Data from Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy's 2024 Great Wargaming Survey (GWS) are in! Having converted the data file from Excel and recoded many of the variables into more analytics friendly forms, analysis can begin in earnest.
After a quick summarization and cursory glance at the data, one surprise pops up immediately. That is, responses to the 2024 survey saw a significant drop in participation. With 9,282 responses in 2023, the 2024 survey received only 5,995 responses. Still a respectable sample size but why the 2024 survey saw a 35% reduction in responses is, for now, a puzzle. We can speculate on contributing factors but perhaps exploring these data can provide clues? Will this drop in numbers skew or distort the parade of analyses planned for the 2024 survey reporting cycle? As a first entry in this annual procession, I kick off the series of analyses with a look at data reliability and how a handful of select demographic statistics compare from 2023 to 2024.
On Reliability of Data
Even with the non-scientific nature of data collection, the GWS has shown consistency in response results year in and year out. That result, in itself, may surprise some. Past analyses have examined data reliability topic and a topic I return to frequently. With a drop in responses, will these results and trends from past years still hold true for 2024? Some may and some may not. I suppose that we will discover this answer as we work our way through the 2024 survey questions over the next ten months. To start, let us lay the groundwork and begin with a look at the most common attributes, a selection of respondent demographics.
Location
The mix of respondents' home countries remains consistent from 2023 to 2024. A few more respondents originated in USA/Canada and Continental Europe/Scandinavia at the expense of UK/Ireland respondents but no significant change in the overall distribution.
Age Group
When examining age demographics, a shift in age cohort emerges. In 2024, every age group in the 41 and higher groups lost respondents. Every age group in the 40 and under cohorts gained ground. The 2024 survey shows a seven-percentage point shift toward the 40 and under groups. An anomaly due to reduced response rates or a harbinger of things to come?
Education
On the question of highest education level attained, results remain consistent between 2023 and 2024. No significant difference with respect to education.
Primary Interest
With an age group shift to the 40 and under cohorts, one might expect to see a shift to a more fantasy/sci-fi primary wargaming interest. This is exactly the result that the breakdown of primary interest shows. From 2023 to 2024, there is a four-percentage point shift to the Fantasy/Sci-Fi classification. What may be a surprise is that this shift toward fantasy/sci-fi draws from the "Mixed" classification and not the Historical grouping. No shift out of Historicals into Mixed. Historicals grouping remains at 28% in both 2023 and 2024 surveys.
Duration
Finally, when examining responses to how long have a respondent has been wargaming, the results are not surprising given the age and primary interest shifts seen above. The percentage of gamers having been in the hobby for 31 years or more fell by six percentage points from 2023 to 2024. While the 31 years plus group fell in total percentage, the percentage of primarily historical wargamers remains steady at 28%. Are some wargamers shifting from either Mixed or Fantasy/Sci-Fi preferences to Historicals? These data suggest this might be the case.
The main question coming to mind is why the sudden drop off in responses? Where did everyone go? While we may never know any precise answer, I wonder if any of these suggestions could pose contributing factors? - A trend toward disengaging from social media in general.
- Reduced advertising.
- A busy August.
- Survey fatigue.
- IT survey capture glitch losing thousands of responses.
- Graying (and ultimately exiting) of the hobby
- Not enough incentive (freebies) to complete the survey.
I would enjoy seeing your thoughts on why fewer gamers completed the survey and/or the demographic attributes of the GWS Class of 2024.
Having laid the groundwork with a demographics profile, many of the survey’s wargaming specific questions remain to be explored. Along with many of the standard questions, a few new questions appear in the 2024 edition too.
Jonathan, good review as to demographics. There is quite a bit of information on trying new things out in the blogs and you tube channels that had ever been stalwarts of either Games Workshop or D&D. Sometimes historical gaming is mentioned as an opportunity. This may make a difference in a few years if there is actually movement by gamers. I do think that the loss of older players is inevitable for the obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Joe! If new gamers are not coming up through the ranks, then loss is inevitable at the upper end. Is this destined?
DeleteAlthough the demographic trends will clearly mean the loss of people at the older end, I suspect this will be a steady trend rather than a sudden one. That suggests one or more of Jon's other factors will be significant.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response, Anthony. A steady erosion of gamers at the top rungs of the age groups seems a reasonable conclusion if younger gamers are not drawn in. Keep in mind that the many of the today's oldest gamers are part of the Baby Boom and that bulge is passing out of the system.
DeleteYes, and those boomers were probably responsible for the wargames "golden age" of the 70s and 80s. While there were older gamers in the golden age, a lot of it was teens and twenties. Those who've stuck it out are the wave passing through the 31+ group now. It's not just historicals either - Warhammer and games Workshop come from that era too, though I wouldn't know how many fantasy/sci-fi gamers stayed the course.
DeletePast studies suggest that it is the younger cohorts that mostly populate the primarily fantasy/sci-fi grouping. Of course, the largest bulk of gamers fit into the "Mixed" grouping without anyway to single them out.
DeleteThat is a hefty drop of in participants this year for what ever reason, some interesting things to digest. Hard to pin the dropping of interest or whatever to one thing though, could well be a mixture of all your suggestions.
ReplyDeleteHard to know what triggered the drop in participation this year. Will it bounce back next year? We will see.
DeleteCan I claim to be the extra participant in Europe…and if so is there a prize?
ReplyDeleteYou may claim one spot in the shift from UK to Continental Europe. Prize? How about a game?
DeleteThat’ll do nicely!
DeleteInteresting, that is a very significant drop though surprisingly the outcomes have not relatively significantly shifted the general spread of responses as much as I though they might and they have most definitely avoided giving a chaotic range of outcomes that would have made 2023 and 2024 look ridiculously different.
ReplyDeleteI have reduced my social media footprint, but did participate in the survey, not that that makes me a typical respondent.
It probably needs the 2025 survey to give us something to hand our collective hats on in terms of where we might be going with all of this and to offer some smoothing out of the 2023 / 24 bump.
I wonder whether the survey transmits pages as they are completed? That would allow us to see how many people started it with good intent, but at some point, backed out, perhaps feeling it was too involved or time consuming - that might at least indicate ‘something’ about the lost participants.
My own sense is that internet participation is divided between creators / sharers and those who only consume. I think that balance may be changing and that while consumers are there in big numbers, gobbling up hours of screen time, fewer people actually want to put energy in at the front end - even for simple tasks like pressing a ‘like’ button! …… who knows!
Doh …. HANG our collective hats on!
DeleteHi Norm. Good question on partial survey completions. I only receive "completed" surveys. I was surprised that the results show little distortion as well over prior years. Perhaps if the balance is tilting heavily toward consumers rather than creators, even completing a survey may be too much for some. Thanks for taking the time to complete the survey and respond here!
DeleteI was recently shown what a Discord server is. That seems to be the media that gamers are using these days.
DeleteWe do seem to be going through a fragmentation/diversification of electronic comms channels. Bluesky is another gaining traction. Is WSS's media strategy adequately covering these bases might be a question to ask about the drop off
DeleteStew, we tried Discord for remote gaming early in the Pandemic. The platform simply did not work for some of the attendees so we moved on to Zoom.
DeleteAnthony, I would be surprised if the WSS publishers were not taking advantage of all comms channels.
DeleteHopefully there wasn’t some big die off.
ReplyDeleteWell, we are dead yet!
DeleteI can't recall if I participated this year.... it seems to me that the survey didn't get mentioned much this year on forums and such.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there was less publicity this year?
DeleteI didn't bother this year.
ReplyDeleteOK. Why not?
Delete