Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009, pp. 104-124
Eastern European gaming cultures. Case studies: Romania and Bulgaria
Elena Policov Lyuba Yordanova Adriana Þãruº Alexander Kempf SNSPA Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Ilmenau, Germania
Digital games are a complex social and technological phenomenon that is situated in cultures and societies. Current academic efforts in the field of digital games analyze the realities of the Western countries, where the market on digital games is highly developed. This paper focuses on the specificities of the Eastern European gaming culture and examines the market of digital games in Romania and Bulgaria. An online survey is carried out and the results show that Romanian and Bulgarian players are mostly men, live in metropolis (over 100,000 inhabitants) and are mostly young people aged 21-25 or teenagers. National games are known and played in very low proportions, game-players from Romania and Bulgaria preferring imported games. The authors hope that this first initiative to study gaming habits and preferences of Romanian gamers will bring digital games to the attention of academic researchers in Romania.
Keywords: cultural consuming, gamers preferences, gaming market, cultural differences, media and new technologies consuming Cuvinte-cheie: consum cultural, preferinþele gamerilor, piaþa jocurilor, diferenþe culturale, consum de noi media ºi tehnologii
Introduction gaming at personal computers. This is, at least, how the gaming environment appears The days of skipping ropes and children in Western Europe. playing hide-and-seek seem to be over. The Eastern European gaming market is Nowadays kids grow up with digital games. the least studied and also less present in mar- One out of four EU inhabitants spends regu- ket share statistics. Cultural specificities of larly approximately six hours a week play- Eastern European games and media con- ing digital games (PWC data, cited by Picot sumption patterns of Eastern European et al., 2008, 5). Gaming consoles as the Sony gamers have not been examined by previous Playstation2 are long ago lifestyle products. researches. Nevertheless, digital games are Beside consoles, kids own mobile phones extremely complex social and technological with integrated games and are well skilled in phenomena that are situated in cultures and Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 105 societies. The high price of gaming devices, media and new media, where traditional the availability of playing equipment, com- stays for television (98%), reading (56%), puters and Internet accessibility are issues music (53%), and new for video games and that can make a difference between the East- computer games (45%), using the computer ern and the Western European gaming mar- (39%), surfing on the Internet (30%), and ket. Cultural differences can also involve watching video or DVD movies (28%) (Metro different preferences in genre, or gaming Media Transilvania, 2006, 10). Playing with environment (whether they play alone or friends and watching TV are the main activi- with others). On a market on which more ties that children aged 6 to 15 choose for hav- than 95% of the products that they distribute ing fun and avoiding boredom, while listen- are pirated, game distributing companies ing to music or gaming have only a secondary must search for ways to survive. role (Metro Media Transilvania, 2006, 11). The current paper points out the specif- Compared to 2004, computer activities ics of the Eastern European market, with (including gaming, Internet and other usage) focus on the Romanian and Bulgarian ones. has increased with 6-9 percents. A signifi- First, a summarizing description of Roma- cant 45% of Romanian children aged 6 to 15 nian and Bulgarian games, studios and game play video or computer games in their free developers is made, based on a research of time, but only 7% go to an Internet Café or online sources (computer magazines, websites to electronic games cafés. The study also of game-producers, journalists and analysts). concludes that although boys and girls tend A second part of the paper presents cultural to use computers in the same degree for consuming patterns of games by Romanian non-gaming activities, boys tend to use the and Bulgarian players, based on an explora- computer for gaming purposes more than tive, non-representative online quantitative girls do (Metro Media Transilvania, 2006, 10). research on these two countries. The ac- The study confirms discouraging paren- quired data about the habits and preferences tal attitude towards gaming, parents admit- of Romanian and Bulgarian players concern- ting that they sometimes argue with their ing digital games are then integrated into a children because of video games (10%) or more general frame of the social background computer games (17%) (Metro Media and general attitudes of the players. Transilvania, 2006, 142). Previous research undertaken by Metro Usage of Internet among children aged 6 Media Transilvania in 2004 and 2007 offers to 15 is fairly widespread, 73% of Romanian representative data concerning media consum- children aged 6 to 15 having heard about the ing of Romanian children aged 6-15, but does Internet and three thirds having used it or not consider the consumption preferences of having seen somebody using it. Some 44% young people or older teenagers. The 2007 of these children use the Internet, 74% at least study shows that computer availability has once a week, most often at home, at school, at risen from 2004, when only 27% of Roma- friends or at neighbors places (Metro Media nian households had a personal computer, to Transilvania, 2006, 26). Usage of Internet is more than a half of Romanian households in more frequent among children living in urban 2007 (52%). The diffusion of gaming consoles areas, older children (12 to 15 years old) as has stagnated since 2004, which is consistent well as by the ones from families where at with the stage of economic plateau of the console least one parent has a university degree, with market (Metro Media Transilvania, 2007, 6). higher income and with a computer in their Only 9% of Romanian children aged 6 to 15 household. In a normal day children send had a gaming console in their household 103 minutes using the Internet, and age seems (Metro Media Transilvania, 2006, 18). to be the most important determinant of the In respect of childrens leisure activities, amount of time spent surfing on the Internet the 2007 study demonstrates that there is a (Metro Media Transilvania, 2006). Statistically, consumption difference between traditional gaming is the main Internet-based activity, 106 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
50% of the children playing games when usually spend an average of one hour and using the Internet. Other activities are chat- forty minutes online. Gaming/entertainment ting (47%), listening to music (38%), e-mail takes up the third place on the list of most (33%) or searching for information (31%) chosen activities online (40%), after search- (Metro Media Transilvania, 2006). ing for general information (86%) and pro- For data on relevant media usage about fessional purposes (85%) (Public Opinion the older population (18 years old and Barometer, 2006, 28) more), we can acquire information from the The current research offers more detailed 2006 BOP study on mass media perception. information about the videogame consump- The research is representative for the adult tion of Romanian players and about their non-institutionalized population of Romania, gaming preferences. with a tolerated error of ±2,3%. Out of the 2004 persons asked, 28% have a computer at home, while only one in four Romanian International declare being able to use a computer. Edu- cation (40%), age (40%) and place of resi- digital games market dence (20%) are the three main factors that influence the ability of using a computer. The computer and videogames market is the With respect of Internet usage, only 18% of most dynamic segment of the media economy. adult Romanian population uses the Internet, Figure 1 presents the digital games market but more than a half of computer owners volume and expected development in the have also Internet connection (Public Opin- period 2006-2010 (PriceWaterhouseCoopers, ion Barometer, 2006, 28). Internet users from Picot et al., 2008, 40).
Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010. Figure 1. Global market volume and development Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 107
In 2007, the worldwide market was led predominant. Worldwide, PC games that are by the Nintendo platforms, especially the not online are losing market shares. This seg- Nintendo DS and the Nintendo WII. For ment has also been facing major challenges more than seven years, Playstation 2 is still associated with illegal copying. Although the very well sold (Picot et al., 2008, 31). The market for PC games is falling, new operat- introduction of new game consoles and the ing systems and other technological im- use of net-based games resulted in a global provements may check this fall (Norvegian increase in the video game market of 14.3 Report on video Games, 2007/2008). per cent from 2005 to 2006. An average In 2006, when the current field research annual growth of approximately 9.1 per cent was undertaken, the worldwide market vol- has been forecast for the period from 2007 ume was of 31,1 billion US dollars, and it to 2011 (Norvegian Report on video Games, splitted up as presented in the figure, which 2007/2008). For console games, there have shows the market share by regions in 2006. been release new game concepts like (PriceWaterhouseCoopers, from Picot et al., SingStar and Guitar Hero, both being 2008, 40). The figure demonstrates the im- party games released with the goal of win- portant role played by Asia (36%) and the ning new targets and strengthen the Family- United States (31), as well as by Europe. -Entertainment sector (Picot et al., 2008, 31). The USA was in 2006 the largest national Guitar Hero was in 2006 the most sold market. The PWC statistics for Europe in- game in the US. In the same year, Germany clude Europe, South Africa and selected had 45% PC games, France only 29% and countries in the Middle East (EMEA), but Great Britain only 22% (Picot et al., 2008). are regarded as descriptive of the European In Romania and Bulgaria, the PC market is market as a whole.
Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010 Figure 2. Market Share by Region, 2006
On the European market of entertainment quarter of 2007, the US turnover grew with software, the biggest segments are hold by 33%, while in the first half of 2007 the Great Britain, Germany and France, in this market in Great Britain grew with 40%. order (Picot et al., 2008, 31). In the first 108 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
Digital games market markets saturated by illegal copies, small in Eastern Europe developers and studios find it a necessity for survival to have commercial success on for- General facts eign markets. This leads to the trend that developers often take no risk with games According to Pavel Mezihorak (2004), the produced for their national market but pro- view of Eastern Europe as a space for inno- duce directly for the Western one. Most of- vative initiatives and technological competi- ten, Eastern European games have no refer- tiveness is a recent perspective, gaining ence to the culture and society in which they strength due to the changes and develop- were produced, or if they do, the games still ments of the last few years. If some years come up with a typical Western game design. ago it would have been difficult to think of a The tactic-shooter Vietcong of the Czech competitive game that has been developed in firm Illusion Softworks, Battle Isle 4 a Czech Republic, for example, now we have remittance work of the Slovakian studios many Czech games on the global market, as Cauldron or Imperium Galactica II of the the widely sold Operation Flashpoint devel- Hungarian developer Digital Reality are just oped by the Prague based Bohemia Interac- a few examples of games with no cultural tive Studio. references. Other games, like Stalker Ob- Countries of the Eastern bloc did not have livion Lost, a traditional ego-shooter de- any digital games markets before the col- veloped by the Ukrainian firm GSC, uses lapse of communism, while having state- national motives by using the contaminated -funded film and music industries. The situ- area around Chernobyl as plot area, and by ation reversed after the fall of communism: creating strong references to Tarkovskys lacking governmental subsidies, film and 1979 movie Stalker. However, the game music industries declined while indigenous uses a typical Western design. Likewise, the games emerged and competed with Western game Knights of the cross, produced by ones on the global entertainment market. the Polish IM Group, bases its plot on the Mezihorak estimated the number of pro- Polish novel written by the poet Henryk fessional game developers in Eastern Eu- Sienkiewicz. Central point is the Battle of rope (2004) at around one hundred. However, Grunwald around the year 1410, an impor- only few of them created competitive games tant event of Polish history, which led to or have a large number of employees. The commercial success on the home-market. majority of games developed in Eastern Eu- On Western markets, the game succeeded to rope at the moment are hardcore PC mili- get substantial revenues. As refreshing the tary action or FPS games. background has been, the gameplay was There are no exact figures in what con- demand-oriented once again and brought cerns the global market share of Eastern nothing new. European developers, because publicly avail- Tetris, a game with history first pro- able statistics, as the ones carried out by duced by the Russian Alexei Paschitnow, is Screen Digest, only show the share of major now internationally known, while only few players (USA, Japan, UK, Germany, France can distinguish its Russian origin. A second and Canada) (Mezihorak, 2004). internationally successful game produced in Konrad Lischka (2003), a German jour- Eastern Europe is, however, not in sight, nalist reporting on digital games, notices that unless the national markets will grow and the majority of developers in Eastern Eu- proper budgets for digital games will be rope struggle because of piracy on the home- available. Lischka (2003) believes that as -markets. Bootlegs bear the blame that pro- soon as the Eastern European game markets ducing games for the home-market is often are big enough to guarantee survival of the not profitable for local studios. With home local studios, digital games from Eastern Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 109
