RESEARCH NOTES 3 - GAME OF THRONES PLAY STYLE ANALYSIS

Overview of Study

We surveyed nearly 400 Game of Thrones fans who actively seek and interact with show-related content, conversations or experiences. We presented them with a series of questions about their social engagement and desired storytelling activities, which reveal insights about the audience’s preferred Play Styles and their levels of involvement.

The Play Styles of Game of Thrones Fans

54% of respondents seek new ways to be immersed in the world, want to explore every last detail, and unpack all the theories. These are the desires most commonly found in the Pathfinder Play Style and reflect the draw of the show’s impressively vast fantasy world. Making up over half of the total audience means that engagement strategies should prioritize Pathfinders.

However, there are additional elements of the show that attract fans and inspire different types of activities. Socialites are the second most prominent group, making up close to 20% of responses. These fans want more access to the show’s diverse characters and actors, wish for new ways for those characters to interact, and often seek out new ways to connect with other fans.

Audience Levels of Involvement

Game of Thrones fans differ in their level of commitment when engaging with the show. The numbers presented below reflect Pareto’s Principle, the idea that a small segment of the population will contribute the most significant levels of engagement. This rule is rooted in the fact that high engagement activities, like attending fan events and publishing original content, take far more time and energy, and while much fewer fans will commit to them, the effect of those who do dramatically exceeds that of all other fans combined.

Breaking down the Game of Thrones audience by Play Style and their levels of involvement, we can begin to outline a new type of audience segmentation. As seen below, the largest segment is the more casual Pathfinder. This finding calls for a fan engagement strategy that emphasizes exploratory and world-based experiences, but in a way that doesn’t require too high of a commitment. Another effective approach would be to design for the more vocal Pathfinders who would create and share content for the more casual audience to consume.

Activity Breakdown by Play Style

Looking more closely, we can see the similarities and differences between the desired activities of different Play Styles. Socialite fans of Game of Thrones are more likely to attend fan events or meetups, whereas Goalsetters may take on more ambitious, status-oriented activities like editing wikis, where they can earn recognition and karma within the community. With their orientation towards people, Dominators and Socialites are both more likely to leave comments on content, though in very different ways. Finally, Pathfinders, due to their need to understand the system behind everything, spend more time-consuming information on blogs or forums.

Engagement by Channel

Below, we can see which social and digital channels are most popular with the Game of Thrones audience. These rankings can help prioritize where content and experiences should be distributed, with priority Play Style and levels of involvement in mind. YouTube, for example, is perfect for reaching fans more casually, whereas Twitch, while attracting a smaller audience, is more likely to draw a highly engaged and often more influential audience.

Channel Breakdown by Play Style

Looking at the favorite channels of different Play Styles can also offer inspiration into what types of experiences to create. For example, Goalsetters are more likely to use Pinterest than other segments, likely due to its aspirational and action-oriented nature. Socialites, on the other hand, over-index on Instagram, which is currently the go-to platform for observing and interacting with other people. Pathfinders more commonly prefer Reddit, a place where fans can share and discuss all the show details and plot theories.

Fun Stuff

Overall Favorite Characters

While there are definite differences between the Play Styles, there are also similarities. Across the board, Game of Thrones fans showed favoritism for a few key characters.

Other Notable Responses

“Joffrey Baratheon, he’s crazy but fun to watch and love to hate.”
- A DOMINATOR

“Cersei Lannister, she really has a flare about her and knows how to get what she wants.”
- A GOALSETTER
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“Sansa, because I see myself in her. She is constantly growing and I can say the same for myself, I think she’s actually better in growth.”
- A SOCIALITE

“Hodor, it was just a very interesting person reading the books.”
- A PATHFINDER

Methodology

Survey Design

The survey was designed to quantify which Play Styles the Game of Thrones audience is made up of and determine the experiences its fans would be most interested in. Our research consisted of an eight-question survey, which included questions about respondent demographics, social media engagement, and interest in various storytelling related activities. We picked activities to include using the Kiersey-Bartle Integrated Model, proposed by Bart Stewart in 2011. Social media engagement and associated tiers of involvement are inspired by the Pareto Principle and Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder.

Recruitment

We distributed this survey through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. We screened for users “Likely” or “Very Likely” to seek out and interact with Game of Thrones related content, conversations or experiences. To ensure quality responses, we limited our survey to users with 98% or higher rating on Mechanical Turk with over 5,000 tasks completed. An open-ended question asking about their favorite characters and why ensured that respondents were attentively completing the survey. This survey took place 06/26/18-06/28/18.

Margin of Sampling Error

We defined a target sample size of 389 total respondents, based on the peak Game of Thrones audience to-date of 16.5M. As stated, our goal was to collect responses from a US-based group who were “Likely” or “Very Likely” to engage with Game of Thrones content or experiences. The survey results provide ±5% Margin of Error and 95% Confidence Level.

Representation of Game of Thrones Audience

The charts below compare our respondents’ age and gender to the overall Game of Thrones audience, as presented by Facebook’s Audience Insights, and the overall Mechanical Turk workforce.

GENDER COMPARISON & AGE COMPARISON