Creating Suvery for Korean Game Collectors - Need Your Help

[molotovwars]

As I’ve posted or mentioned before on the boards, I’ve been spending the last 2 years in South Korea teaching English. I’ve been studying Korean throughout my time here and this semester I need to write a research paper of sorts. The writing isn’t too heavy, but I have to come up with a questionnaire of sorts and ask at least 10 questions to 15 or more people. It can be on any topic and I’ve decided to use this opportunity to talk with a few collectors in Korea’s small retro gaming scene.

I’ve started to come up with some questions, but I’d love some input. What do you think would be some good questions to ask? Right now the wording isn’t too important since I’ll be rewriting everything in Korean anyways.

In general the questions should be such that I can graph or display the information in some way. For things like “first game system” or “favorite system” I’ll break the answers into separate categories and make graphs after I’ve gathered the information.

This is what I have so far:

1) How old are you?
- Under 25
- 25 to 34
- 35 to 45
- Over 45

2) What was your first game system?

3) At what age did you get your first system? What it a gift? Or did you purchase it?

4) When I go to game shops or look online I notice there are far more Japanese version games than Korean version games, especially among collectors. Why do you think it is like this?

5) In addition to collecting games, do you still play games?
-No, I only collect games.
-Yes, I collect and play games.

6) Do you play current games for Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or Nintendo Wii?
-Yes
-No
7) How often do you play games?
-0-5 hours a week
-6-10 hours a week
-11-20 hours a week
-21 – 30 hours a week
-more than 30 hours a week

When do you usually play games?
-I don’t play games very often
-Every day
-On weekends
- On days off from work
-when commuting to and from work
- other: ________________

8b) If you play games every day, how many hours a day do you play?
-0-3 hours
-4-7 hours
-more than 7 hours


8b) If yes, how many hours a day?
-0-3 hours
-4-7 hours
-more than 7 hours

9) What systems do you own? How many game systems do you own? Please list all systems.

10) What is your favorite game system?

11) What systems do you collect for? For collecting, which systems specifically do you focus on?

11b) Which system do you have the most number of games for? How many games?

12) What is your favorite game? Please write the game title and system name.

13) Except for a few games, most older Korean version games were in only English or Japanese. Which language did you prefer to play games in?
-English
-Japanese

13b) How did you play the games? Did you study the language to play the games?

14) What Foreign languages have you studied? Mark all that apply.
-English
-Japanese
-Chinese
-Spanish
-Other: ________________

15) Compared to other countries, the interest in retro games is much lower in Korea. Why do you think this is?

16) Piracy Question

17) Did you know about Sega and Nintendo back when the systems were released? (In Korea Nintendo systems were released under the Hyundai name and all of the Sega systems were released under the Samsung name. I know for example that my high school students associate Nintendo only with the Wii and NDS)

18) I want to play games to practice my Korean. Please recommend one game for me.

[D.D.D.]

I've heard piracy is fairly rampant in Korea... true? That could be a question. Do you own a flash card or buy burned games?

[Anayo]

I would really like to see the results of this questionnaire when you get them.

[Hobie-wan]

7) How often do you play games?
I need help here to make the answer choices. Should it be like by number of days a week? Or number of total hours a week? What do you think?

Do you play games everyday? If yes, how many hours a day?

I need help here to make the answer choices. How should I group the hour choices? 0 – 3, 4 – 6, more than 7? What do you think?

Perhaps number of hours per week, and if more than 10 or so, how many per day to see if spread all week or concentrated on weekends?

[Gao]

1) How old are you?
- Under 25
- 25 to 35
- 35 to 45
- Over 45

A minor point, but make sure these years don't overlap, or you might get 35-year-olds who have to pick an option rather arbitrarily.

[molotovwars]

I have updated all of the questions in the first post.

I also think a piracy question would be a good idea. I might keep the question as simple as you suggested and just ask whether they more often buy or pirate, but what do you think of the below question?

16) Piracy is very common in Korea. Do you play pirated or copied games? Mark all that apply
-No, I do not.
-Modchip / Copied Games
- Downloaded PC Games
- Custom Firmware PSP
- R4 chip for Nintendo DS

I'm not quite sure about the wording for the question.

Now that the questions in the first post are almost final, any more comments?

[Hobie-wan]

8b is kind of redundant with 7. Maybe make 8 about playing every day or mostly on weekends or days off.

[t0yrobo]

I've always been under the impression that pc games and emulation are extremely prevalent in s. korea. A question pertaining to that might be very relevant.

[molotovwars]

double post

[molotovwars]

I have updated question 8 to be less redundant.

PC games are definitely very popular here, but I am trying to focus on the retro console scene in this questionnaire. I may actually remove the piracy question and the question about knowing about the existence of Sega and Nintendo, which would bring it down to 15 questions, plus the final question, which is for my own benefit rather than the survey.

I think as far as question 17, while I am interested to know the answer I think I'll just ask a few collectors that I know rather than asking every single person.

As far as question 16 (piracy), I am also interested learning more about how abundant the piracy is in Korea, I don't think the question I have written will answer that very well. In addition, piracy generally pertains more to current games and systems than to retro gaming.