Know Nothing About Stereo 3D Gaming? Good! Take U-DECIDE Survey, Win Prizes

Thu, Oct 30, 2008

Three interviews and a hefty chunk of background research have certainly not made us experts on the field of stereoscopic 3D -- far from it. But we do now know that there's far more to the technology than your average anaglyph amusement park ride might lead you to believe, and that like it or not, S-3D tech is on the rise.

But if you yourself haven't the foggiest notion about stereoscopic 3D, or have even tried it and had unfavorable impressions ("the glasses look dumb," "I got headaches," etc.) then now is your chance to make a difference -- and win iZ3D monitors, top-of-the-line AMD graphics cards and more -- while the burgeoning stereoscopic 3D industry is ready and waiting to accept your input.

Click here to go straight to industry advocacy group Meant To Be Seen's "U-Decide" survey... or follow the jump to hear more about why, exactly, your uneducated opinion might make a crucial difference, from the man who wrote the questions you'll be answering.

In strict point of fact, the U-Decide study actually consists of two questionnaires: one for existing owners of S-3D technology, and one for those "2D gamers" who may or may not be familiar with stereoscopic 3D at all. But according MTBS3D CEO Neil Schneider, it's really that second group that the advocacy group wants to attract.

"There are five to seven million hardcore PC gamers," he said. "At this stage, it's going to be their opinion that matters the most."

As the owner of forums filled with rabid S-3D fans, Schneider told us, he already understands to some degree what existing S-3D gamers want. But in order to expand the appeal of S-3D, the industry needs to know why those gamers who haven't chosen to involve themselves have historically shied away. One reason might be the fairly common requirement of wearing 3D glasses, which -- some, but not others complain -- can look dorky or be uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time.

That's why several survey questions conspicuously refer to the glasses. "We're working to see if glasses are indeed a deterrent to the technology," said Schneider.

Similarly -- and especially in a troubled economy -- the premium price of some 3D solutions can be a concern for gamers. I don't own my own S-3D equipment for that very reason, and so I was pleased to see that Question 24 allowed me to select what kind of premium I'd be willing to pay on top of the existing market price of, say, an LCD monitor, to have that stereoscopic support built right in.

(Question 24 also has options for the integration of native stereoscopic support into game consoles -- if any console manufacturers reading the study see that we're willing to pay extra for a console to have S-3D built in, who knows what might happen...)

But above and beyond these individual marketing concerns is the idea of whether gamers simply don't know enough about the technology to make that informed decision. With two separate questionnaires housing similar questions, Schneider believes he can compare us "2D gamers" against the niche S-3D community and find out what, exactly, is scaring away our dollars.

"If there's a gap, if that interest isn't there, we need to know as an industry where the disconnects are. Is this disinterest based on a myth or an experience with out of date technology? This impacts software too. When developers want to move ahead with 3D gaming, they need tools like U-DECIDE to be certain they are moving in the right direction. Who better to help determine this than customers?"

Though Schneider was uncertain exactly how long the study will run -- he wants to be sure the survey sample is large enough -- he plans to release preliminary results at the 3D Entertainment Summit in early December, and is hoping for well upwards of 1000 gamers to participate in the study. Prizes should be awarded no later than January 2009.

After a quick registration at MTBS3D, you can take the survey yourself right here.

Though the results of Question 24 are certainly very valuable to the study, the descriptions therein aren't particularly clear, and for GameCyte readers' benefit I asked Schneider to clarify. He says that the general idea is to imagine what the market price of an item (say, an LCD monitor) might be, and then answer what percentage you'd be willing to pay on top of that market price to enable S-3D support. For instance, if you believe an LCD monitor costs $200, and you'd be willing to pay $300 for one with support for LCD shutter glasses, that would be a 50% premium (an additional one-half the cost of the monitor added on top of the total) and you'd check off "Up to 50%."

The difference between "3D glasses add-on" and "100% designed for 2D/3D," he explained, is not the difference between displays with glasses and displays without, but rather the difference between those displays that were not built for S-3D but can enable through shutter glasses as a side effect of their high refresh rate, etc (including the new Viewsonic monitors endorsed by NVIDIA) and those that were built especially for 3D (including the iZ3D monitor).

Since you may not be familiar with Dual Projector, Head Mounted Displays etc. as a "2D gamer," you might want to take a very quick look at the MTBS3D hardware guide before taking the survey.