GWS 2025 Retrospective

As the launch of the Great Wargaming Survey, 2026 Edition looms on the horizon, I look back upon the questions considered and analyses undertaken from the Great Wargaming Survey, 2025 edition.  Upon reflection, a common theme emerges from this retrospective on the past year's analyses.  Rather than focusing on the tangible (and countable) facets of wargaming such as Top Wargaming Periods, Collection Sizes, Preferred Figure Size, etc., analysis drifted toward the softer skills of wargaming and wargaming as a human activity.  Was this shift in focus intentional?  No.  The questions and subsequent analyses simply moved in that direction naturally.

When I review the topics examined from GWS 2025, survey results and analyses suggest that the wargaming hobby presents itself as a broadly recognizable human activity.  Miniature wargaming is far more than simply moving toy soldiers across a table.  Wargaming offers a multi-faceted activity satisfying core human desires for intellectual stimulation, creativity, historical connection, storytelling, belonging, and mental diversion.  Across these analyses, we see what draws gamers into the hobby and keeps them there.

What did the GWS 2025 results suggest about wargaming as a human activity?

To begin, consider the Top 3 appealing facets of wargaming and why we wargame are (see Figure 1):

1. Historical (or fictional) background interest
2. Creative and hobby aspects
3. Social connection and camaraderie

Background interest was the single most popular primary reason.  This top ranking reflects humanity’s fascination with the past, alternate worlds, and exploring "what if" scenarios through miniatures and rules.  Creative and hobby aspects (painting, building, modeling, terrain) ranked a very close second emphasizing artistry and hands-on craftsmanship.  Social connection and camaraderie featured prominently in third place especially for group-oriented players.  Solo or small-group historical gamers often prioritize background knowledge, storytelling, and education in a reflective mode while gaming mainly at home.  Larger groups in fantasy/sci-fi tend to game at clubs or stores emphasizing social connections and competition.

Figure 1

When survey respondents were asked, "What do you like most about miniatures wargaming?" in an open-ended, free text question, cluster analysis of the thousands of responses confirm that games, people, and craft are the major elements (see Figure 2).  All of the craft elements are tightly connected with creativity often bridging between the historical and hands-on work aspects of the hobby.  Participants are able to distinguish between the gaming and socializing parts of the hobby from the preparatory "hobby engine."  Yet respondents see all of these pieces as a part of whole.  The multi-faceted nature of the hobby, perhaps, explains wargaming's enduring appeal.

Figure 2

Despite its strong social appeal, isolation remains common.  Once introduced to wargaming, practical social frictions arise that can leave gamers feeling isolated in what I termed as "opponent deserts."  These opponent deserts stem less from raw population shortages and more from coordination challenges.  Wargaming acts more like a social network than a simple consumer market.  Success depends on visibility, introductions, compatibility, and regular shared spaces.  Overcoming fragmentation and isolation into small and distinct groups is key to broader enjoyment.  Figure 3 lists the top reasons for not having enough opponents.

Figure 3

As a human activity, wargaming satisfies timeless needs such as intellectual engagement, creative expression, historical imagination, and social belonging.  Satisfying a variety of needs helps to draw in and accommodate diverse personalities.  The solitary researcher-painter, the narrative seeker, the competitive tactician, and the club socializer, all can find something here.  

In essence, we wargame because it lets us play with history (or other worlds), create, exercise our minds, tell stories, and connect with others.  Wargaming is a profoundly human hobby allowing activity anywhere along the spectrums of reflective to sociable, solitary to collective, and cerebral to tactile. These data affirm what many feel intuitively.  That is, wargaming isn’t just about the games.  It is about the people, the process, the passions, and the welcome mental shift that makes life richer.

I am regularly asked why someone should complete the survey.  My answer is that every response adds another piece to the picture.  The more people that answer, the better we understand what wargaming means to its players.  These analyses demonstrate that the survey is worthwhile because it turns individual hobby experiences into shared insight about wargaming as a human and philosophical activity.

What I Like About You!

Well, what we like about wargaming, that is.

In the Great Wargaming Survey, 2025 edition, one survey question asked respondents, “What do you like most about miniatures wargaming?” Responses were collected as unstructured text (up to about 2,100 characters per response and anything goes!) allowing participants to write without constraint to include all of the facets of wargaming that they like.  In total, there were 4,063 non-blank responses recorded.  I last looked at this question in GWS 2023.  I wonder if wargamers' "likes" have changed since then?

