BrainHex

60,000 Responses!

Today we cleared 60,000 BrainHex tests - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this study so far! The data are being analyzed even as we speak by a team in Canada, and we should have some results to post later this year. Apologies to anyone waiting for a reply to their comment - we don't have a webmaster right now, and so are short staffed.

Class and Gender

Examining the data on the first 7,500 respondents revealed something interesting about the class spread in relation to gender: six of the seven classes have roughly the same distribution between men and women, and just one of the classes is significantly different. The odd one out is Conqueror, which is the most popular male class, but ranks only fourth among the current female respondents.

Here are the percentage of male and female respondents by class:

Male Class Percentages

• Conqueror: 28.50%
• Mastermind: 19.60%
• Seeker: 18.30%
• Achiever: 10.00%
• Socialiser: 9.70%
• Survivor: 7.70%
• Daredevil: 6.30%

Female Class Percentages

• Mastermind: 28.10%
• Seeker: 25.00%
• Achiever: 13.80%
• Conqueror: 13.00%
• Socialiser: 9.00%
• Survivor: 7.40%
• Daredevil: 3.50%

Using the current data to project what the distribution would be among an equal split of male and female respondents produces the following values:

Projected Class Percentages

• Mastermind: 23.9%
• Seeker: 21.7%
• Conqueror: 20.8%
• Achiever: 11.9%
• Socialiser: 9.3%
• Survivor: 7.5%
• Daredevil:4.9%

In other words, if we were dealing with a gender-equal sample, we would expect Conqueror to be the third most popular class (behind Mastermind and Seeker).

7,500+ Responses

Six weeks after launch, and we've had an overwhelming response! 7,737 people have already taken the BrainHex test and results are still coming in. The sample is still predominantly male (88.7%), but includes a lot of younger respondents now (mean age 23.8).

The Classes of the respondents thus far are as follows:

• Conqueror: 2073
• Mastermind: 1597
• Seeker: 1475
• Achiever: 809
• Socialiser: 744
• Survivor: 592
• Daredevil: 464

Here's all the Subclasses ranked in order of response from the sample so far:

• Conqueror-Mastermind: 680
• Mastermind-Conqueror: 632
• Conqueror-Socialiser: 421
• Seeker-Mastermind: 401
• Mastermind-Seeker: 400
• Conqueror-Achiever: 314
• Seeker-Conqueror: 313
• Socialiser-Conqueror: 266
• Achiever-Mastermind: 253
• Conqueror-Seeker: 250
• Seeker-Survivor: 247
• Mastermind-Achiever: 246
• Achiever-Conqueror: 240
• Conqueror-Survivor: 206
• Conqueror-Daredevil: 202
• Seeker-Achiever: 194
• Seeker-Daredevil: 184
• Survivor-Seeker: 182
• Socialiser-Seeker: 163
• Achiever-Seeker: 160
• Survivor-Conqueror: 151
• Seeker-Socialiser: 136
• Daredevil-Conqueror: 129
• Mastermind-Socialiser: 127
• Daredevil-Seeker: 120
• Socialiser-Mastermind: 111
• Survivor-Mastermind: 106
• Socialiser-Achiever: 104
• Mastermind-Survivor: 101
• Mastermind-Daredevil: 91
• Achiever-Socialiser: 90
• Daredevil-Survivor: 70
• Daredevil-Mastermind: 70
• Survivor-Daredevil: 67
• Socialiser-Survivor: 60
• Survivor-Socialiser: 51
• Daredevil-Socialiser: 44
• Socialiser-Daredevil: 40
• Achiever-Survivor: 36
• Survivor-Achiever: 35
• Daredevil-Achiever: 31
• Achiever-Daredevil: 30

Thanks to everyone whose taken part!

Class versus Hardcore/Casual

Looking at how the Classes correlate with Hardcore, Midcore or Casual player self-identification shows some interesting trends, some which were predictable, and some which were not.

