Assignment 3

Quantitative Research:

Quantitative research is about asking people their opinions so that you can produce hard facts and statistics. To make these results as reliable as possible, it is important to survey people in large numbers and make sure they are a part of your target market. Common sources of quantitative data are: surveys conducted to large amounts of people using the same questions on the same way and observations that involve counting how often something occurs and then turning that into numerical data. 

Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research is about finding out how and why people have certain opinions and why they think that way. Some sources of qualitative data are: interviews, whether structured, semi-structured or unstructured, groups of participants discussing various issues and precise, written questionnaires that ask specific questions and allow participants to write their own opinions and views.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:

The Witcher 3 was released in 2015 and is a fantasy RPG.

The creators of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red, used social media to project their game to a wide audience. This involved the use of Twitter, YouTube and possibly Instagram, to give their current and potential fans coverage about the game’s progress and developmental stages.

With regards to the reviews, on Steam the game has 89,088 positive reviews out of a total of 91,415, all of them recommending the game in one way or another. Many Steam curators also offer positive reviews and recommendations for it, with The Critiquing Doge giving the review "Many places to explore. Such story. Very pretty graphics. 10/10 paws. 🐾“. The aggregate website Metacritic gave it a whopping 93/100 score. Other review websites and magazines gave it similarly high-ranking scores on their own charts.

The ratings for The Witcher 3 are overwhelmingly high, with very few people, whether users or critics, giving it poor ratings.

CDPR claim that the game has won over 800 awards before and after its release, with 253 of them being Game of the Year awards, making The Witcher 3 one of the most decorated games ever.

The sales figures are also quite high, with over 1.5 million people pre-ordering the game. It debuted at No.1 in the UK and Japan, being the best-selling game of 2015 in the UK. Shortly after its release, 690,000 people activated the game via GOG Galaxy, 4 million copies were sold within 2 weeks of its release, and 6 million 6 weeks after its launch. In March 2016, CD Projekt Red announced it had shipped over 10 million copies of the game worldwide. Within the first half of 2015, the tremendous sales made the studio a profit of $62.5 million.

Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II was released in 2012 and is a grand strategy game.

The creators of Crusader Kings II, Paradox Interactive, use plenty of social media to up the popularity of their games. They primarily use twitter and YouTube as a medium for their updates and new titles.

Crusader Kings II has many positive reviews on Steam, some 18,813 out of 20,271, which shows how popular and good it is as a game. On Metacritic, it has a score of 82/100 which indicate generally favourable reviews. Many other websites and magazines have awarded it quite high scores, such as Destructiod with a 9/10. 

Crusader Kings II has been nominated for many awards, especially by Kotaku as their Game of the Year nominee. It also consistently ranks particularly high in reviews and ratings.

It is one of Paradox’s best selling games in their repertoire. By early 2015, the game had sold 1.1 million copies, expansion packs selling roughly 2.5 million copies and other dlc having sold 5.5 million copies. According to Paradox, the game was played by an average of 12,500 daily and 104,000 monthly, with an average playtime of roughly 99 hours.

Crusader Kings II does not really have any specific competitors, due to its unique genre and the fact that the other popular grand strategy games are all developed and published by Paradox as well. The Total War series by Creative Assembly and the Civilisation series by Firaxis could be considered as competitors, as they are also strategy games, however there are some significant differences in the play-style and their portrayal between the different series’.

The potential market for the game is quite large because of the popularity of strategy games, as well as the latest releases by Paradox and other developers adding to the genres popularity.

The game has an age rating of Teen due to its mild language, mild gore and some sexual themes. It is a game that will appeal to many strategy lovers, however, it would probably appeal more to male gamers in their mid-teens to their mid-forties. 

The base game of Crusader Kings II costs £30 to buy via most game retailers. It currently has 27 expansions packs up for sale, all apart from two costing money. Some of these bits of dlc are collection packs, containing multiple bits of cosmetic dlc in one package, others are fully fledged expansions that add new mechanics and experiences to the game. Combined all the dlc costs £196.25 via Steam.

The game engine used was the Clausewitz engine, designed by Paradox for the specific purpose of grand strategy video games.

It was released in most major theatres by Paradox Interactive exclusively to PC.