To parse and interpret this large body of text, machine learning techniques are introduced.  Specifically, a variety of cluster analysis techniques are applied to the survey data.  These statistical methods help uncover underlying data associations and reduce thousands of unique words (tokens) to a smaller dataset.  The aim of this data reduction step is to transform unstructured text into a manageable set of representative tokens while preserving essential meaning.

After routine preprocessing and tokenization, the dataset produced 2,719 unique terms with associated frequencies.  A further data step involved removing near-zero variance terms thereby reducing this set dramatically to just nineteen key word tokens.  These nineteen tokens are:

games, people, painting, miniatures, history, research, collect, model, terrain, table, fun, creative, army, build, aspect, good, time, hobby, like.

The last five tokens in the list of "aspect", "good", "time", "hobby", and "like" were excluded from analysis as either too general or redundant. 

With the dataset reduced from over 4,000 terms to fourteen, cluster analysis provides the next layer of insight.  The resulting dendrogram (see Figure 1) reveals a clear and intuitive structure that I break down layer by layer. 

Figure 1

The dendrogram organizes the “most liked” aspects of wargaming by how closely respondents associate the tokens.  Joining at a lower height in the dendrogram indicates a stronger relative relationship with higher splits indicating more separation.

At the highest level, "games" stands apart from all other terms, joining the rest of the terms only at a relatively large distance. This indicates that respondents view gaming as distinct reinforces the notion that gaming, itself, is the central facet of the hobby.  From the dendrogram (see Figure 2), "games" is not intertwined with the other activities. 

Figure 2

The next major split separates "people" from the remaining terms (see Figure 3). Together, this creates a clear hierarchy in a three-cluster solution of:

• Games (most distinct)
• People (second most distinct)
• Everything else (more tightly interrelated)

Results suggest that gaming and social interaction are the two most independently valued aspects of wargaming.

Figure 3

Below this top structure in the hierarchy, several distinct clusters emerge from the dendrogram analysis (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

"Painting" and "miniatures" form one tight pairing.  This closeness suggests a connection between painting and the objects being painted.  "Collect" and "research" also pair closely.  Their proximity suggests that painting and amassing armies of figures and learning about them seemingly go hand-in-hand.  "Table" and "terrain" form another very tight cluster representing the physical environment of play.  These pairings are intuitive and reinforce the notion that respondents think in terms of hobby activities rather than isolated concepts.

Slicing across the dendrogram at a practical level (around mid-height) yields four meaningful groupings (see Figure 5):

• Games (standalone)
• People (standalone)
• Painting/miniatures (craft-focused sub-cluster)
• All remaining hobby activities (a blended cluster of building, modeling, and researching)

Figure 5

Interestingly, "creative" sits between "history" and all of the craft elements in Cluster 4.  In this hierarchy, creativity acts as a bridge linking both building and interpreting history.

What can we infer from this analysis of survey respondents' likes about wargaming?

To begin, analysis supports the notion that gaming, social interaction, and painting emerge as primary drivers.  All other activities form a supporting ecosystem.  Analysis also suggests a structure to the wargaming hierarchy.  That is, wargaming should not be viewed as a single, unified, activity but as a combination of semi-independent domains.  If we return to the three-cluster solution, the clusters are:

• Gaming is central but conceptually separate.
• Social interaction is nearly as important and also distinct.
• Everything else forms an interconnected hobby engine of crafting, researching, and building.

The dendrogram shows that these are all part of the same hobby.  The distinction is that participants mentally separate playing and socializing from the preparatory and creative work.  Overall, results reinforce the idea that miniatures wargaming is a layered hobby with distinct, varied but interconnected facets of engagement.

For the cluster analysis, itself, these classifications demonstrate how a large and unstructured dataset can be reduced into a smaller number of meaningful dimensions without losing interpretive power.  Now, I mentioned that I examined this question in the 2023 survey.  Have "likes" changed in the two years having a different survey population and the ability to respond in unstructured text?

Figure 6 shows that hierarchy and association of the best aspects of wargaming have not changed all that much! 

Figure 6

The four-cluster solution in GWS 2023 mirrors that of the GWS 2025 four-cluster solution with the same clusters of,

• Games (standalone)
• People (standalone)
• Painting/miniatures (craft-focused sub-cluster)
• All remaining hobby activities (a blended cluster of building, modeling, and researching)

Remarkable.  The same question asked two years apart produces a very similar profile of wargamer favored aspects of the hobby even when survey respondents can enter anything they please.  Another tick alongside the scoring of the reliability of data.  Fascinating.

