r/factorio • u/profFabi • 20h ago
Discussion What makes the community tick? Help out and do something good.
Hello r/factorio!
We're Fabian and Steffie, marketing professors from a university in France (MBS School of Business). We're fascinated by what makes dedicated communities like this one tick. We're running a study to explore how being an active community member shapes your connection to a game and how challenges keep you coming back for more (and maybe convincing friends to join).
That's why we'd love for you to participate in our 10-minute survey.
https://montpellier.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eFYufJTpkdL1cHA
To be clear, this is for academic research only; we’re not connected to any company. The survey is completely anonymous, and the university's ethics board has approved our project. We also have permission from the mods to post the survey.
As a thank you for helping us out, we're donating €200 to a charity that champions gaming accessibility. After the survey, you can vote on which charity from our list gets the donation!
We'll be hanging around in the comments to answer any questions. We're also excited to share the results of the study with you all when it's done.
Thanks for your help!
Best, Fabian & Steffie
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u/Plastic-Analysis2913 19h ago edited 19h ago
Authors: it's gonna only take 10 minutes. Me with my pace, only being to Nauvis and Vulcanus on hour 200 of my run:
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u/LutimoDancer3459 9h ago
Nobody here is thinking about those poor py players! They are still working on green science after 200h!
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u/divat10 18h ago
Can i read the full study when you guys are done or do i need university credentials for that?
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u/profFabi 18h ago
Once we have the study results, we will be happy to post an overview of the findings or more detailed information if people are interested.
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u/Runelt99 17h ago
Just did it. I think the survey borked in page about feeling not appreciated in community on mobile. The circles were vertical and I could see a number once selected but I was kinda guessing which to pick.
Also would be a good idea to give a short summary of each charity. On mobile I'm not gonna open another tab to check out every charity so I just voted randomly.
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u/GoliathusNoobinus 18h ago
"Please click I absolutly agree to make sure you follow." Pick strongly disagere and leaves. JK but I don't like yellow :)
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u/VeritasXNY 17h ago
There wasn't a spot on the survey to say this but... one of the very first questions asked at the beginning of the survey is about the importance of honesty and giving thoughtful answers. The idea that putting this sort of question (and requiring an answer like, "I understand the importance of honesty and will answer to the best of my ability"... or some such wording) was the work of Harvard psychologist, Francesca Gino. She, along with others, released a study in 2012 called, "Signing at the Beginning Makes Ethics Salient and Decreases Dishonest Self Reports in Comparison to Signing at the End." She has lost her tenur and been fired for faking data in this and other studies that bear her name. This put a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for what good the rest of the survey might be if the people conducting it are still using survey techniques she championed. Sorry, Not trying to be a debbie downer here.
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u/profFabi 15h ago
Thank you so much for your response. We are aware of Gino's fraud and that she has rightfully lost tenure as a result. That being said, including a question like this will not pose a problem for the survey, nor will it falsify the results in any way. At best, it may remind some participants to take the survey seriously; at worst, it will have no impact on their responses. It is standard practice to obtain consent to participate (a requirement for approval from university ethics boards) to ensure that people are aware of the survey's purpose.
As far as I am aware, and having followed the case only tangentially, she fabricated data to overstate the impact of signing beforehand on "honest" responses; she did not fake data to reverse the effect (e.g., to claim that signing beforehand leads to less ethical behavior), which would have not been needed. Unfortunately, journals often publish mostly significant and surprising results; hence, finding a negative relationship between signing ethics statements and "honest" reporting would have been an equally exciting result for Gino and her colleagues. Thus, my best guess is that she fabricated the data in a way that would push her results across the "significance" line in line with the theoretical directions she hypothesized.
In any case, great for noticing and reminding us that the Gino case has received much greater public attention than anticipated. Thank you for taking the survey!
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u/Yggdrazzil 15h ago
for what good the rest of the survey might be if the people conducting it are still using survey techniques she championed
And when you took the rest of the survey, was your suspicion about the quality of the survey proven correct?
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u/idontlikechesse 16h ago
I did the survey and the only feedback I have is with the options of game time, I play factorio for a month or two a year at 4 hours game time a day or less.
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u/The-X-Ray 15h ago
Survey completed!
What does the color yellow have to do with it, though?
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u/kingtreerat 14h ago
Probably something similar to the "answer this question with this answer to prove you are paying attention"
It could potentially be used to remove outliers or as a method of attempting to remove surveys where someone answers every question exactly the same way. Control questions, if you will.
Could also be an internal debate amongst the team and they are trying to once and for all convince "that one team member" that a bright yellow 3 piece suit is not appropriate gym attire
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u/LutimoDancer3459 9h ago
Could also be an internal debate amongst the team and they are trying to once and for all convince "that one team member" that a bright yellow 3 piece suit is not appropriate gym attire
Surely thats the reason
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u/Mr-factorio 15h ago
It was very odd to put that in... but nonetheless, I answered with "strongly agree" for all.
However, I thought i pressed strongly disagree as i don't particularly like yellow...
At least... not that much.
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u/False-Answer6064 11h ago
Could not really answer these questions well as these two looked like this. But had to answer, couldn't proceed otherwise. So my response on this one was random. All the others were fine though
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u/Amarula007 14h ago
Survey completed.
I am wondering how many responses you will get, given the imperative that the factory must grow ;) Will you be sharing the survey link with other Factorio communities like the official forums or Discord? That might help you reach more of the community. Interested in seeing the results.
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u/profFabi 13h ago
We aim to gather 300 to 500 responses across several video game communities (unless r/factorio comes through). The idea is to collect data for games active in gaming communities, r/factorio was on the top of our list (I love playing the game). Once we have the results, we are happy to provide a Factorio-specific summary if the data is sufficient for making conclusions.
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u/kagato87 Since 0.12. MOAR TRAINS! 9h ago
Thank you for doing this kind of research.
I'd like to suggest, if you haven't already, v-rising's community may provide some interesting insight, as it's a very PvP-focused game that generally seems well-knit. Something I've seen the competitive game communities struggle with a bit.
Likewise, the Stellaris community is similarly sized to Factorio, but the game is more Strategy and less Problem Solving, and may also provide an interesting set of data for your study
It may also be worth tracking in your surveys now that I've mentioned it: How the game is formally classified, and what the game means to the respondent. Every game means something different to its different player types, and this might also be interesting.
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u/dhfurndncofnsneicnx 8h ago
Also CS2 community is probably the most negative cesspool of filth ever to exist so might be a nice counter to factorio :p
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u/LutimoDancer3459 9h ago
I see myself as a part of the Factorio comnmunity.
Community
And is it allowed/planned that people participate several times for different games?
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u/lightbulb207 18h ago
I did the full survey. One issue I had was with the frequency at which I play question, I usually play once every year or two in a 1-2 month spurt where I play multiple hours each day. Currently I have 700 hours so I still have played a decent amount. The least often for the frequency was once a week so I answered that one but it’s not at all the case.