How do I do good market research?

News & General Discussion
1

I can program but have no idea where to start doing good market research.

So what are the best resources for market research for game developers?

2

Google, steam spy, app annie, and whatever other sites there are for finding game metrics.

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3

There’s also a lot of firsthand sales data and market experiences from developers on gamasutra.

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4

Advance Google may help you best.

5

I agree with others. but it also depends on which kind of market research do you need. Is it more correlated with marketing, finance, competitors etc?

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6

Also research search keywords and volume on Google, it’ll give you an idea of traffic per genre etc

7

Identifying your competitors and holes in the market you intend on targeting is really the best thing you can do. Not sure how to do that better than your own intellect and Google.

Once you identify your competitors, do thorough research on them, and continue to follow them. How is their game being reviewed? How are those reviews changing over time? How are they priced compared to what you are making? What are their players complaining about? What is keeping their players coming back? Does their playerbase appear to be growing or shrinking?

A lot of that information isn’t publicly provided by the developers. You find that out on their own forums, Steam or other sales platform reviews, youtube videos, etc, watching how activity changes over time. Perhaps you buy their game and try it out yourself as well.

For example, the game I am making has really a single significant competitor which is currently in early access and has been so for a while. Reviews started off positive, but the more newer builds come out the more negative the reviews have become. Their playerbase seems to be on the verge of revolt, and long winded youtube reviews are popping up blasting the game and urging people to stay away for a variety of reasons, all of which I intend on doing differently now that I’ve seen their complaints. They charge $40 USD in early access with a place holder UI, while I intend to undercut them with a free to play game that looks good even in an early release. They have an excellent realistic combat system that I have determined I can’t beat them at (probably the best ever of the genre), while my open world and adventure experience will be superior.

That’s the type of stuff I’d suggest you start looking at.