Painting Seasonality

I have been bemoaning my lethargy at the painting desk since the arrival of spring.  Painting production has fallen off from the respectable start in the first three months of the year.  Looking back at earlier analysis on my own painting seasonality and routine, I began to consider that this recent perception may not be anything out of my normal cyclical efforts at the workbench.

Let's see what the data suggest.

Grabbing the data from the Painting Log and loading them into my favorite data analysis software, I set to work.  Long time readers may recall that painting results have been diligently tracked since late 1995.

First place to start, here, is a tally of painted figures in the first five months of 2026.  The figure below shows actual counts of figures painted by month.  Reaching 100 painted figures in one month is always a stretch goal for me.  Rarely happens but noteworthy when it does.  Notice that the very respectable (to me) output in March was followed by a less than stellar count in April.  This pattern happens regularly.  I reckon I experience some painting fatigue after a big month and then back off time spent at the table in the next.  

Actual Painted Figure Counts in 2026

Raw figure counts can distort actual effort, though.  To compensate for the mix of figures and figure sizes painted, the counts are adjusted by figure size.  To make this adjustment, I use The Analog Hobbies Painting Challenge Painting Points conversion.  The graph below shows these raw counts converted to Painting Points.  Notice how January and February surpass March's totals when factoring in figure size.  January and February must have seen more 28mm figures cross the table than did March.  April totals still look anemic no matter the scheme used to count.   

Adjusted Painted Figure Counts in 2026

Back to my initial question regarding painting cycles, seasonality, and whether this year is an anomaly or fits into standard operating procedure.  The graph below shows monthly totals in Painting Points from 1996-2025.  That's thirty years of data!  The solid line super-imposed on the bar graph denotes the trend for monthly painting points.  Notice that production has fallen off from the more productive years of 2010-2020.  "TOTPOINTS" are painting figure counts adjusted for Painting Points.

Monthly production and trend in Painting Points.

For seasonality tests, I use times series decompositions to separate the various components of the Painting Log time series.  I stick to examining adjusted figure counts which are adjusted by Painting Points.  I skip over the intermediate steps to series decomposition but provide a graphic showing these seasonal decompositions in the graphic below: 

Seasonal decompositions by Painting Points

A bunch of squiggles for the various components.  Can a seasonal component be found herein?

Seasonal Painting Tendencies 1996-2025

Looking at the seasonal painting tendencies graph, above, my painting does exhibit some seasonal tendencies.  The decomposition suggests a clear yearly seasonal pattern in figure-painting output with the strongest positive seasonality in late fall and early winter and weaker output in spring and early summer.  In other words, my painting productivity appears to rise and fall in a repeating annual cycle rather than moving randomly.

This seasonality looks like a low-in-summer, high-in-winter painting pattern.  One plausible explanation is that I finish more figures in the colder months.  Since I live in the northern hemisphere, indoor hobby time increases in colder months and competing outdoor activities decrease.  The late-year surge is strong enough that it is unlikely to be a small random fluctuation.

What does the graphic suggest for each month's output?

• January.  Slightly above the average (Monthly Mean).  A decent start to the year, but not a major peak.
• February.  Still a little above average.  Productivity holds up before the spring dip.
• March.  Clear drop below average.  The beginning of the low-output season.
• April.  Still below average, but not as weak as March.  A partial recovery, not a full rebound.
• May.  Another dip below average. This is one of the quieter months in the cycle.
• June.  Less negative than March, April, and May.  Productivity improves a bit, but it is still not strong.
• July. Another weak month.  Summer still looks like a trough for figure painting.
• August.  Back above average.  This is the first noticeable turn upward after the summer slump.
• September.  Falls below average again.  The recovery is not smooth yet.
• October. Strongly above average.  This looks like the beginning of the peak season.
• November.  Very strong output.  The seasonal upswing continues.
• December.  Highest point of the year.  This is the clearest peak in the cycle.

While my 2026 painting output follows a similar trend to the seasonality study, May 2026 was up as opposed to down from April.  May only outpaced April this year due to a very last-minute push to get some figures across the painting table before month's end.  So far, the seasonal pattern appears mostly intact for 2026.  Now, June may see a different turn, however, since painting time may be at a premium.

