Relevance & Research Question: In order to get player feedback and gain deeper insight into player motivation, InnoGames regularly conducts Web surveys among its international online game communities. Striving for higher response rates to guarantee the generalizability of the survey results, three studies were conducted, investigating different factors that were expected to increase survey participation. Study 1 examined the influence of emphasizing issue salience (personal relevance) of the survey topic in the introduction on the first survey page. Study 2 dealt with the effects of matching the survey design and/or the survey introduction to the survey invitation (in-game pop-up). Study 3 tested the influence of different types of incentives. We primarily expected the high salience introduction, a survey design and introduction matching the survey invitation, and all types of incentives to increase response and completion rates.

Methods & Data: In the context of three surveys, players were randomly assigned to different groups. Study 1 (n=7,496): High salience, or low salience introduction on the first survey page. Study 2 (n=9,264): No introduction and no design match, no introduction match but design match, no design match but introduction match, or introduction as well as design match of the in-game survey invitation and the survey. Study 3 (n=20,021): Pre-paid incentive, post-paid incentive, lottery, or no incentive for participating in the survey.

Results: A survey design matching the survey invitation as well as all types of incentives were able to significantly improve response and completion rates. Within the incentive study, pre- and post-paid incentives yielded the highest participation, followed by the lottery.

Added Value: With our survey invitations distributed via in-game pop-ups and a highly engaged player base eager to provide feedback, a high base line response rate of 51% could be reached, enabling sample sizes with several thousand respondents per test group. The surveys were carried out in different markets which also allowed for international comparisons. Thus, we could also reveal market differences regarding the effectiveness of our tested conditions for improving web survey response rates.