Lil Ville experiment Results

This paper shows the results of the Lil Ville experiment.

Some key findings are:

• The games that was chosen the most are either already popular games, games that belong

to a known franchise or games that have explicit "learning content" icons.

• Even though FREE ABC Solitaire game has the letters ABC in it, it was never chosen. It

doesn't look like a learning game.

• Only very few people found out that the SGI game was a learning game. They didn't see the

letters in the icon, and they didn't look at the grey text below the title which says

"Education".

• More than half of the parents that picked out the SGI game, said that learning potential

was not important.

• From the three SGI icons, the Lil Ville icon with the pig was the most popular.

• Learning, Fun, Free, Recognition and Child's interests are the most important factors for

choosing a game. For the SGI game childrens interests could maybe be targeted more.

• Most parents find either Fun or Learning important (50/50). Only very few people find both

things important.

• There are demographic differences. People from Nordvest found learning games less

important than people from e.g. Østerbro.

• Some parents had ideas that are novel to SGI:

◦ Things should happen in the game, when you click around. Balloons should pop when you tap on them

and things should say funny noises.

◦ The outcome of the game should be immediate. The kids don't understand planning what is going to

happen in the future.

◦ The game shouldn't be set in a fantasy world and shouldn't be “unnatural” (If this is a subject in Denmark,

it's probably also an issue in other countries).

◦ A game should let the child be creative.

◦ The icons says something about the complexity of the game. A complex icon equals a complex game, and

the other way around.

In the following I will go a little more in to detail with the data.

Below are the results showing how many times each game was chosen by participants. It can also

be seen how many participants talked about the games in either a positive or a negative way.

Some times participants thought that a game looked good, but didn't end up choosing it, when

they were asked, which games they would download. The different comments that the games

received are mentioned under "comments".

Game Buy Positive mention Negative mention Comments

0 2 1 Looks confusing. Only for very young kids.

9 16 2 Many people own it. They like it because they like the smurfs. Maybe to difficult. A bad thing that things cost money in-game. A kid chose the game.

1 4 1 Good that it has algebra. For older kids. A kid chose the game.

5 11 3 Looks boring. Is easy to understand. Learning is important. Looks cool. A parent chose the game, the kid said it didn't look fun. Some people own it. Good that it is in Danish.

3 10 0 Many people liked it because they like Disney. Looks fun. A kid chose the game. A good thing that you can be creative (paint).

5 7 1 Some people thought it looked cool. Want it because the kids likes dinosaurs. Some people own it.

0 4 1 Doesn't look interesting. Looks cute.

0 1 3 Child said it looks boring.

2 6 3 Some people said it looked boring. Learnings is important. It is useful. Chose the game as a parent.

1 3 0 A good thing with letters.

4 7 2 Would have downloaded if it was free. Looks nice. Two kids chose it. Doesn't look natural.

1 3 0 -

3 5 1 A good thing with letters. Two kids chose the game. Too complex.

2 11 0 Chose the game as a parent. Good with learning. Good with a game where the kid has to do something. Some people own it.

5 14 3 For older kids. Too hard. Both mom and kids play. Good for both genders. Cool with game where you can plan things. Likes cows. They can recognize the game. Some people own it.

1 4 3 Bad icon. Looks scary. Description pictures are too childish. Looks like a game about eating (positive). Would consider downloading, but maybe its too difficult for the kid.

2 2 1 Only for boys.

6 9 2 Some people own it. They like ponies. Too difficult. Two people said it was only for girls. Looks good.

Some things that can be seen from the results:

• The games that was chosen the most are either already popular games, games that belong

to a known franchise or games that have explicit "learning content" icons.

• While parents seem to go mostly after learning games, kids go more after games with cute

icons or games from known franchises. Two out of three times that Lil Ville was chosen, it

was a kid that picked it out.

• Only very few people found out that the SGI game was a learning game. They didn't see the

letters in the icon, and they didn't look at the grey text below the title which says

"Education".