The seasonality offers a strong enough pattern that these data could be useful in planning hobby goals. How so?  If planning painting goals around this annual cycle, aim for the biggest output in late fall and winter.  Treat spring and summer as lower-intensity months for smaller projects or preparation.

Perhaps I am not such a slacker but a prisoner of my own tendencies?

An Opponent Desert

Today, we consider a follow-up question in Wargame, Soldiers, and Strategy's The Great Wargaming Survey (GWS), 2025 edition.  In a previous installment, I examined the question of opponent availability at a high level (see Do You Have Enough Opponents?).  From that analysis, I concluded that wargamers, often, find themselves isolated from available opponents mainly by disconnects in discovery and compatibility.  Plenty of opponents may be out there, but these barriers can prevent or frustrate meaningful gaming connections.

Can any other insights into gamer behavior be deduced by examining a handful of respondent attributes?  For this exercise, I single out five attributes from the survey for further study.  The selected attributes are Group Size, Game Venue, Population Density, Travel Time, and Location.  Each of these attributes will be compared in two settings.  One, for those saying that they have enough opponents (Opponents are Plentiful).  The other, for those gamers stating that they did not have enough opponents (Opponents are Few).  For those with few opponents, I give them the label of living in an "Opponent Desert."  Let's see what the survey says.

Group Size: Few

Group Size: Plentiful

When respondents state opponents are few, nearly 80% report a Group Size of four or fewer (25.1% for solo and 52.3% for groups of between one and four).  Comparing the "Plentiful" group, solo gaming drops to 8% while groups larger than four players increases markedly.  Not surprisingly, gamers with larger existing groups tend to be more likely to feel they have enough opponents.

Survey results on group size may suggest that once a player becomes part of an established gaming group, opponent scarcity diminishes.  Gaming isolation can be a self-reinforcing deterrent, though.  As smaller groups struggle to grow, there are fewer introductions, fewer games, and less scheduling flexibility.  In this case, group discovery and compatibility is more important than raw population numbers.

Game Venue

Gaming Venue: Few

Gaming Venue: Plentiful

Players reporting plentiful opponents appear more likely to play in clubs, stores, conventions, or organized venues.  Isolated players rely more on solo or private gaming either at home or at a friend's house.  As mentioned in the introduction, public venues may act as discovery engines to help bring wargamers together.  Having regular meeting places helps overcome the friction of finding compatible players.  Visibility through association matters.  That is, gamers often cannot find nearby gamers until a dedicated venue or group connects with them.  The survey supports the notion that opponent deserts are often networking failures rather than demographic failures.

Population Density

Population Density: Few

Population Density: Plentiful

Urban and suburban gamers are more likely to report plentiful opponents than do rural gamers.  More densely populated areas naturally create more overlap between potential members of a niche hobby like wargaming.  Geography still matters.  The gap between urban and rural gamers, however, is not absolute.  Some players in urban areas still feel isolated.  Proximity alone does not create gaming communities.

Travel Time

Travel Time: Few

Travel Time: Plentiful

Not surprisingly, gamers with plentiful opponents generally report shorter travel times.  With the exception of solo gamers, gamers reporting fewer opponents tend to tolerate longer trips.  Results suggest that there is a limit to the number of minutes spent in travel, though.  A travel time of between 30 and 60 minutes seems a common limit to both groups.  Even when a wargaming group exists nearby, a long drive and frequent participation become unrealistic.  Travel cost (in time, effort, and cost) increases with age, family obligations, and scheduling.  This result may help explain wargamers fracturing into small regional or local clusters.

Location

Location: Few

Location: Plentiful

The pair of gamer location charts suggests that outside of the UK/Ireland and US/Canada, there is not significant variation by geographic region between the "haves" and the "have nots."  For the UK/Ireland and US/Canada, the former seems more likely to have plentiful opponents while the latter tends toward more isolation.  The problem appears broadly structural rather than tied to one country or region.

Conclusion

Survey results suggest that “Opponent deserts” often present as discovery, compatibility, logistical, and social challenges rather than true population shortages.  In other words, many gamers are not alone geographically.  They are disconnected socially.  Wargaming communities may fail more from fragmentation than from scarcity.  How to overcome a fragmentation into small disconnected "tribes?"  Survey Results hint at a networking effect.  That is, once a wargaming group reaches a certain size and game regularity, the group becomes self-sustaining.  Failure to attain that threshold often results in the group struggling to gain momentum. 