The data posted here is based on 3,041 respondents, of which 88.74% are male. 801 respondents self-identified as Hardcore, and 1,756 self-identified as "somewhere between Casual and Hardcore" i.e. Midcore, with the remaining 484 respondents being considered Casual.

• Seeker: this is a very popular Class constituting 16.9% of the current sample. It enjoys an 18.2% share of both Hardcore and Casual players, but is less popular (15.9%) with the Midcore for some reason.
• Survivor: 7.1% of the current sample class as Survivor, and both Hardcore and Midcore percentages are similar (7.5% and 7.4%). Interest in fear-based play drops among Casual players to just 5.6% of the sample.
• Daredevil: the smallest sample currently at just 6.3%, the popularity is 6.5% among Hardcore, 6.0% among Midcore, but rises to 7% of the Casual respondents.
• Mastermind: another popular class, currently constituting 17.6% of the sample. Curiously, the popularity increases from Hardcore to Casual, rising from 14.9% (Hardcore) through 17.0% (Midcore) to 24.2% (Casual). It seems Casual players are still keen on problem solving!
• Conqueror: currently the most popular class with 30.6% of the respondents typing to Conqueror. This is far larger than the share of Conqueror-type players in any of our previous surveys for some reason! Popularity peaks among the Hardcore at 34.5%, falling to 31.5% in the Midcore, and finally to just 21.1% of the Casual. In other words, while one in three Hardcore players love to beat incredible challenges, only one in five Causal players feel the same way.
• Socialiser: 10% of the sample, and unsurprisingly the popularity increases the more Casual players become - 7.5% of Hardcore, 10.7% of Midcore and 11.6% of Casual players.
• Achiever: 11.5% of the sample, which is somewhat fewer than would have been anticipated. Popularity remains the same throughout the sample, however with 11% of the Hardcore, 11.5% of the Midcore and 12.4% of the Casual players.

On the whole, these patterns are not much distorted by players Hardcore/Casual tendencies, with the notable exceptions of Conqueror and Mastermind.

Favourite Games

We have some early favourite game data, which has been added to the Class pages – you can now see which game series have proved popular with other people who share your BrainHex class.

Compiling this data was difficult, because certain games are universally popular and score well with everyone, including the Zelda, Mario and Final Fantasy series, plus certain games were disproportionately popular in this sample (probably as a result of the test being linked to from specific sites). In particular, Team Fortress 2 was wildly more popular in the current sample than in any of our previous survey data, suggesting a sampling bias.

In choosing which games to show among the favourites, we looked at disproportionate values with respect to the other Classes, for instance Bioshock appeared at least once in the favourite games of all the Classes, but on average constituted only 2% of each Class' list of favourite games. We listed it among the favourite games of Survivors because it was 4% of that Class' favourite games - twice the mean popularity. Some subjective decisions were also made in sorting the data.

Here, for reference, are the popular titles by Class, in alphabetical order:

• Seeker: Elder Scrolls (Morrowind in particular, but Oblivion also scored well), Final Fantasy, Grim Fandango (this was a surprise!), Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, and Zelda.
• Survivor: Bioshock, GTA, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, and Silent Hill.
• Daredevil: Ace Combat, Call of Duty, GTA, Mario, Mario Kart, Shadow of the Colossus.
• Mastermind: Animal Crossing (this was quite unexpected here!), Chess (...while this was predicted), Chrono Trigger, Fallout, Half-Life, and Zelda.
• Conqueror: Call of Duty, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Metroid, StarCraft, and Super Smash Bros.
• Socialiser: Final Fantasy, Left 4 Dead, Pokémon, Team Fortress 2 (actually pretty popular with all Classes in the current sample), and World of Warcraft.
• Achiever: Final Fantasy, Mario, Monopoly (only popular with this Class!), Monster Hunter, Pokémon, and World of Warcraft.

