The experience taught me to have a healthy sense of skepticism about this kind of survey result. You need to look at real behaviour, not self-reported.
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That's why I try to delve into the survey to know what I need to understand the numbers. Looking into the actual study doc, I found that this survey has 1,644 teens between 10-24. The survey mentions: "Survey questions regarding romance and sex were not shown to younger adolescents (ages 10-13)"
In the Methods sect, they broke down numbers which is good. So it mention, "73.5% were middle and older adolescents (ages 14-24)". So to math it for folks, it comes out to be about 1,209 teens. which I would assume we have more than millions of teens in the US and this would be a small sample size.
After speaking with some folks, that data size can still be good but it has to be accurate and fair in representing the many teens that plays games in the US. I'd still consider the research as a baseline and not a definitive answer.
Now I think there might be something else at play here that's a spoiler to this specifically...
And that's that people are tired of hamfisted romance plotlines or stilted characters. Most people would turn down steak if it's usually served well done and slathered in A1.
I feel like the one thing too though is maybe they do vote what they are really looking for in the survey specifically because they are not really finding it
I think it's more than just people being shy about their desires. Romantic fiction has a reputation for being "fast food" fic. Formulalic, low-quality, high-quantity.
In the abstract, would I rather go to that hipster cafe than Burger Chain? Yep! Who gets more of my dollars? Burger Chain.
This is also a function of sexism/misogyny because it is considered a feminine genre, there is plenty of romance that is as well-written as anything in any genre. Romance has its fast food, just like sci-fi/fantasy does, but in the same way SFF has its Hugo winners, romance has high quality too.
I think that's fair, and also speaks to how publishers market books. A book about romantic relationships & sex that is "serious" enough will get the modern lit treatment rather than genre packaging. That makes romance more mainstream-able than SFF but limits Romance's literary bona fides.
There are definitely quite a few exceptions to that, but it requires being a pretty knowledgeable fan of the genre, which, to your point, doesn't help mainstream understanding of that fact.
True. I mean...feminine genre, yeah maybe traditionally. I love a good love story though, always have. Plus you would not believe the amount of smut I read 😅
Feminine genre doesn't necessarily mean "for women." Plenty of men like romance, just like plenty of women like every other genre.
When I say it's feminine, it's more about it embodying aspects and aspirations of humanity we associate with traditionally feminine roles and concerns.
Which doesn't mean we should but we certainly have. We are, of course, breaking down a lot of that these days. Men are being encouraged to think more about healthy relationships and embrace emotional vulnerability.
Right. The OP is really about the gap between using surveys vs. observational studies for social science research (which market research is a subset of), but it leaves all these unanswered questions about the the assumptions the devs & the marketers brought with them into the process.
I don't doubt that is a big part of it, but anecdotally it seems like publishers turn out a substantially higher quantity of Romance titles in a year than other genres. It's not a reach to imagine any corporate mass media company leveraging sex to drive revenue in absence of other considerations.
I actually quit recently, FF14 isn't the only game that refuses to change. But I actually liked that quest because it WAS audacious: have a massive expansion-defining quest series start with "huh that lady is being jumped by some fungi".
Looking to all the world like a thirty second daily. Nope.
To be fair, there was a period of several years there where seeing this message in FF14 was "title music starts playing in the last anime fight" levels of hype
Ack! I forgot alt text! "An image displaying a dialogue box reading 'Upon proceeding, several cutscenes will play in sequence. It is recommended that you set aside sufficient time to view these scenes in their entirety'"
I write fantasy novels of the slightly gritty assassin kind. I consistently bump into fans at science fiction conventions and scientific academic conferences. At the latter my audience leans heavily into mid-career women with PhDs. That was not my publisher’s expected target demographic.
Real behaviour is the gold standard and always be skeptical of data.
In addition to the usual issues with self-report (made potentially worse by asking about future intent rather than past behaviour) there are some other methodological issues here.
It's the classic problem associated with emic-only data. Humans will engage in social lying to keep up appearances and they will do with gusto. If romance in games is cast in a negative light, that informs the responses. The in-game clicks constitutes the etic data needed to balance the emic.
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And that's that people are tired of hamfisted romance plotlines or stilted characters. Most people would turn down steak if it's usually served well done and slathered in A1.
Everyone: of course not…
🤔
In the abstract, would I rather go to that hipster cafe than Burger Chain? Yep! Who gets more of my dollars? Burger Chain.
When I say it's feminine, it's more about it embodying aspects and aspirations of humanity we associate with traditionally feminine roles and concerns.
But we are a work in progress. :)
Not unlike hastily made tie-in games that do not resemble what they tie-in.
This was more of a console than PC problem of course - Roberta Williams was writing games in 79.
Ever heard the term "aranara"
Looking to all the world like a thirty second daily. Nope.
It’s quite nice
In addition to the usual issues with self-report (made potentially worse by asking about future intent rather than past behaviour) there are some other methodological issues here.
Like double barreled over loaded options.