These results present a useful insight not only for the wargaming community, but for many niche hobbies and local-interest groups.  Is tabletop wargaming more akin to a social network rather than a consumer market.  I reckon that it may be.  "Opponent deserts” may actually be "Coordination deserts."

Do You Have Enough Opponents?

Today, we consider another new question added into Wargame, Soldiers, and Strategy's The Great Wargaming Survey (GWS), 2025 edition.

That question addresses opponent availability and asks,

Do you feel you have enough opponents within reasonable travel distance?

If the answer is "No" then survey respondents can choose from a Pick List of possible reasons why this is the situation.  Besides the provided Pick List, respondents could also add in their own reason as to why opponents are lacking.

Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of responses from the 2025 survey.  Nearly two-thirds of respondents state that they have enough opponents available within a reasonable travel distance.  The remaining 34% marked that they did not have enough opponents at hand.  

Figure 1

For those in the latter camp who lack enough opponents, the reasons why and those counts are detailed in Figure 2.

Figure 2

Based upon survey responses, the key take-aways for having not enough gaming opponents are:

• Lack of Awareness of Nearby Opponents.  The leading reason, by a large margin (43.28%), is that wargamers simply don't know other potential players in their vicinity.
• Mismatched Interests.  Even when opponents are nearby, opponents' interests might not agree with your own specific wargames or game type (15.86%). Differences in ruleset preferences (9.79%) also present a barrier to finding opponents.
• Geographic Distance.  When distance is a factor, (11.56%) opponents are too far away for regular play.
• Time Constraints.  Wargamers, themselves (10.32%), and opponents (3.30%) are often too busy to play more frequently.
• Dislike of Nearby Opponents.  A small percentage of players (1.30%) simply dislike potential nearby opponents.
• Finally, the "Other" category (4.60%) lumps all of the free text responses that could not easily be classified into one of the Pick List choices.

The survey results highlight a core issue.  That is, many wargamers are isolated either by not being aware of local players or finding that potential local players don't share their specific interests or schedules. While there are many wargamers who prefer solo play, an opponent shortage seems more driven by network and information disconnects than by a dislike of gaming with others.  This pattern suggests a fragmented local gaming community.  Enough players may exist nearby, but these gamers are either not visible to each other, or they play different periods, rules, or styles.  While distance and scheduling challenges matter too, these two traits seem to present smaller issues than discovery and compatibility.  Opponents are probably out there.  The challenge for many is that gamers either cannot find opponents or lack enough agreement in choices to actually to set up a game.  What can we do to improve this situation?

If we want to increase our available gaming pool, the biggest bang for the buck is improving visibility.  Make it easier for players to find other players.  Find out what others play and know when they meet.  A close second is improving compatibility by categorizing possible gamers by rules, period, and preferred game size.

My solution to this challenge was to embrace remote gaming by promoting and supporting the use of Zoom (or similar platforms), Vassal Engine, Tabletop Simulator, wargame-specific online platforms, and other virtual or remote tabletop environments.

The 2021 Great Wargaming Survey (see Remote Gaming in a Changed World) found that remote gaming significantly increased gaming frequency for many gamers and broadened their circle of gaming friends.  It did for me!  Survey responses suggested that gamers who gamed more frequently were more likely to try remote gaming.

By addressing the barriers identified above, the wargaming community can effectively increase opportunities for players to find and engage with opponents even from all over the world.

I am not finished with this survey question just yet.  There are a number of possibilities to explore to see where differences and commonalities exist between the two groups of respondents.  That study is for another time.

Do you have enough opponents within a reasonable travel distance?  If not, which of the reasons listed drive your response? 

Wargaming as an Escape

Keith Flint, in his Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy #137 essay on wargaming as an escape (see WSS#137 Let's Escape pp 62-63) offers an interesting perspective covering several topics.  Some of his brief thoughts on this topic can be read on his blog at In Which I Became a Global Influencer.

To briefly summarize the escapism portion of Keith's essay, Keith highlights a quote that he has heard from wargamers that,

Wargaming allows me to escape everyday life, and it allows me to be someone else for a while.

Now, I have never heard anyone utter similar words and if they did, I would take such claim in a figurative and not a literal context.

Given this statement's literal weighting, Keith argues that we should reject the notion of hobby escapism that allows one to step away from everyday stresses, work, or reality.  Keith posits that this thinking is misguided since one cannot truly escape the real world.  The wargaming hobby is an extension of the real world and an extension of who we are.  Framing the hobby as an escape tends to discredit both daily life and the hobby.  A more wholesome approach is to view hobby time as a constructive shift between different and complementary aspects of life.

