Demographics of Respondents
Q: What religious affiliation best describes your beliefs?
The above graph gives us a total of 73 Christian respondents and 27 non-Christian respondents. This gives us a large majority of Christian respondents but we should still have enough non-Christian responses and opinions to derive some implications for game design. These figures are also substantiated by the U.S. Census Bureau which reports approximately 75% of the U.S. population claim to be of Christian beliefs. This allows us to use this survey as an accurate sample.
Q: What is your gender?
On average we have 72% male respondents and 28% female respondents. There was also a higher number of females among the Christian respondents and more male respondents among the non-Christians.
Q: What is your age in years?
Here we can see that the average non-Christian respondent was 4 years younger than the average Christian respondent. Catholic and Protestant Christians tended to be the eldest respondents and non-denominational Christians and atheist the youngest. Also, according to the U.S. Census Bureau the median age of Americans is 36.2 years old, making my statistics relatively accurate and an acceptable sample to work from.
Q: How many children do you have and how many of them play video games of any kind?
Non-Christian respondents typically had nearly 0.5 fewer children than Christian respondents. This could be accounted for, possibly, by the four year difference in average ages for Christians and non-Christians as shown in the graph above. Also, Christian children tended to play video games more often than non-Christian children with Christian respondents indicating that approximately 78% of their children played video games compared to only 67% of non-Christian children.
Q: What genres of games are you most interested in (choose up to three [3])?
Action, strategy, and role-Playing games appeared as the most popular genres for both non-Christians and Christians. However, strategy and role-Playing games were still much more popular among non-Christians and sports games and vehicle simulations were liked far more by Christians than by non-Christians. Also, Christians tended to report not playing video games of any kind more than non-Christians.
Q: Do you make use of the ESRB ratings when deciding what game content is suitable for your children to play?
Non-Christian respondents reported that they used ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) ratings much more frequently than Christian parents when buying games for their children. Also, Christians tended to have a far higher rate of either indifference or lack of knowledge on use of the ESRB rating than non-Christians.
Summary:
In conclusion we can find formulate some hypotheses concerning the Christian and non-Christian audiences available to game designers. The Christian audience has a closer balance of women to men, tends to be slightly older, typically has more children, and those children tend to play video games more often than non-Christian children. Non-Christians play a lot more strategy and role-playing games whereas a higher percentage of Christians play vehicle simulations and sports games than non-Christians but action, strategy, and role-playing games are by far the most popular games in both groups. Non-Christians also seem to be either more aware or more active in examining games they buy for their children because they use the ESRB ratings much more responsibly.
When designing games for a Christian audience there are several major implications that can be drawn from these findings. Perhaps most importantly Christians are less likely to make use of ESRB rating in selecting their children's games. This means that as a designer one must accurately asses what your target Christian audience expects your game content to contain and design around those assumptions in order to avoid offending your targeted market group.
Secondly, sports and vehicle simulations will sell better to a Christian audience than to a non-Christian audience. This might mean that when designing a game for Christians it might be appropriate to include more elements that are common among sports games and vehicle simulations. This might include a timer like most sports include in their rules or perhaps accurate driving or flying simulators for modes of transportation, obstacles, or objectives.