Research Insights

Describe how you analyzed the focus group data and what tools you used from this module (or elsewhere). What was easy? What was difficult? Why?

Coming up with insights was the easy part, but isolating the most important parts of the discussion was the hardest. At first, I found myself trying to search for what I wanted out of the discussion as if looking for validation. But once I realized that I should assume my participants don't know a lot about my topic, I found myself finding a lot of insights. This helped me refine my target audience because I realized that the people who would benefit the most would be those who have a bit of knowledge about the subject but would like to know more.

When analyzing the focus group data, I used the process of thematic analysis, which is searching for "patterns" or themes that appeared repeatedly in the discussion. One theme that often came up was uncertainty. Participants did not know the percentage of game developers that were female, though they were not surprised that the statistic was fairly low. They also did not have any experience in making games, though they were all at least somewhat interested in making them. Many participants did not know where to start.

Another theme that came up was harassment. One participant said that growing up, she faced verbal harassment for liking video games. Being called "weird" affected her career choices to the point where she wasn't sure she wanted to join the industry because she didn't want to face the same harassment.

An additional theme that was discussed was the future. A participant, as a reaction to the previous theme, argued that in order to deal with bullying, one must prevent the problem before it starts. I believe this idea has potential because it would encourage healthy behaviors when it comes to accepting all kinds of gamers. Furthermore, when participants were told to think about the effect they would have on future generations, they were more swayed to join the industry. This shows me that we should cater to a person's desire to shape the future.

The second method of analyzing the focus group data was deductive analysis, which is coding the data according to what people say about certain themes. I coded the data using the theme of representation. When it was discussed, I found that many of the games that had female protagonists were relatively new. According to Statista, "in 2016, just two percent of video games had female protagonists, but this figure jumped to 18 percent in 2020." Additionally, the percentage of female gaming developers has risen from 21 percent in 2017 to 30 percent in 2021.

This shows me that the gaming industry is improving when it comes to representing women in video games, but considering how nearly half of all gamers are female, there is still room for improvement.