We'll update the favourite game list in a few months time when we have a more diverse sample.

First Week Results in 1,700 Responses

Many, many thanks to all of you who have taken the BrainHex test - we've had an astonishing 1,700 responses in the first week, which is more than our last survey (DGD2) got in its entire run!

Here's some basic results in terms of the number of people who have come out as particular classes:

• Conqueror: 466
• Seeker: 268
• Mastermind: 214
• Achiever: 149
• Socialiser: 143
• Survivor: 126
• Daredevil: 92

This is very different from the results of the Beta testing, in which Daredevil was one of the top results, and Conqueror one of the bottom, suggesting that a lot of the people we've attracted to the test so far might be skewed towards the "hardcore" play style of the Conqueror. The results have been highly gender biased, however, with 91% of the respondents being male thus far, and this may also have affected the result.

Within each of the Classes, here's how the individual Subclasses count up:

• Conqueror
  • Mastermind: 147
  • Socialiser: 90
  • Achiever: 84
  • Seeker: 64
  • Daredevil: 42
  • Survivor: 39
• Seeker
  • Conqueror: 72
  • Mastermind: 63
  • Survivor: 39
  • Achiever: 38
  • Daredevil: 31
  • Socialiser: 25
• Mastermind
  • Conqueror: 89
  • Achiever: 42
  • Seeker: 39
  • Survivor: 15
  • Daredevil: 15
  • Socialiser: 14
• Achiever
  • Conqueror: 50
  • Mastermind: 40
  • Seeker: 26
  • Socialiser: 18
  • Daredevil: 9
  • Survivor: 6
• Socialiser
  
  • Conqueror: 60
  • Mastermind: 21
  • Achiever: 20
  • Seeker: 18
  • Survivor: 13
  • Daredevil: 11
• Survivor
  • Conqueror: 46
  • Seeker: 32
  • Mastermind: 19
  • Daredevil: 11
  • Socialiser: 11
  • Achiever: 7
• Daredevil
  • Seeker: 27
  • Conqueror: 26
  • Survivor: 16
  • Mastermind: 12
  • Socialiser: 8
  • Achiever:3

And finally, here's all the Subclasses ranked in order of response from the sample so far:

• Conqueror-Mastermind: 147
• Conqueror-Socialiser: 90
• Mastermind-Conqueror: 89
• Conqueror-Achiever: 84
• Seeker-Conqueror: 72
• Conqueror-Seeker: 64
• Seeker-Mastermind: 63
• Socialiser-Conqueror: 60
• Achiever-Conqueror: 50
• Survivor-Conqueror: 46
• Mastermind-Achiever: 42
• Conqueror-Daredevil: 42
• Achiever-Mastermind: 40
• Seeker-Survivor: 39
• Mastermind-Seeker: 39
• Conqueror-Survivor: 39
• Seeker-Achiever: 38
• Survivor-Seeker: 32
• Seeker-Daredevil: 31
• Daredevil-Seeker: 27
• Daredevil-Conqueror: 26
• Achiever-Seeker: 26
• Seeker-Socialiser: 25
• Socialiser-Mastermind: 21
• Socialiser-Achiever: 20
• Survivor-Mastermind: 19
• Socialiser-Seeker: 18
• Achiever-Socialiser: 18
• Daredevil-Survivor: 16
• Mastermind-Survivor: 15
• Mastermind-Daredevil: 15
• Mastermind-Socialiser: 14
• Socialiser-Survivor: 13
• Daredevil-Mastermind: 12
• Survivor-Daredevil: 11
• Survivor-Socialiser: 11
• Socialiser-Daredevil: 11
• Achiever-Daredevil: 9
• Daredevil-Socialiser: 8
• Survivor-Achiever: 7
• Achiever-Survivor: 6
• Daredevil-Achiever: 3

Thanks to everyone whose responded so far. We'll have to find a way to get the test out into the hands of more casual gamers somehow. Keep the results coming!