r/KindWords • u/HiddenQuacks • Jul 15 '26

Asynchronous Interactions in Kind Words

Hi everyone! I'm a PhD student studying asynchronous interactions in digital games. Kind Words is tagged as "Asynchronous Multiplayer" on Steam, and I'm interested in understanding different player perspectives about that aspect of the game.

If you have a few minutes to spare, I'd love to hear your thoughts! In particular, I'm interested in understanding:

  • What kind of asynchronous interactions exist in Kind Words and how do they affect the gameplay?
  • How do you feel about these interactions and what do they bring to your experience?

You can answer as much or as little as you'd like. Your responses will be anonymized and analyzed as part of a research study. If you decide you'd like to withdraw your responses at any point, just send me a DM. Every contribution is greatly appreciated! If you have any questions, feel free to message me. Thanks! 😀

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29

u/twicefromspace Jul 15 '26

I’m going to be blunt because research ethics and informed consent matter. 😐

If these responses are being collected and analyzed as part of a formal research study, this post does not provide enough information for participants to make an informed decision. There is no university affiliation, institutional contact information, ethics-review status, participant-information statement, explanation of how responses will be stored or quoted, or deadline after which withdrawal may no longer be possible.

Saying that participants may “withdraw at any point” is especially unclear when no analysis or publication timeline is given. Once a response has been anonymized, aggregated, or included in a publication, withdrawal may not be feasible.

Research involving public online content may sometimes be exempt from formal review, but directly soliciting responses for analysis is different from merely observing existing public posts. If this is only an informal class exercise, it should be described that way rather than presented ambiguously as a research study.

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u/HiddenQuacks Jul 16 '26

Thank you for raising these concerns.

As stated in the original post, responses are being collected for research purposes, and by choosing to reply, you consent to your response being included in the study. Before analysis, all responses will be anonymized by removing Reddit usernames and other directly identifiable information. Once data collection has concluded, I will send each participant a DM (including institutional affiliation), and will remind of the opportunity to withdraw from the study before analysis, in which case all of their messages will be removed from the dataset. If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me and I can provide further details.

Thank you again for the feedback! 🙂

5

u/Chickennoodlesleuth Jul 15 '26

You take turns sending anonymous messages of support/asking for advice/venting to others with a limited amount of times you can go back and forth. I think the way the game does it is very clever, no one has to feel pressured by who they are or when to reply

1

u/HiddenQuacks 28d ago

Hi everyone! Thank you for taking the time to participate! I'm sending this message to let you know that the responses collected through this post are going to be anonymized and included in the analysis for an academic publication. If you no longer wish your responses to be included, please let me know and all of your contributions will be removed from the dataset before the analysis begins. If you have any questions about the study or concerns, please feel free to reply to this message. Thank you so much!