College students and video games – what an unlikely pair?

Dig Marketing, a private consumer research firm, is looking for a group of six to eight people to conduct a focus group on video games. The focus group will be conducted on Feb. 10 and is part of a study involving a large video game publisher and college campuses.

Sterling Lanier, the president of Dig Marketing, named games that would be pertinent to the study.

“Action sports games like ‘Tony Hawk’, ‘BMX’ and ‘Madden Football’ [will be included in the study],” Lanier said. “Shooter games like ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Halo’ [will also be included].”

Lanier said NIU was chosen over many other Midwest schools for this study because of its heavy draw of Midwesterners to the school.

“We could have gone to a school like Midwestern,” said Lanier, “but they aren’t representative of the Midwest.”

“They do [focus groups] quite a bit,” said associate communication professor Robert Brookey. “Often the feedback goes back into the game.”

Brookey conducts research on video games and how they interface with movies. For one of his classes, he covered the topic of the Lord of the Rings video game.

“Particularly for games like Lord of the Rings where they have a large audience,” Brookey said. “They don’t have games with an ‘M’ rating.”

Other schools who will participate in the study include UC-Berkley, University of Washington, Boston College and Duke University.

Lanier is looking for outspoken gamers for the 3-hour-long focus group. Participants will be paid $100 for their time. Also, a homework assignment will be given, with an iPod at stake for the best work.

Dig Marketing is a market research company franchising company servicing the communications industry and includes NBC, Nickelodeon and Paramount as some of its clients.

To participate, contact Sterling Lanier at Sterling@digstrategy. com.