As most of you know, I have an alter ego as a Principal Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University, and part of my job involves lots of different kinds of research relating to different aspects of the media. Some of you may remember, a couple of years ago, completing surveys and interviews for me for some research I was doing on Sims fans. Some of those findings are in a paper I presented at the Internet Research conference last year (slides here, short paper here), some aspects were mentioned in a paper I co-authored in Participations journal. I have also written an article using these findings which will be published in the journal Transformative Works and Cultures next year and have another 2-3 articles in progress.

Given the release of Sims 4, I wanted to use this opportunity to gather player opinions on the new game, both before and after its release, and so I'm asking anyone who can to fill in two short(ish) anonymous surveys relating to the game. The pre-release survey is now live and I would appreciate you recirculating the link so I can get as many people as possible to complete it (I had around 1.5K responses last time - thanks all!): http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/298684/lang-en

The second survey will be posted after the game is released (probably within the first week rather than on the day of release as I'll need to discover what its features actually are so I can create appropriate questions). I'll post reminders when it goes live, but the address is: http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurvey/index.php/549839/lang-en Please note, this survey and its follow-up are entirely anonymous.

If you want any more details, you can email me: r.a.deller@shu.ac.uk or visit my website. Thanks!

I just took your survery. Not sure if it's much help but hope it helps you.

Thanks! Had over 500 responses so it's going to take a while to weed through! Hoping to get the post-release survey up within a few days of TS4 coming out.

I'll be happy to do it!

I took the pre-release one, though won't be able to do the post-release...unless you want responses about why people haven't bought it right away?

I have now closed the Sims 4 pre-release survey with around 800 completions and will be working my way through the data.

Now The Sims 4 is out (in most of the world anyway...) the post-release survey is live. I'd love as many people as possible to complete it - whether or not you have TS4, and whether or not you completed the earlier survey.

There will be two types of questions - a set for those who have played TS4 and a set for those who haven't. The survey will be live until the end of October. If you are planning on getting it before then, please can you wait until you have played before completing it? But if you have already played or you know you won't be getting it before the end of October, go right ahead!

As before, it's entirely anonymous (and this survey is a bit shorter too). Results from the pre-release survey are likely to be available late September and I'll keep people posted about the results of this one.

http://pinto.hallam.shu.ac.uk/limesurve ... 39/lang-en

Many thanks

Rad

Done. It was interesting to do.

Thanks

Did it yesterday! It was a neat survey.

I completed it too! Will you let us know when you've compiled the pre-release data? I'd be very interested in seeing it.

Yes - should be the end of the month for the pre-release data.

I have now completed both surveys. I do enjoy a good survey!

Completed the second survey. Loved it.