Recruitment Update

We've started recruiting through members of TAG. We have lined up 2 initial participants and intend to gather a few more through snowballing.

In the recruitment process we are running into trouble with:

a) Finding individual who self identify as Wii players
We are starting from a relatively game-savvy pool of 18-35 year old students in the winter of 2010 and running into the possibility/problems that 1)gamers generally don't play (or admit to/identify as playing) the Wii 2)college students may not be the principle demographic for the Wii 3) the Wii's time has passed. What does this tell us about the Wii as a research focus? What does this tell us about the social implications of playing/admitting/claiming oneself as Wii player? Who does the nature/interaction in gestural game play attract? Why do people who have a Wii stop playing? (We need to have kids on the IRB.)

b) Once finding individuals tentatively interested in a study on the Wii, we have encountered some difficulty in negotiating/ convincing them to let us come into their space and watch them play for several extended periods of time without incentive. What does this tell us about the space of play? Is the space/time constructed differently during play? (ie more private) How would offering an incentive effect the study?

Out of this issue we are concerned, once we have gained access to participants' spaces of play, about how we can set/perpetuate/not inhibit the tone of playtime when imposing a research imperative. How do we as researchers come into a preset/typical/natural space of play and still gather usable data?

We are still seeking players for our study. Please send any interest our way!