions gelled or striated. We can learn what individuals think and how a group will react to an idea. We arrive at conclusions based on respondents’ overt and covert, intended and unintended, stated and implied, facial and verbal, gestured and emotive “data.”

One limit to focus groups, though, is that the social/societal dimensions that impact decisions are absent from the research process. We can learn how respondents think these outside elements impact on them, but we cannot assess their real impact, because they are not present in the focus group setting.

For example, we can ask consumers about their automobile purchasing behaviors, likes, dislikes, and values. But, in real life the “social system” that impacts auto buying behavior extends beyond consumers’ values, attitudes, stated behaviors, and stated preferences, and may include interactions and experience with salespeople, bankers, advertisers, peers, Internet information sources, in addition to the influences of the product itself (color, engine, seat covers, image, or gasoline mileage), sticker price, perceived value, financing terms, current interest rates, and payment schedules, and product “folklore.”

Can one research the automobile buying process by studying the qualitative assertions of respondents (buyers)? Can we get better information by accounting for these wider elements? How much more would we learn if we could qualitatively account for the other factors that impact decision-making - if we simulate the more complex environment in which automobile purchasing decisions are actually made? Can we also research the values attitudes, motivations, of the other actors in the automobile purchasing “game?” Can this research be done in a cost-effective manner?

Gaming defined

Simulation or gaming is a process by which a social system with multiple segments - groups and/or individuals with divergent views - are re-created in a research environment in order to study it. In the business environment, simulation is often done using computer spreadsheets reflecting mathematical relationships. Spreadsheet simulations are used to answer “what if” questions, for example, “What if our sales double next quarter and production costs remain the same (increase by 12 percent, 15 percent or 17.25 percent)?”

Simulation games, frequently used in training, are sophisticated role-playing exercises. In a research/simulation exercise, players would assume the role of one of the segments at play in that social system, political system, or market. Each segment in the game has clearly defined rules of behavior, motivations and goals by which they play out the game.

Gaming has been used for many years in political science when analysts want to learn how a given political scenario might play out. For example, if a U.S. spy plane crash-lands in China, how would the Chinese government react? What would the U.S. have to do to protect their secrets and property? What would the U.S. need to do to secure the return of the crew? How far might the Chinese go to get our technology? In the course of running a simulation game based on the downed plane scenario, researchers can learn:

• the forces, pressures, and issues that are impacting the Chinese as they analyze the situation;
• the dynamics and context of the situation from the Chinese point or view — internal politics, government, leaders, public opinion; the goals and motivations of various players;
• the same dynamics from relevant segments of the U.S. side — the impact of the President and his cabinet, the legislature, military advisors, business community, the public;
• the goals and motivations of various (relevant, individual) players or factions on both sides;
• the most probable tactics and outcomes, and how to effectively counter the opposition’s tactics, and impact their decisions.

The process of gaming in this case would be to assemble a group of players — people who can play the game and learn from it, and who have some stake in the outcome. During the game itself, the group would be directed to assume roles, given basic information about their goals, motivations, and the game’s “rules,” and set free to play their part in the game scenario within the larger group.

Game design

When preparing for a game, researchers would need to prepare hypotheses based on assumptions about the players:

• goals - what they want and need to win;
• how they can win in the scenario;
• how they lose points - the things they absolutely cannot do, how they fail;
• how they operate within the situation, or how they get points in the game.

For example, in the auto sales game outlined above, the rules for consumers might look like this:

• goal - get the best car, best price, most comfort with decision, greatest ego gratification;
• to win - good deal, high level of comfort, ego gratification;
• how to operate - go to dealers, use the Internet, take test drives, shop, speak to peers, get information;
• win points - get strategic information, bargain well, and learn how to secure the best deal;
• lose - make an impulse purchase, get swindled by a dealer or bank, buy a lemon, feel bad.

Salespeople probably follow these rules:

• to win - sell lots of cars at good prices, close deals;
• how to operate - demonstrate cars, provide information, appear helpful, represent the franchise effectively;
• win points - establish trust, listen to customers, do favors, persuade buyers, enhance egos, reduce fear of purchase;
• lose - offend, insult, scare, overprice, undersell, or bargain badly.

Game designers would develop similar sets of rules for as many segments as they want to include in their study. This auto buying game might also include spouses, banks, dealer finance and insurance personnel, and advertisers, or trade publications. The game designers would also provide each segment with the specific amount of strategic information that they (the designers) assume the segment comes into the real situation with.

The game is afoot

As people (as many as 25 respondents, and supporting players) assemble at the game site, they would be assigned specific roles, given information packets, scenario details, goals, objectives, operational rules, motivations, etc. These instructions would specify enough of their part in the game to get them into the process.

