Research: Target market

I have decided to create a questionnaire to hand out to locals around my area, in order to establish who uses apps, what's their preferred app game genre and other details that will allow me to begin to create a concept aimed at a particular audience.

Below is the document I will be printing out and handing to the public.


For optimum quality, please view the document in full screen. For some reason I am unaware of, the document has clipped off certain letters in this document. I can assure you that the document printed off did not contain these missing letter errors!
Apple Interactive Concept Project Questionnaire

Results:


I handed out 15 questionnaires to members of the public around my local area - from members of the public that went to school, some had jobs and some were retired.
I noticed that a large number of the public that had completed questionnaires preferred puzzle games and platform games and tend to play them during their free time. The amount of members of the public that had used an iOS device before was fairly balanced, with most users being younger. Therefore, I have decided to try and develop an idea specifically for audiences of a younger age, but make the app inviting for an older audience through making a puzzle game.

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Research: Discoveries from researching existing products on the market

My next task was to research existing products on the market, in order to recognise common conventions in apps. Whilst testing out these apps, coupling my knowledge of other games on the market, I noticed a trend in most games I played.
All apps had 'Objectives' and 'Obstacles'. For instance:

Objectives included:
- Hit/kill something (contact) e.g. "Angry Birds", "Space Invaders"

- Last as long as possible e.g. "Snake", "Helicopter", "Pong"

- Reach a destination e.g. "Vector Runner", "Line Rider", "Frogged"

- Capture an object e.g. "Capture the flag", "Castle Wars"

- Create something e.g. "Tamagotchi", "Farmville"

- Become superior e.g. "Snowball", "Snake"

Obstacles included:
- Avoiding edges/keeping within boundaries e.g. "Helicopter"

- Objects that could hinder your progression into the game (enemies) e.g. "Pacman"

- Objects that could stop you from functioning properly e.g. "Mariokart" (special moves)

These factors I recognised whilst playing various games have been noted and I will be referring back to these notes when creating a concept for an app, as these notes suggest common objectives and obstacles that appear frequently within games.

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Research: Existing products available on the market

I decided that in order to recognise what made certain apps popular, unpopular or controversial, I had to play some apps available from the App store, rate them and review them. In order to gain an idea on what different age categories thought about each app, I searched reviews online in order to gain knowledge on what sort of app is popular amongst different aged groups. This will help when deciding on what sort of target audience I will aim my app towards.
Please note that the following opinions are solely mine and have not been influenced by other reviews, opinions, etc.

"Fruit Ninja" - 3/5 stars.

Popularity: over twenty million copies have been downloaded from across all platforms (Apple app store, Android, Xbox 360, Windows 7.)

Genre: Arcade.

Developer: Halfbrick Studios.

Quick summary of the game: The player has to swipe fruit with their knife blade as the fruit is thrown across the screen. More points are acquired if the player swipes more than one piece of fruit in one. Players have to avoid swiping the bomb which will be thrown up frequently, if they do hit this, they lose a life (3 lives available before game over.)

Fruit Ninja is a fun, quick-paced game that encapsulated me with it's bright use of colouring, the fast-think gameplay and it's pure simplicity. 

The 'swipe' aspect fitted well with the touchpad feature on the iOS devices. This feature, coupled with the developers' use of sound effects, worked extremely well in combination with each other as it added an element of reality to playing the game.

How ever, after around one minute of playing, the game became monotonous and I soon quit playing the game after. 

I feel that that game could be improved and look more enticing to download if the developers added different scenery in the background, props, levels and game modes (perhaps a quick-time mode) in order to keep the player's attention level maintained at an optimum level. 

"Angry Birds" - 5/5 stars.

Popularity: Over twelve million copies have been purchased from the Apple App store.
Genre: Puzzle game.
Developer: Rovio Mobile.
Quick summary of the game: Players use a giant slingshot to launch birds into the air, with aims to knock off pigs sitting stationary on various built-up structures. The more pigs and structures knocked down, the higher the score.

Whilst playing Angry Birds, I lost track of the time fairly early into the game - it was immersing, addicting and loaded with personality, for reasons to be explained soon.
The cut scene at the beginning of the app was fun to watch and relayed to the audience why the birds didn't like the pigs (this app is infact based on the Swine Flu epidemic). I thought this was a great feature to add in by the developers because it personalises the game with the player, making them feel empathetic towards the birds.
The cartoon-styled visuals worked well in the game, as the solid colours were eye-catching and fun to look at. I feel that because of this, the game appeals to a player of any age, as the graphics do not appear dated, but fun and quirky instead, and the storyline based on the Swine Flu pandemic could appeal to anyone due to it's mass coverage by the media.







Tower Bloxx Deluxe - 4/5 stars.

Popularity: Unable to acquire at given time
Developer: Strategy/Puzzle
Quick summary of the game: Players' aims are to build the tallest skyscraper possible, by dropping a tower level onto another using a crane. Players face obstacles such as the 'swaying' of the crane.

 As I opened the app on my phone, the first feature that immediately caught my attention was the stunning graphics. The use of colouring on the skyscrapers, combined with the 3-D animations running smoothly definitely excited me.
Presented with different game modes, this game suits players of all kinds with all different tastes. For example, players with time to spare can play the "Build City" game mode, which instantly made me think of extremely popular game "Sim City", players who have little time to play can possibly play the "Quick Game" mode during a break. Therefore, I feel that this game suits many different peoples' lifestyles. The choice to choose a game mode also added a sense of freedom for me, which I feel is an incredibly important aspect to playing games.

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Research: The App Store and it's users

Next, I decided to research the Apple App store and learn about the store's audiences and overall demographics.

I discovered that users on the App store are more interested in free games. Therefore, I could add a time playing limit or design a limited version of my app for the players that download the app for free. After this time limit finishes, there could possibly be a dialogue box/push notification could remind users that they could buy a full, paid version from the App store. I feel this idea could work well because it follows a similar convention of existing products on the market, this is shown through the statistic that 39% of 99.9 million free game downloads in the United States' App Store were free games offering in-app purchases.

Statistics to show the relationship between App premium and 'freemium' games:

January, 2011:
61% revenue from premium games
39% revenue from freemium games

June, 2011:
35% revenue from premium games
65% revenue from freemium games

Next, I decided to research the App Store's all-time most popular apps on the market. I discovered that:

All-time top paid iPhone apps are:
- Doodle Jump
- Angry Birds
- Tap Tap Revenge 3
- Bejewelled 2
- Pocket God
- Traffic Rush

All-time free iPhone apps are:
- Facebook
- Bump
- Shazam
- Skype
- Pandora
- Paper Toss

This research will prove handy in my next stages of research, as I will be playing various apps such as these, rating them and reviewing them to discovered why they are the most popular apps on the Apple App Store - this will be my next researching task.

Furthermore, I discovered that the most games available for download, fitted to the action genre (with just under 7000 apps.) After action, the most common genres available for download in the App Store was puzzle and arcade genres. It appears that the least common apps produced for download was dice, racing and music genre games.

These statistics prove interesting upon analysis because it appears that if I was to develop a game fitting to the action genre, despite being a popular choice for production, the App store holds a large amount of similar apps on the market and therefore, my app may appear cliche and uninteresting.
How ever, despite being less popular, app genres such as dice and racing apps could infact, suit a niche market and spark interest through being a less common genre available on the market.



Research taken from following sources:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/iphone-ipad-top-app-downloads/
http://bradkellett.com/p/itunes-app-store-statistics/
http://gigaom.com/2010/01/12/the-apple-app-store-economy/

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