Europe might provide the other international purchases, followed by PS2 with only 15%. markets with local specificities. Other types of consoles register a stagna- In the last few years, many Eastern Eu- tion, with a growth of sales as Microsoft ropean game producing companies entered officially launched Xbox and Xbox2 in Ro- the international market. Their activity con- mania. In 2004 the best sold games were centrated around some successful games FPS games (Alien vs. Predator, Battle- such as Operation flashpoint of the Czech field 1942, Bet on soldier). In the first company Bohemia Interactive or Rage of months of 2005, 20% of the entire car rac- mages from Buka Entertainment. ing games and 20% of the sports games were already sold out. Meanwhile, the sales for Digital games market in Romania RTS and RPG are dropping (with the excep- tion of WOW and Diablo2). They rep- Regarding Romania, only two companies resent only 10% of the digital games sales. succeeded to launch a game in its final form. In Romania there are two different cat- The first one was Active Pub with the game egories of consumers: the ones who buy in Rival Realms, a RTS with RPG elements, shops and the ones who buy on-line. These which was a big success in Great Britain. categories are not complementary. The cus- Fun Labs produced another two successful tomers who buy in real shops prefer in gen- titles: Secret Service: In Harms Way and eral the genres Virtual Life and Sports Shadow Force: Razor Unit. However, and they mostly choose famous, notorious Active Pub disappeared after this, but Fun games as FIFA, FIFA Manager, The Labs have another project. It is called Sims, Need for Speed, World of Revolution, and it is a FPS which takes Warcraft. In opposition with this tendency, place in the near future and has Jack Plummer the customers who buy on-line prefer ob- as main character, an obviously not-Romanian scure games, with names which do not reso- name. Many other projects were not put into nate: Worms World Party, Tom Clancys practice because of financial problems. Sprinter Cell and The Devil Inside. This In 2005, 45% of all the games that public category also seems to show a ten- reached the consumer were bought from the dency for products with a more active shopping chain Diverta. This holding un- gameplay, as they prefer genres such as dertook a research to find some characteris- Action/Adventure and MMORPG. The tics of the Romanian digital games market. fact that they buy on-line and that they are The research showed that the consumers familiar with unpopular games, shows that prefer games with an interesting story, with these are people who spend much time on a good gameplay and high-quality graphics. the Internet and are interested in this area. The high difficulty of each level, the actual The fact that Barbie as Rapunzel is among duration of the game and the price are im- the first five positions in the real shop top portant factors which have influence on the sales, could be an indication that these cus- choice of the games. For example, Sims 2 tomers are young parents, who buy games or Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault can for their little children. This demonstrates be found in online shops for over 30. two cultural aspects: the first one is that FIFA 2005 was the most expensive game these families have certain welfare, as they that could be found on the market, with the own a computer, and the second one is that price of 50, and Heroes III the cheap- the parents encourage the children to work est game, costing only 7. Most players pre- with the computer starting with an early age. fer games that can be played in groups (in A rather low degree of discouraging paren- Internet, for example) and the ones which tal attitude towards gaming is consistent with offer rewards. The best sold platforms for the findings of recent research carried out the year 2005 were PCs with 80% of all the by Metro Media Transilvania (2007, 142) 110 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures where only few parents admitted that they This game is called BS Hacker and it is sometimes argue with their children because also available for Pocket PC. The first game of video games (10%) or computer games produced by this company is called Blue Sky: (17%). Acceptable Casualties and was launched in Price doesnt seem to be a very impor- November 2002. They also produced the tant factor in influencing the sales, as there first Quake port for a mobile telephone. can be found a wide range of prices starting Another company is Gameloft, which from 6 and ending with 63. Among the top was founded in 1999 and had as main activ- positions of the most popular games in Ro- ity the production of games for mobile mania, we can find 3 games which cost 40 phones and for PDAs (Palm, Pocket PC). In or above and two which cost around 30. 2005 they registered a huge success with the These prices are high, when we take into consi- launching of Prince of Persia: Warrior deration that the average loan in Romania is Within for Nokia NGage QD. around 200/month. The conclusion which Games produced 100% in Romania were: can be drawn from here is that both types of Prince Of Persia: Harem Adventure, customers have incomes above the average. Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within, Splin- One outstanding fact is that almost all ter Cell: Extended Ops, Chessmaster games are designed for only one kind of and an internal brand, Block Breaker. platform: the PC. This is probably the most Concerning the Romanian academic re- important characteristic of the Romanian search on digital games, to our knowledge market. This fact has economical reasons: came a study conducted in 2006 by the De- most people cant afford to buy a device partment of Psychology and Educational strictly for entertainment as PS2, PSP or Sciences from the Bucharest University. The X-Box. In plus, our supposition would be paper was titled Correlative study on the that many gamers are teenagers between relation between the type of preferred dig- ital game and the learning style (Preotesiu 13-18 years who still live with their parents et al., 2006) and tested the hypothesis that and who do not have their own incomes. there is a correlation between the prefer- Maybe they can convince their parents to ences in what concerns digital games and the invest in a PC, which can also be used in a style of learning of children and adolescents. constructive way, and not only for play- The study was made on a sample of students ing games. from Bucharest (gamers for at least 6 years) One famous Romanian game producing and confirms the correlation for the reflex- company is 2 bad design, which in 2002 ive and the pragmatic learning styles but started a well known project: The Hospi- invalidates it for the activist and theoretic tal (Spitalul). This project could not be styles of learning. The paper was presented brought in a final form not even until today, at the National Conference for Psychology because of technical and financial problems. and Educational Sciences (Bucharest, 2006). Other active projects are the Zamolxe Graphic Engine, the multiplayer action game Cotropitorii and the 3D space simu- Digital games market in Bulgaria lator Rom^nii `n Spatiu. The Bulgarian digital games landscape could ExoSyphen Studios focuses primarily on be characterised as having a variety of for- game development, but also develop software eign products and a smaller amount of na- and games for mobile platforms as well as tional games developers. Despite this fact, other portable platforms and software com- there are some companies which managed to ponents for third party companies. They pro- establish themselves on the market and cre- duced the most appreciated hacking simula- ate products that came in competition with tors in the world, according to BestGames.ro. other games over the borders of Bulgaria. Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 111
The first Bulgarian digital game that en- players prefer to pay between 2 and 4 euro tered the international market is Tzar: The for unlicensed versions of the games. De- Burden of the Crown. This medieval fan- spite, the leader among the games played in tasy combines elements of both RTS and Bulgaria Warcraft by Blizzard Enter- RPG games and lets the player devise and tainment stimulates its clients to buy the adopt multiple strategies during game play. original disc by offering the special CD key The game was released by Haemimont for playing online only in the licensed ver- Games probably the most famous digital sion. Another method against the piracy on games developer in Bulgaria. The company Bulgarian market are the translated versions creates all aspects of their games, from con- of the games, which could be obtained only cept to graphics and programming and asso- in official shops. ciates with partners like Atari, CDV Soft- World of WarCraft is the game that ware Entertainment, Enlight Software and dominates the Bulgarian digital game scene. Octagon Entertainment. Another product of It held the first position among the mostly Haemimont Games is the adventure in the played games for the period March06 Celtic world Celtic Kings: Rage of War, May06. Other often played games in Bul- also a real-time strategy. The game was re- garia are Lineage II, NFS: Most Wanted leased in many European countries and was and FIFA 06, according to a survey made the best selling title in Spain in November by PC Mania Magazine (PC Mania online). 2002. Other popular games of the company Further results of the same survey show are Glory of the Roman Empire and Ris- that most of the Bulgarian players play at ing Kingdoms. home and only 17% of them in computer Another leading Bulgarian game devel- clubs. The most favoured game genres are oper is Black Sea Studios. The company, real time strategy, action and role-playing established by some of the programmers who games and the most favoured scenarios worked in Haemimont, aims to become a science fiction, fantasy as well as World War II. centre of the gaming industry in whole Interesting to know is that Bulgaria was South-Eastern Europe and became famous the first European country to recognise with its contract with the German distributor eSports as official kind of sport. The coun- Sunflowers. The most popular game created try managed to get a license for the probably by Black Sea Studios is Knights of Hon- most successful eSports league, ESL (Elec- our a simulation in real time that deals tronic Sports League). with empire conquering. Other types of games, created by Bul- garian companies, werent that successful Method of research on the market. There is a great variety of Bulgarian browser games that arent at least As the field hasnt been explored before in popular among the players. As for online Eastern Europe, we undertook an explora- games, the mostly played one is the online tive online survey, which is therefore non- poker. -representative, and serves for giving impor- Bulgarias biggest distribution firm for tant information for future research. Because digital games is Pulsar Games. The com- of the personal contacts of the team with pany is official distributor for Electronic Arts, Bulgaria and Romania, we expected to have Vivendi Universal, Lucas Arts, Dreamcatcher most respondents from these countries. The and many others as well as sponsor of the survey was opened for respondents in the first Bulgarian digital game Tzar. period between the 17.06.2006 and 31.08.2006 Although Pulsar Games offer a wide at the link