In the auto buying game there are some built-in variables, such as:

• a set of products - a line of cars;
• the real-life relationships between car prices, interest rates, dealer mark-ups, supply and demand;
• a given set or supply of customers (segment, demographic).

The research goals for this auto buying game might include researching:

• which specific approaches to buying, selling, and financing automobiles work best and why;
• who (which segment in a given scenario) wins, how they win, why they win;
• how winners feel, what they learn as a result of playing the game, how they learn what they learn;
• the impact of sales behaviors, finance, consumer perceptions;
• how consumers determine value in a dynamic, complex marketplace.

Many approaches to gaming/simulation are deeply rooted in mathematics, and mathematical techniques could be employed to a limited degree in this qualitative research application of gaming. For example, game designers could provide an electronic spreadsheet model of the interrelationships of auto price, interest rates, bank charges, dealer incentives, and payment schedules. Researchers could use the spreadsheet to simulate the impact of financial decisions on their purchasing decision.

In any game, there are also some pragmatic limits to the content of the gaming experience, since it would be difficult to provide cars for a test drive, for example. Additionally, there are always time constraints on gaming that impose limits on the research process. But the goal, the purpose of the game, is to help clients of fully understand the dynamics of their customers (and their own, and those of their business partners) behaviors within the context of a wider social scenario - and to provide dynamic business intelligence.

Applications for research simulations

Over the course of this past year, I have considered several projects where I thought a gaming approach might have been applicable. One such project would have examined the dynamics of continuing medical education (CME) - the courses that physicians are required to take every year to remain current in their fields (and retain their licenses). A focus group or other traditional qualitative research approach, I feel, could only go so far in describing this complex social system.

In a CME game, the goal would be to help a pharmaceutical company to maximize the benefits they receive from sponsoring CME courses. Players in the CME game include physicians, drug companies, private and public organizations that design or offer courses, etc. The central questions to be answered - perhaps developed and refined by means of a limited number of preliminary interviews or focus groups - in this game include:

• MDs - “How can I get the CME credits I need with the least time spent, the least amount of boredom, while gaining useful information and having fun with colleagues (while staying in an ethical comfort zone)?”
• Drug firms - get the maximal “credit” for services provided to customers, at the least cost, increase MD loyalty to products or services, reduce or eliminate physician hostility and suspicion, increase product sales, modify price sensitivity.
• CME companies - get courses attended, sponsored and praised; increase revenues for courses.

In this CME game, respondent-players might include a large number of people, atypical for marketing research:

• 30-40 physicians;
• CME designers/presenters of actual courses (staff for six or seven individual courses in differing media, presentations styles, or technical detail);
• CME presenters and/or pharma company salespeople who would promote specific courses;
• four to six moderators who would debrief participants at regular intervals during the game;
• a game-director who briefs all participants, calls the game to order, ends the game, debriefs the group as a whole;
• an unlimited number of observers who wish to see the game (but they will learn more by participating).

The process of running this game would look something like the following.

In preparation:

• develop several brief CME courses in different media, for example an audiotaped session, a live seminar, a lecture format, a dinner meeting, and a videotaped or a printed course;
• for each of the courses, develop one or more flyers, course descriptions, sales pitches or fax notices to promote the program;
• develop topical guides to debrief participants (both educators and MDs) at regular intervals, e.g., after they attend a course.

During the game itself:

• participating physicians assemble in the game area for a general briefing and are given the rules of the game, their individual scenario cards, and some materials on specific courses;
• they then make course selections based on the promotional materials provided, attend courses, complete course evaluations, attend group discussions on CME - all the while providing market researchers with information (through worksheets, IDIs, groups, or peer-run discussions) on what they are doing, why they do it, their strategies, and their estimate of how they are doing;
• gamers can introduce new elements during the course by promoting “special” events, changing speakers, changing topics, offering a course in a different media.

The game is then played to its conclusion - end-game process:

• physician-respondents would need to accumulate, let’s say, four CME credits before the end of the game;
• educators would need to have 15 physicians attend their offerings;
• salespeople would have to fill a quota of physicians who attend their company’s course offerings;
• all participants are debriefed in one or two large groups where the gaming experience is evaluated by participants.

The debriefing of players in an open group environment is an important aspect of this game, I feel, because by the end of the experience, all participants will become aware of the activity as a game; they will be aware of how they played it, how they play in real life, and how the other segments play.

Real possibilities

This article outlines a new form of qualitative market research that can offer insights into a market in the context of a more complex social system. While this article represents the bare bones of a concept, I believe that real possibilities exist for gaming as a qualitative research format.