Each question is worth $10. Each item in a question that is answered
will be worth a proportion of the $10. So, if there are four items in
a question, each item is worth $2.50.

The exception is question 7 which totally is worth $40 since it
involves more detail.

If it helps, easy questions that may only take a few minutes are mixed
in with the harder questions. So, hopefully, this entire set of
questions, if answered fully, will be worth $100 (40 for question # 7
+ $60) and hopefully can be completed within 2-3 hours.

If the answers (with references) are exactly what I need, there will
be more questions along the same line

1. What are the various categories that make up the video-gaming industry?
	a. e.g., Software games (console, desktop and online games)
	b. Gaming peripherals e.g., controllers, joysticks, etc.
	c. Anything else?
2. How large, in terms of number of users, is the software gaming sub-category:
	a. Worldwide
	b. Nationwide (i.e., within the U.S.)
	c. Top three markets by nation (e.g., S. Korea, Taiwan, etc.)
3. How large, financially, is the software gaming sub-category:
	a. Worldwide
	b. Nationwide (i.e., within the U.S.)
	c. Top three markets by nation (e.g., S. Korea, Taiwan, etc.)
4. How large, financially, is the gaming peripheral sub-category:
	a. Worldwide
	b. Nationwide (i.e., within the U.S.)
	c. Top three markets by nation (e.g., S. Korea, Taiwan, etc.)
5. What are the various sub-categories of video-games?
	a. e.g., console games (I mean for Xbox, Playstation)?
	b. Desktop games (i.e., I mean games u play on your PC or MAC)
	c. Online casual games (i.e.,  think these are 1st-person shooter games)
	d. Massively multi-player games (e.g., SimCity online, 2nd life,
World of Warcraft, etc.)
6. How many people play all these sub-categories in:
	a. The U.S.
	b. Worldwide
7. What is the industry cost structure for game controllers?
	a. e.g., If I buy a controller from say, EB Store for US$40, how much
do the various people make in the food-chain from start to finish?
	b. e.g., What is the gross profit margin for the store owner?
	c. I know for software games, their margin is around $2 - $5 per title
	d. But margins for gaming controllers are higher right?
	e. How about the wholesaler?
	f. How about the manufacturer?
	g. Bottom line here is that if I am planning to manufacture a game
controller, what are the various costs and margins for all the U.S.
players that I need to consider in identifying the retail price?

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 05 Aug 2006 20:16 PDT

Hello seeking6236-ga,

I agree with my colleague, Pinkfreud-ga. You are not likely to get an
answer to your question as posted. I?ve answered many market research
questions on Google Answers but I?m afraid the way you?ve defined your
question the chances of getting a response are remote.

The problem is that the industry you?re interested in is tracked by
many market research companies and there are dozens of very expensive
market research reports that address the questions you?ve posed.
Because of this, very little of the information you?re looking for is
likely to be available for free on the web. See sample reports:

http://www.marketresearch.com/category/,/774.html
Video Games Market Research Reports
131 reports available

http://www.mindbranch.com/products/R415-5820_toc.html
Video Game Industry
$1,500

http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=1285828&SID=14324453-358751362-364416615&curr=USD&kw=&view=toc
Overview of the Video Game and Interactive Entertainment Industry
$1,995

In addition, the very precise, multi-part questions you?ve asked will
discourage researchers from attempting to answer. Only one answer is
possible for the $100 price and no researcher is going to invest a lot
of time only to discover that half the questions can?t be answered.

I suggest that you review some past market research questions to see
what kind of questions get the best results and then I suggest that
you close this question and ask some more narrowly focused ones.

http://answers.google.com/answers/search?q=%22market+research%22&qtype=all&btnG=Google+Search

Good luck.

~ czh ~

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Clarification of Question by seeking6236-ga on 05 Aug 2006 21:36 PDT

Thank you for the advice. I'll cancel this question and break it up
into individual questions.

You are likely to do better by posting each of these items as a
separate question. That will enable several Researchers to work on the
questions independently. A single $100 question can be answered by
only one person, and he or she would have to be able to answer all
parts of the question in order to receive any compensation.