Research says……….

I have until the 10th January to stop talking about New Year resolutions. My final resolve is to highlight “research- based" press coverage that contains few details about the method and scope of the research.

Just before Christmas, the time that people are thinking about buying presents, research was publicised by Codemasters reporting the phenomenon of the “grey gamers”. Not surprisingly this generated a lot of media coverage. The BBC picked up the story and labelled it “Pensioners catch the gaming bug”
What did we learn from this research? Well, strategy and historical titles are very popular; it is a "natural evolution" for the tech-savvy to play games; it helps them interact with their kids and grandchildren….

The conclusion that made me smile, since it sounds like a hell of a good selling arguments was “that it keeps their minds active and alert as well as improving their physical reflexes”.

What was the source of this research? From analysing their internal records they found that "Over 50,000 ticked the over-35 box, so we contacted a few websites and local papers to say we would love to hear from more mature gamers." They had over 250 e-mails from older gamers who enthused about their electronic hobby. I could find no other explanation of how the company then went on to draw its conclusions.

If anybody from Codemasters, or anywhere else, has the details of the research I would love to see it and will happily post it to this blog. I could find no trace of the research on their web site.

The general point I am making is that one of the easiest (and cheapest) ways of getting press coverage is to report the results of research, highlight a couple of unusual findings and sprinkle with easily digestible sound bites. The media is anxious to fill its pages and doesn’t look too carefully at the credibility of the research behind the conclusions. Beware.