How does this tie back to the Great Wargaming Survey?

In an earlier analysis, I examined the question of why we wargame.  In Why We Wargame: A Closer Look, survey results show that when the top three choices are aggregated across all respondents that "Fun and escapism" contributes only about 13% of the top choices. "Fun and escapism" comes in at Rank #5 of 7.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Now, "escapism" is lumped in with "fun" so separating the two is impossible from the 2025 survey.  If this question is asked again, perhaps, "fun" and "escapism" ought to be separated to identify those seeking escapism solely? 

A related question that examines the role of the hobby as an outlet for stress is present in the 2025 survey.  That question asks, 

Would you agree that wargaming helps you forget about the stresses of daily life?

The results are overwhelmingly one-sided.  Figure 3 illustrates that 62.1% of respondents entirely agree that wargaming helps forget about stresses of daily life.  Fully 93% either somewhat agree or entirely agree with this statement.

Figure 3

Rather than looking at the wargaming hobby as a literal escape, perhaps, wargaming ought to be viewed as a relaxing, constructive shift between our different aspects of life? I think Keith would agree. Keith, thank you for offering up some food for thought!

Do you view the hobby as an escape from real life?

Why We Wargame: A Closer Look

In a previous post, I examined the top reasons for why we wargame as given by the survey results from Wargame, Soldiers, and Strategy's 2025 The Great Wargaming Survey (GWS).  As a refresher, the choices were:

• Creative and hobby aspects
• Fun and escapism
• Historical (or fictional background) interest
• Social connection and camaraderie
• Storytelling and narrative
• Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation
• Training and education

When aggregating the Top 3 choices, the distributions of these top choices are illustrated in Figure 1 by counts and in Figure 2 by percentage of total.

Figure 1

Figure 2

While these results show, in aggregate, how survey respondents selected their Top 3, can the survey offer up any additional insight into why these choices were selected?  What if a handful of respondent traits and preferences are added into the mix?  Will these additional inputs offer any interesting insights over a simple accounting in a popularity contest?

As seen in a number of previous analyses, we turn to multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) for answers to these questions.

Trait Selection

From a long list of survey questions and respondent attributes from which to choose, only a handful of variables or traits are included to keep the graphical analysis manageable.  After consideration, the following traits are included in the study. 

First up is the main thesis.  That is, Why We Wargame.  Since those responses are lengthy, some recoding is necessary in order to not overcrowd the resulting MCA plot.  The recoding is as follows:

• Creative and hobby aspects - "Creativity"
• Fun and escapism - "Fun"
• Historical (or fictional background) interest - "Background"
• Social connection and camaraderie - "Social"
• Storytelling and narrative - "Storytelling"
• Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation - "Challenge"
• Training and education - "Education"

The other traits (and responses) under consideration are:

Primary Interest with values of "Historical","Fantasy/Sci-Fi","Mixed".

Group Size with values of "0 (solo)","01-04","05-09","10-15","16+".

Game Venue with values of "At a game store","At home","At a club","Online".

Competitive Gamer with values of "Non-Competitive","Competitive".

MCA Plot

As a brief reminder, MCA graphs show patterns of association between categories (responses) of several categorical variables.  In this case, we examine the choices for Why We Wargame with the four traits of Primary Interest, Group Size, Game Venue, and Competitive Gamer.  Could other variables have been included?  Sure.  To keep the resulting plot readable, I limited the number of categorical variables to five.  The resulting MCA plot is shown in Figure 3. 

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows a readable spread of trait responses with just enough separation to see what is what graphically.  Does this plot provide a useful tool for interpreting these results and how to interpret this plot?  Let's give this plot a closer look.

Since Dimension 1 (horizontal, 83.9%) is the dominant contrast, points far right versus far left represent very different gaming contexts and preferences.  Dimension 2 (vertical, 8.24%) adds a weaker secondary contrast (top vs bottom) that refines, but does not overturn, the main story from Dimension 1.  To divine the main story, bifurcate the plot into a left (blue) and right (yellow) regions split down along the origin.  See Figure 4.

Figure 4

Ignoring the attributes clustering along the origin for now, in the blue region, the top choices for why we wargame include Background, Education, and Storytelling.  As Figure 4 shows, these choices are associated with gaming at home and either in small groups or solo.  This group tends to hold a primary interest in historical wargaming.