• While ABC games were very popular, the FREE ABC Solitaire game was not chosen by

anyone. There is no explanation from the data per se, one possibility could be that the

letters are not arranged in the typical ABC-learning-manner. It doesn't explicitly enough say:

this is a learning game.

• From the three SGI icons, the Lil Ville icon with the pig was the most popular. The Tiny

Monsters icon was the least effective. Some parents were concerned that the game was

too scary, because it was called "Monsters". They also thought it was a game about eating.

• It doesn't seem like the icons placement on the screen was that important. The Free Sound

Game Farm was one of the least mentioned, although it is the first icon. People were

motivated to look through the list for something they liked.

• More than half of the time the SGI game was picked out, it was by parents that didn't

mention learning games as an important factor. The game is not perceived as a learning

game.

• 3-6 years old is definitely the target audience. When kids were younger, the game should

be very simple. If the child was older, they wanted something with guns, cars and

princesses.

Other than which apps were chosen for download, other data were collected by talking to the

parents. From these interviews we learned a number of things.

Below is a count of the reasons for downloading a game that the parents explicitly mentioned.

Here it can be seen, that learning, fun, a free game, if the game or game characters are recognized

and the child's interests are the most important factors for downloading a game. Ratings and

Danish text was mentioned, but not by that many.

Reason for downloading # of parents

Learning 19

Fun 16

Danish text 4

Free 13

Recognition 12

Ratings 3

The child's interests 16

Some of these reasons can's really help SGI. We can't make Lil Ville characters suddenly appear on

Disney Channel, so kids recognize them from TV. But actually one of the most important factors

was that the game involved some of the child's interests. This very often included animals (mostly

farm animals), dinosaurs, cars and making food. Maybe some of these things could be

implemented in the game (and the icon).

On the next page a table can be seen, that explains the relation between people that mentioned

learning as an important factor, and people that mentioned fun as important.

This table shows which participants that explicitly told us, that learning and fun was important for them, when they chose apps for their kids.

It can be seen, that most people either find learning or fun important. Only 5 people find both things important, while 19 only mentioned learning as important and 16 only mentioned fun. This is pretty interesting. Maybe this is the reason why games like ABC balloner was so popular. Some parents don't care that much if the icon looks fun or cute. As long as it's learning, they will download it.

It is also shown, where we found the participants. Some differences appear. None of the people from SGI and Wil Film thought that learning was not important, but at the library in Nordvest, half of the participants expressed, that learning potential was not important.

There was also a tendency, that most people from Nordvest didn't own an Ipad. Instead the kids played on the parents' smartphones. Most people from Fields, Wil Film and Østerbro bibliotek had at least one Ipad that was shared in the family.

SGI Fields Jam & Wil Film V Fields Østerbro bibliotek Nordvest bibliotek

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Learning x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xNot learning x x x x x x x

Fun x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xLearning and fun

x x x x x

As a last thing, some parents expressed opinions that was not foreseen by the experiment.

Because of this, we don't know how many people agree, but there are some interesting

observations among them. Here they are:

• A game icon shouldn't look like it's part of a franchise or fictional world. A game should be

stand-alone, so the kid can play it without having to know about the game world in

advance.

• A game should be simple to play.

• Things should happen in the game, when you click around. Balloons should pop when you

tap on them and things should say funny noises.

• The outcome of the game should be immediate. The kids don't understand planning what is

going to happen in the future.

• Shouldn't be too complex for the young kids and not too simple for the older ones.

• Many parents say that they download a game to see if the kids like it, and if they do, then

they will buy the upgrade. The kids download so much, that the parents don't see any point

in buying games in the first place.

• The game shouldn't be set in a fantasy world and shouldn't be “unnatural” (If this is a

subject in Denmark, it's probably also an issue in other countries).

• Fun games for young kids, learning for older kids (the age before they start school)

• A game should let the child be creative.

• The icons says something about the complexity of the game. A complex icon equals a

complex game, and the other way around.