English language, which eliminated issues re- link. The net participation number is 240 lated with different alphabets (for Romania persons (100%) from which 125 (52.08%) and Bulgaria), and possibly intervening vari- persons completed the questionnaire. The ables caused by the translation bias. sample is not a representative but an ex- plorative one. Countries: As expected, most of the re- Structure of the questionnaire spondents were from Romania (44.80%) and Bulgaria (39.20%). The presence of other To attract the respondents attention, we countries in the sample was irrelevant, hav- searched for an ice-breaking question and ing percentages less than 2: Croatia, Lithua- went for Do you consider yourself to be a nia, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. There gamer?. Further on, we structured our werent respondents from other East-European questionnaire in categories. The first logical countries. Because of the very low presence category was Utilized Equipment, contain- of other Eastern-European respondents than ing two questions concerning the games- Romanian and Bulgarian, we cannot gener- -playing devices and the internet connection. alize the obtained data for the whole Eastern The second category was Gaming Practice, Europe. More appropriate, we will consider in which we tried to find out the places, times this study as a research on the Romanian and and rituals of the game players, through a the Bulgarian markets on digital games. number of 10 questions. In the third cat- Gender: As expected, the gender gap is egory, Gaming Preferences, we tried to find deeply present: 72.13% are men and only out what genres and types of games Eastern 27.87% are women. European gamers favour. This category con- Occupation: Nearly half of the respond- tains eight questions. The fourth category ents are university students, 24.17% high- encloses questions about the opinions of our -school students and an equal percentage of respondents, concerning game playing and 24.17% are working/employed. We assume reasons for it. In this category we inserted that the higher percentage of university stu- also some questions regarding the numbers dents is generated not by the fact that most of games they buy, because we considered players are university students, but because this as a quite neutral category that could the members of the research team have most make participants respond such type of in- contacts with university students. convenient and avoided questions. In the Rural-urban distribution: Most survey fifth category, we have two questions con- participants (73.33% of 120) live in big cit- cerning Games acquaintance: how familiar ies of more than 100,000 inhabitants and the players are with different games and 21.67% live in cities of 25,000 up to 100,000 games producing companies from Eastern inhabitants. There are no respondents that Europe. The last category concerns the per- live in rural areas. sonal background of the respondents (age, Age: Contrary to our guess, most re- gender, urban/rural distribution, occupation, spondents (45,8%) are young people of age country, etc.). between 21 and 25. From the total of 125 respondents, teenagers come on the second scale, with 23,3%. Young people older than Results 26 but younger than 30 have answered our questionnaire in proportion of 15,8%, teen- Survey respondents agers from 10 to 15 years old in proportion of 10,8%, and 8% had 36 years old or more. We cumulated a number of 125 persons that We cannot assume that the greater number completed the questionnaire till the last page, of people of age between 21 and 25 is caused from the total sample of 326 that entered the by the fact that, especially at this age people Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 113 use to play digital games. More probably, ital games even earlier, between 6 and 10 we have to consider the fact that all the years old. The tendency to start playing dig- members of our team had contacts with indi- ital games earlier than some decades ago viduals of this age. can be noticed in the results of this survey: The first encounter with digital games only 11,2 percents of the respondents dis- (figure 3) occurred in most cases (47,9%) covered digital games at ages over 16, while between the ages of 11 and 15. A percent of 6% encountered digital games before they 35 of the participants played their first dig- reached 6 years old.
N = 125 Question: At what age did you first play digital games? Figure 3. Age of the first encounter with digital games
We considered that real gamers have to is confirmed. Gamers start playing at early play digital games regularly. In order to ages but do not stop after they finish high avoid subjective appreciations of the term school, but continue playing, buying and regularly, we mentioned below our ques- enjoying them. tion what our understanding of this term is: at least 4 hours a week. The ages of the fist encounter of digital games with the ages of Equipment and gaming practice regular playing correspond: 42,2% of the respondents began to play digital games on a of Eastern Europeans regularly basis at the ages of 11-15. Another 28,9% of the surveyed persons One essential question was what kind of de- became regular gamers later, as they were vices the respondents own respectively use. 16-20 years old. In conclusion, although the We distinguished in own and use be- biggest part of our respondents were not cause some participants might play digital teenagers but university students or em- games in public buildings or internet cafés. ployed persons over 20, our respondents do As expected the PC is the most widespread play digital games since they were teenagers device for playing digital games in Eastern of 11-15 or 16-20 years old. The idea that Europe. Nearly 80% of the respondents teenage is the time to discover digital games dated that they own a PC for personal use. 114 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
We nevertheless need to take into account that the survey was made online, so virtually all our respondents had access to a computer in a way or another.