For the yellow highlighted side of the plot, the top reason for wargaming is the social aspect of the hobby.  Gamers on this side of the plot tend to focus on Fantasy/ Sci-Fi gaming in large groups at either game stores or clubs.  They tend toward competition as well. 

One interesting side effect of MCA is that results can lead to interpretable and meaningful labeling of the dimension.  For example, the classification of these categorical variables could suggest that the blue region denotes a reflective wargaming stance.  The yellow region could be labeled as having a sociable stance.  See Figure 5. 

Figure 5

Now, what about the attributes clustering along the origin?  Being close to the origin means these categories are relatively average or weakly discriminating.  These traits do not strongly define the main contrast between the blue and yellow regions.  Here, within the red rectangle, Fun, Creativity, and Challenge are common to both groups and styles of play.  Mixed, Non-Competitive, and Online traits are found in both groups as well.  See Figure 6.

Figure 6

What can be said about the results of the MCA analysis?  This exercise suggests that the choices we make for why we wargame can be associated to some of the traits that attract us to the hobby.  Of course, correlation is a two-way street.  If you are a solo historical wargamer, there is a tendency that storytelling, education, and historical background will hold more importance to why you wargame when compared against the Sociable group on the other side of the plot.

Remember that these results suggest relative tendencies.  Do these tendencies hold true for you?

Why We Wargame

Another new question in Wargame, Soldiers, and Strategy's The Great Wargaming Survey (GWS), 2025 edition asked respondents to list the Top 3 reasons why they play a wargame.  The choices were:

• Creative and hobby aspects
• Fun and escapism
• Historical (or fictional background) interest
• Social connection and camaraderie
• Storytelling and narrative
• Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation
• Training and education

Having given this topic some thought over the years, getting hard data through the survey might offer worthwhile insight into this question as applied to a broader population.  While I hold a mental notion of my top reasons for wargaming, these top reasons can move around a bit over time, interest, and mood.  Others may have similar thoughts on what drives them to wargame too.  

What does the survey say?  Well, let's find out.

Top Choice in Why We Wargame

The survey asked respondents to rank up to their three top choices.  To begin the analysis, only the top choice is examined.  In counts of reasons why we wargame (variable "WHY" in Figure 1), "Historical (or fictional background) interest" came in at the top spot by about 500 responses.  The top choice was not close.  The results are aggregated by percentage in the pie chart illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 1

Figure 2

As primarily an historical wargamer, the top choice makes sense to me.  The result that surprises me is that "Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation" comes into the rankings ahead of "Social connection and camaraderie."  In the rankings, "Social connection and camaraderie" comes in at #4.  While I enjoy the challenge and puzzle-solving aspects that wargaming brings to the table, my anecdotal inclination would have been to see the social aspects of the hobby rise more toward the top.  Are many of the respondents primarily solo gamers or in it for the challenges of competition?  A question, perhaps, for another analysis.

Top Three Choices in Why We Wargame

Since the survey asked for the top three choices, do the rankings change much when all three response choices are aggregated?

Figure 3 shows that the top two spots in the rankings remain the same as in Figure 1.  "Creative and hobby aspects" reason closes the gap with "Historical (or fictional background) interest" making up a lot of ground and coming in at a very close second place in the rankings.  "Social connection and camaraderie" and "Strategic challenge and intellectual stimulation" swap places in the rankings when the top three choices are included.  

Figure 3

Figure 4

Interesting to see that "Fun and escapism" and "Storytelling and narrative" fall to near the bottom of the rankings.  Almost no one lists "Training and education" as a top choice.

Why do fun and storytelling sink to the bottom among the collection of reasons why we wargame?  These survey results suggest that we do not game simply for fun and narrative building!  Perhaps adding a "Competition" choice might be telling?

I plan to return to this question and analysis again for a deeper dive into these data.  In past analyses, preferences tend to shift and become more nuanced as other qualifying attributes are brought into the computations.  Adding stratifications by primary interest, age groupings, and a few other attributes might provide a clearer and, perhaps, another interesting perspective.

If you completed the 2025 GWS (or even if you did not!), what are your top reasons for wargaming and why?  Have these top reasons for wargaming changed over time?  I wonder if your choices and rankings could be predicted if other qualifying attributes mentioned above are brought into the equation?