Quantic Foundry – aka the Nick Yee-backed analytics company that’s most well-known for its Gamer Motivation Model – has shared some responses from an optional survey run between February 2022 through October 2023, which has some interesting results when it comes to a game set in a sci-fi setting.
The data show that sci-fi is generally favored by older gamers (those aged 35 and up), with most respondents calling it “extremely appealing” whether it’s a shooter or strategy title in a hard sci-fi or sci-fantasy setting. When taken by gender, that amount of interest doesn’t really vary too widely among players who identify as male, female, or non-binary.
Breaking things down further, Quantic Foundry discovered that most players’ motivations for being in a sci-fi setting is to engage in a fantasy of being someone else somewhere else, though motivations do shift pretty variably depending on sci-fantasy and hard sci-fi; many shooter fans tend to play sci-fantasy for the story, while strategy fans who prefer hard-rules sci-fi are most motivated by plotting strategy, though destruction comes a close second. It’s an intriguing data set that sci-fi fans of many stripes might want to read.