N = 125 Question: Do you use a PC to play digital games? Figure 5. Percentage of PC usage N = 125 to play games Question: Do you actually own a PC which allows you to play digital games? not and additional what kind of connection they use. In a nutshell only a minority of 4% Figure 4. Percentage of PC owners stated to have no access to internet at home. The distinct majority with over 50% even Other gaming devices are not widespread got a DSL internet access at home, which in Eastern Europe. Only around 2% of the allows them to play online games. Of course respondents own consoles as Xbox or these results have to be taken with a pinch of Gamecube. The most popular console is salt and can not be generalized, as only Playstation2 by Sony, which is at least someone who regularly uses internet was owned by 6,4% of the random sample. Con- able to take part in the survey. soles of the first generation as Playstation1, Furthermore we focused on the gamers Gamecube or Dreamcast do own over 8%. gaming practice and asked the respondents These data show that beside the PC no other where they play and how often they do. At gaming device does preponderate. Even home about a third plays digital games daily handheld devices are not common, only and over the half of the respondents play at 7,2% of the respondents do own Gameboy, least several times a week. Nitendo PS or Playstation Portable. Playing digital games at internet cafés What does surprise is that only 65,6% of and clubs does not seem to be very attractive the participants state they use a PC for gam- to the respondents, as a majority of 58% ing, while 79,2% own one. We reason that states they never play at such localisations. many people took part in the survey, who Playing digital games at friends seems to be rarely play digital games. quite unpopular too. Nearly a third of the The results for utilisation of consoles and respondents state they never do so. The sec- handheld devices just underlines that they ond third plays only several times a year at are not widespread in Eastern Europe. On their friends. Only at work the respondents an average less than 10% of the respondents play less digital games, 70% of the respond- use consoles or handheld devices. Once ents negated that they play during their job. again only Playstation2 approves by 12% Probably social desirability had a strong that it is the most common gaming device in impact on this question. Eastern Europe after the PC. For our re- In addition, we asked the participants search it was necessary to know whether the how often they play on each device, while participants have access to the internet or we categorized into the following groups: Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 115
N = 125 Question: What kind of internet connection do you have at home? Figure 6. Type of Internet connection used
N = 125 Question: How often do you play digital games at home? Figure 7. Gaming regularity 116 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
PC, consoles, handheld and others. The data friends and downloading from the internet. approves our given conclusions. About a The results show that people always or at third of the participants play digital games leas sometimes receive their games from on their PC every day and about half of downloading it online by 75,2%, borrowing them at least several times a week. If you it from friends by 73%, buying it from com- delete the non valid data 67,8% of the par- puter shops by 33,4% and buying it from ticipants do never play digital games on a online stores by only 12%. Alarming is the console, 67,5% never play digital games on fact, that 43,4% of the respondents state they handheld devices and 70,4% never play dig- always download their games from the ital games on alternative devices. This un- internet. Continuative, the participants derlines one more time that except the PC should state how many games they own all devices for playing digital games are not themselves. This question might be helpful established in Eastern Europe. to check afterwards whether the respondents Not to lose track of our questions and to own illegal games or strictly pay for soft- consider the social environment of our re- ware. A significant majority by nearly 48% spondents we asked them with whom they declares to own between one and five digital play digital games most of the time. As a games. Another important issue is obviously result we can secure that playing digital financing, so we asked the respondents to games is a rather individual experience. estimate how much money they spend on Nearly two-thirds state that they mainly play digital games as well as on fees for playing digital games alone. Beside that 21,7% do play online games possibly at an internet regularly play with their friends and 8,3% café. The results acknowledge our assump- with people, who they do not know. tions the East Europeans are not able to As we were also interested in the market spend much money for digital games. In fact structures of the Eastern European countries 47,5% declare that they do not spend any we asked people where they draw their money on digital games. It marks the major- games from. The given options were: com- ity. These who spend money on digital puter shops, online shops, borrowing from games rarely disburse more than 50 euros.
N = 125 Question: How much money did you spend on digital games in the last 6 months? Figure 8. Games expenditure Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 117
The results for the average time partici- only last 48 hours. As in the case of playing pants spend playing digital games through- during the week, the biggest group states to out the week and the weekend were harmed play digital games in weekends for one hour by many incorrect entries. Some fill in let- with a percentage of 17,24. ters instead of the claimed numbers, others set commas, although they were asked to neglect that. Out of the remaining valid data Gaming preferences we know that the average time for playing of Eastern Europeans digital games during the week is about 4,61 hours. Among the 97 participants who fill in This part of the questionnaire deals with the the data correctly were extreme examples participants own preferences in playing dig- playing up to 35 hours a week. ital games, such as favourite game types, Dubious entries as playing digital games genres and devices, images of the ideal game for 80 hours a week were not included. A and platform and mostly played digital games. majority of 30,93% answered to play ordi- The type of game which is played the nary one hour during the week. These respond- most among the East European gamers is ents can hardly be categorized as gamers. the Single player type of games. This an- The average time for playing digital games swer was given by nearly the half of the during the weekend was 4,05 hours as 116 respondents and followed by the Massively people who fill in the data correctly. Once Multiplayer Online Role Playing games with again dubious values as 56 or 48 hours had 30%. The least played type of game is to be deleted, accounted that the weekend Browser games.
