I love when people gets downvoted and insulted for just asking a question and then people wonder why this forum is going down and needs moderation.

I do admit that part was a little off-putting. But responding the way some people did smacks me of ignorance, arrogance or, y'know just plain rude.
I appreciate the way you responded to him. You laid out why the surveyor might be doing what he is doing. You don't have to call someone down because this person asked a question. That's the problem with our society. We aren't allowed to ask questions. When people start asking questions, they are automatically shut up, looked down on and marginalized by a majority of the (uneducated) population.

You both have no right to discriminate aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and especcially orphans!
Off with your heads!

I too think it was a totally legit question. No need to be caustic at all, people.

Actually question is far beyond entirely irrelevant. Games don't have any gender/age specifications. It is a matter of personal taste, genre and involvement, nothing else. When game starts catering to some gender or age specifically, then we have some crappy game.

Also parents' taste might differ from taste of their offsprings. Parents might like strategies, offsprings - RPGs. We need to water down game genres, so parents and their offsprings could play together, why exactly?

i find this thread a proper trolling place, indeed.

Any research is better than no research. By studying how a parent-child duo could play a certain type of game together, they will learn about this subject. It might help create games that work better for this particular way of playing.

Seems to me like you're advocating ignorance, the idea that we can't know a thing because there's variation. That's a stupid notion. Games, books, etc., often address specific groups. That's simply because certain groups, on average, are interested in certain things. Not everyone fits the average profile, but statistics do work.

This study is specifically limited to a certain subgroup of parent-child who might play RPG's together. So yes, it's entirely possible that a parent and child might like different things, or that a parent (shock, horror) might not like gaming altogether, but how is that relevant? The study would still be valid and would still advance knowledge about gaming.

It IS of maximum relevance.

Also many "researchers" have specific stereotypes of children, one of them being that children like primitive non-complex games. E.g., Final Fantasy Tactics might have way too much difficult concepts, children are more interested in Barbie simulators, if they are girls, or simple tank simulators, if they are boys.

Let's just bury all those stereotypes and irrelevant researches in one big troll grave?

Why did Doom or DIablo become successful? Was it because they were made for dads and their boys, was it because game was made for some exotic gender? Or maybe it was because developers actually wanted to make a GAME, and not some byproduct of social researches?

I'd say more, "knowledge about gaming" got stuck in waves of mainstream, monetizing and social researches.

Thanks for your comment -- we'll have a website up soon and the project is introduced on the Committee for Children's site under "projects in development": http://www.cfchildren.org/about-us/new-mission-ventures

In what way? How does data that's irrelevant to the research topic help?

Can you show me such research?

Because they were made for boys, were violent, and were simple. For Doom I'm sure it didn't come from research but from the developers being guys who loved violent, simple games. For Diablo, I can't tell. Possibly it came from similar origins, because gaming research wasn't much used at the time, but I imagine that Blizzard studied the matter more than id did, and got more feedback, which I also imagine came from the male target audience.

Ok troll.

Congratulations, your annoying powers have evolved to "vegetarian".

The right to say anything,
and the right to disagree with anything said,
and the right to have someone chose who has which rights,
make a very fuzzy soup.

Edit : I am good with the local drm-free popcorn beer.

Edit 2 : Point is, while I agree that the 'low rated' label and downrep thing can be a PITA when abused, it isn't even remotely on the same level as insults. Some things don't deserve to be compared to a mountain (or a planet, however cute their heart is !).

Edit 3 : To OP, sorry to see this thread turn that way. Isn't the "11-16" slice very restrictive ? Because I think that's the age youngsters start to become 'independent' in their activities (at least I was).

That parents and their children have high chances to like entirely different game genres? Such "data" makes the whole research redundant.
It is everywhere. I have experienced results of this as a child myself. When adults were convinced that some games, books, whatever are too "complex" (or don't have pictures) and so they were gifting me more "accessible" ones (or not video games at all, and some totally dull toys). I almost gave up on video games until I found out RPGs, which at that time were deemed "too complex for children".

Heck, even in school children are taught things in extremely watered down and wrong forms and then they have to relearn from scratch in university (e.g., you can't substract 5 from 3, or you can't take square root from -1, with all the distorted "simplified" theory behind this).
You are mistaken. Blizzard weren't social researchers (at that time, but things changed when they merged with Activision). They simply made the game they wanted. And Doom has infinitely less than zero to do with gender, and it didn't have much violence (in comparison to our TV? ha, nowhere near close). I wouldn't say Doom was quite simple either.

What made those games to be so successful, was their gameplay. Which has nothing to do with gender/age or anything of that kind.

What you speak about is making mainstream games - for maximum accessibility or for accessibility within very wide group of players. Market IS over-saturated with such games. Social "stuff" has infinitely less than absolutely nothing to do with good games, it serves only as research tool to assist in making of more sub-mediocrity.

This thread heavily reminds me about "Shower with your Dad" simulator :))

The age range is a bit restrictive, and there is actually some flexibility. If anyone has a child interested in participating who is 9, 10, or 17, we'd still love to hear from them!