N = 125 Question: How often do you play the following types of games? Figure 9. Frequency and type of game
As for the preferred mostly played dig- comes the action-adventure and on the third ital game genres, the dominating answer, the role playing games. The least favoured given by nearly three-fourths of the respond- genres are the quiz and sport, as well as the ents, was the strategy genre. On second place skill games. 118 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
N = 125 Question: Which of the following game genres do you enjoy playing? Figure 10. Preferred game genres
Interesting is that although the mostly Most played game recently: played game type is the single player game, 1. World of Warcraft the game which was given as most played 2. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne recently, is a MMORPG type of game, 3. Counter-Strike namely World of Warcraft. 4. Need for Speed Most Wanted 5. Solitaire Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 119
Most played game ever: different games were given as answers to 1. Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne each of these two questions. The Warcraft 2. Heroes series dominated with only 10 entries out of 3. Counter-Strike 125. This result points out the variety of 4. Need for Speed digital games played at the east European 5. Warcraft / World of Warcraft market. As expected, the game device which east Europeans favour the most is the per- Other digital games played recently by sonal computer. It was given as an answer east Europeans are the Heroes series as by 90% of the participants. This result could well as the Half Life episodes. Diablo 2 be also certified by the fact that the market and Solitaire are also among the games ever for personal computers in East Europe is the played most. It has to be noted that over 50 most growing one among all game devices.
N = 125 Question: Which device for playing digital games do you favour most? Figure 11. Favoured devices
In another part of the questionnaire the ultimately no one-sentence description of respondents had to describe their own ideal what makes all games fun; different games digital game by evaluating the importance of emphasise different types of enjoyment and different game elements. A good gameplay different players may even enjoy the same as well as a favourite game genre are the game for entirely different reasons. (ibid.) elements that come on first place, both given Meier (apud Juul, 19) designer of Civiliza- by more than three fourths of the East Euro- tion, considers that high-quality games are peans. These results are interesting through the ones whose choice provide high-quality the fact that they confirm the commonly ac- mental challenges for players. The realistic cepted opinion that the all important qual- design of the game plays also an important ity factor of a game is its gameplay, the pure role in the judgement. By contrast, popular interactivity of the game (Juul, 2005, 19). characters from books and movies and game However, the opinion is revised by Jesper producers are being disregarded in the game Juul in his book Half-Real; in his attempt choice. to answer the question: Why are video Analogue to the previous question the games fun?, Juul premises that there is respondents were also asked about their ideal 120 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
N = 125 Question: How important are each of the following elements of a digital game for you? Figure 12. What makes a good digital game digital game platform. Its interesting that different statements about digital games that all given elements were marked as impor- could be marked as typical in research stud- tant by over half of the respondents. The ies about playing digital games. dominated ones were good graphic and The statements deal with some charac- sound qualities and easy to configure, teristics of digital games and their influence and the least important characteristics was on the gamers. Interesting result could be good online and multiplayer perform- observed concerning the statement that some ances, contrary to the fact that World of games are intellectually challenging 84 out Warcraft leads among the mostly played dig- of 116 East European agree with it. ital games recently. As for assuming that digital games help As for the question about the different people get together, nearly half of the re- price models on the hardware-software mar- spondents dont confirm this opinion. This ket, no strict tendency in the answers of the could be confirmed also by the result that East European could be noticed. Though, the statement I play digital games so that I nearly half of them prefer to spend money can chat about them with my friends does on expensive software and to get the hard- not refer to over three fourths of the gamers. ware cheaper. Nevertheless the bigger part of them agree that digital games help to escape from eve- Gamers opinions and attitudes ryday problems which is a very interesting result, that indicates some particular influ- In this part of the questionnaire the respond- ence, digital games could have. On the ents were asked to give their opinion on contrary, over the half of the respondents Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 121
N = 125 Question: How important are the following characteristics for you for a gaming platform? Figure 13. Qualities for a gaming platform gives the opinion that they dont play digital their parents wont agree with them playing games only to kill time and dont feel they games. are neglecting other preoccupations because East Europeans were also asked about of their passion for games. the emotions gaming awakes in them. The In terms of the often discussed role of most of them are challenged, excited and internet cafés, 97 out of 125 East Europeans involved when playing digital games. Over wouldnt spend more time there even if they three fourths of the respondents say they had the money and dont refer themselves to also feel happy. On the contrary, stress, the opinion that some play games in internet boredom and frustration are emotions gam- cafés because they meet people there. These ing does not awake in them. results accord with the fact that nearly half One of the most interesting results con- of the respondents dont play games in cerns the proportion of the bought and internet cafés. owned digital games. The fact that nearly The results on the statement I enjoy play- 93% of the East Europeans have at least one ing digital games by myself more than play- game of their own but only 46% of them ing with other people dont give any strict have also actually bought one, speaks for tendency of the answers. The difference be- itself. tween those respondents who dont distin- guish themselves with this opinion and those Games they heard of who agree with it isnt significant. Nearly half of the East European gamers This category contains questions regarding suppose games are too expensive and even Eastern European games and game produc- more strongly disagree with the statement ing companies. How familiar are Eastern 122 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures
N = 125 Issue: Owned vs. bought games in the last 6 months Figure 14. Owned vs. bought games
European gamers with games produced in Burden of the Crown but Knights of Hon- their home country? Have they even heard our, with 50% of the total number of re- about them? To find the answers to these spondent having heard of it. questions, we created a table with 4 games For Romania, the percentages are insig- for each of the 2 countries we expected to nificant. However, the most popular national have more respondents, Romania and Bul- games, both between Romanian players (6%) garia and also 4 games produced in Poland and in general (18%), is Shadow Force: (Terrorist Takedown, Xpand Rally, GTI Razor Unit. BS-Hacker seems to be totally Racing, and Battlestrike). For Romania, unknown by the Romanian public, while we included BS-Hacker, Shadow Force: Rival Realms and Secret Service: in Razor Unit, Rival Realms and Secret Harms Way cumulate only 4%, respectively Service: In Harms Way. For Bulgaria, 3% of the national public acquaintance rate. the respondents had to choose between Tsar: The question that followed (Which of the The Burden of the Crown, Knights of following digital games producing compa- Honor, Celtic Kings: Rage of War and nies have you heard of?) aimed at finding out Glory of the Roman Empire. From the if Eastern European game-players can rec- Bulgarian list, the most popular between ognize local game-producing companies. We Bulgarian players seems to be Tzar: The introduced in table 2 Bulgarian companies Burden of the Crown: 41% of the Bulgar- (Haemimont Games and Black Sea Studios), ian respondents have heard of the game. A 4 Romanian companies (2 Bad Design, first general remark is that from the three ExoSyphen Studios, Fun Lab and Active Pub), countries, Bulgaria has the greatest positive 3 Polish companies (City Interactive, IM percentages, meaning that Bulgarian game- Group and Techland) and 3 fake companies. -players are more acquainted with national We can assume that the name of the pro- games than are Romanian or Polish players. ducing company is not of great interest for But Bulgarian games have been voted as players. Even for players, the names of the being heard of by non-Bulgarians as well. game-producing companies can be hard to For the Eastern-European gamers as a remember. However, most respondents (34%) whole, the most popular is not Tzar: The have answered to have heard of the Bulgarian Sociologie Româneascã, volumul VII, Nr. 1, 2009 123 company Black Sea Studios, but the next tion with the offer of the home-market on best rated company is a fake one: ProGames digital games. The biggest part of respond- Studio, with 29% of the respondent. The most ents (37,6%) rated that the market for dig- recognizable games-producing company from ital games in their home country doesnt Romania appeared to be Fun Lab, while the provide them with all the games they want. most rated Polish company was City Inter- An equal percent of 28,8% respondents ei- active. The possibility to induce in error the ther consider the home market satisfactory respondents with fake names of companies in terms of digital games offer, or they do confirms that the answers are not really trust- not have an opinion (I dont know). The big able. The formulation of the question have percentage of non-response data (I dont you heard of appeals to the memory of the know, almost 30%) makes the results at this respondents, but the answers can easily be question hardly relevant. As for the equip- completed from the imagination of the play- ment for playing digital games available on ers, especially when the names are likely to their home market, 52,2% of the respond- be real (ProGames Studio, DigiGames etc.). ents consider it satisfactory and sufficient, The next two questions were intercon- while 20% dont know and other 20% be- nected and queried gamers level of satisfac- lieve it is insufficient.
N = 125 Question: Does the market for digital games in your home country provide you all the equipment you want? Figure 15. Satisfied with the range of equipment on the home market
Conclusions men, live in metropolis (over 100.000 of and recommendations inhabitants) and are young people in the age of 21 to 25 or teenagers. They first started for further research to play digital games as they were 11-15 and most of them became regular players at the In our research project we used an explora- same age. tive online survey in order to analyze the If they do play games produced in their preferences, the habits, the motivations and home country, Bulgarians play mostly Tzar: the behavior of digital game-players from The Burden of the Crown. Romanians play Eastern Europe. Due to personal contacts, national games in a very low proportion, and we reached a significant number of Bulgar- the game that enjoys the greatest popularity ian and Romanian gamers. is Shadow Force: Razor Unit. Although few The results of the survey suggest that Polish gamers answered our query, many of Romanian and Bulgarian players are mostly our respondents have answered to have 124 E. Policov, A. Þãruº, L. Yordanova, A. Kempf, Eastern European gaming cultures heard of games produced in Poland, the most finally reach the hands of players, and dig- votes having GTI Racing. ital games themselves have many different Bulgarian, Polish and Romanian game types and genres. Studies with pretence of producing companies are heavily recognized comprehensiveness can therefore not reach by the participants and easily jumbled with a high depth of analysis, and future studies names of fake companies. Eastern European should try to focus on a specific aspect gamers, in the case of Romania and Bulgaria, of the broad digital games spectrum. We do not consider the offer of digital games avail- hope our report draws a helpful picture of able on their home markets satisfying, but are the Eastern European market for digital content with the offer of playing equipment. games, delivers new insight about local pe- The context of digital games begins be- culiarities and serve as a fundament for fur- fore the games are marketed, circulated and ther studies.
References
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Primit în redacþie: martie 2008