You value my feedback... unless I'm too old?
I got email today with the subject line "We value your feedback". Awesome! I like surveys and I try to give constructive feedback rather than just (honing the edge of) my pet axe. I clicked the link, I filled out my gender, my age, and whether I'd played Ingress in the last 30 days. The very next screen told me that I didn't qualify to take this survey. That certainly made me feel valued.
But... I checked and it wasn't a single-use link. I tried different combinations of whether I'd played in the last 30 days and got the same result. I tried different genders and got the same result. I tried different ages, and if I peeled just a few years off my age I qualified regardless of my gender or whether I'd played in the last 30 days. Any combination I tried above a certain age got me the same rejection. Trying ages below 18 got a rejection too, but I understand the legal reasons for that.
I didn't complete the survey because I wasn't willing to lie in order to have my voice heard, and the cynic in me didn't want to pollute Niantic's data with not-valued my old-person responses. It was tempting, though.
It was eight years and 12 days ago on a cold night in Trafalgar Square when I decided to try out this Ingress thing that my friends had been playing. I spent the next few hours walking around the west end playing nonstop until I eventually stumbled bleary-eyed onto a night bus to get back to my hotel. Since then I've played every day. Like everyone who has played Ingress more than casually I've had a love-frustration relationship with Niantic My annoyance has always been with the way Niantic managed the game and the player base as a whole... tonight is the first time I've ever seen Niantic single out a class of players to be second-class citizens.
Tonight, for the first time, I looked at the uninstall button and contemplated pushing it. I didn't, but this is the first time I've ever considered it.

Comments
If a player who has been playing constantly for years is denied access to give you their feedbacks just because they are past an age threshold, then, Niantic, you are way beyond help.
Do you mind me asking what age bracket you are in? I'm 53 and answered that on survey.
My main gripe has also been the way Niantic managed the game. (I've worked at a software company almost 30 years and Niantic constantly amaze me with their clumsiness and lack of consideration).
Pretty disappointing Niantic.
no survey here.. weird its sent out to random agents only ?
@NianticThia What's up with the ageism?
Yes, asking first for the age, looks awful to me.
Never heard of surveys in which they want feedback from a specific subset of people?
(This is introductory statistics)
It asks for gender first and then proceeds with age. It's like any survey you take.
Looks like they aren't looking for feedback from the 55+ crowd. Interesting move for sure.
I found the survey interesting and seems like they are zeroing in on matroyshka, medals and events in general.
@SSSputnik 18-54 is the acceptable age range.
@MoogModular Yes, I understand statistics and random sampling, and I thought about that before I posted... it's possible that the old fogey category was full already but it seemed unlikely to me. I also understand that there are ways to accomplish that distribution without alienating people.
I think just asking people how long they've played the game and how often they play now should be a pretty good gauge of feedback value.
Oh, you've played since Day 1, but only play once a week now, hmmmm, that would be good data to gather.
Considering the questions I was presented, not really sure how age or gender would have any effect, unless they're trying to find ways to target 18-54 year old specifically, which seems quite broad....
That's rude. A person who created this threshold really should apologise.
(But it's Niantic, nobody will bother)
Apologize for what? They wanted input through a subset of people. @Hosette didn't fit the subset. They decided to poke around the survey link to see they weren't in the subset for this month.
Niantic doesn't want input from just veterans and I at least understand where they're coming from on this - they want insight from a range of experience. They did the same thing when looking at XMAs roles. To think you're singled out because of a monthly survey is a bit confusing, specious at worst.
@MoogModular I like "a sunset of people" as a typo when talking about people being too old for something. It made me giggle.
Your comment about veterans and a range of experience is certainly reasonable, but that's not what they asked about-- they asked about age. Being 55 years old vs 54 doesn't tell Niantic anything about my experience with Ingress, and the survey didn't ask how long I'd been playing the game. Asking about age is also reasonable, but rejecting input about a game based on age feels pretty harsh.
I understand the value of shaping surveys to match the demographics of the population. I also understand that there are multiple ways to accomplish this, such as weighting results to match the population or sampling the responses based on the demographic information. Both of these techniques allow everyone to provide input and feel like their opinion matters, while still letting the company gather and understand the information they need.
On the customer service side I also understand that language matters, and even if you have to reject a respondent there are good and bad ways to do it. Consider the difference between "Sorry, you not qualify to take this survey", and, "Thank you for your interest but we have filled the quota for your demographic at this time. We look forward to your input in future surveys." One of those things leaves the customer feeling more valued than the other. The additional effort required to write friendlier text is trivial. My biggest ongoing criticism of Niantic is that they are insensitive to the ways that their actions impact their customers. A company that had respect for their customers baked into the culture would have done better without a second thought.
Also, if they really only wanted responses from people aged 18-54 vs having information to understand the differences between demographics then that supports my initial post. Other than the legal issues around gathering data from people under 18 I can't think of a legitimate reason why you would want to reject the opinions of a portion of your users based on age.
Hi all - I haven't read through the whole thread yet but a quick update: from what I'm told, the age should be set that it doesn't block anyone from taking it; obviously it's not working so we escalated it and are looking to see where the issue lies. Sorry about this, Agents and I'll report back as soon as I hear anything !
No one is too old to have feedback. <3
I have filled out so many surveys through the years from mTurk, Google Opinion Rewards, and I think Foursquare (most recently) that the message provided is very boiler template genetic. That's more of an issue with the survey company than Niantic.
Then it's the usual poor quality control we've come to expect.
Not us, swag company.
Oops, event change fixed now etc.
The survey still requires participants to be younger than 55. It's been 8 hours since NianticThia said it would be fixed. Survey.alchemer takes that long to process a change?
I wonder what percent of CORE subscribers are 55+. Or those who spend money in the store. How many of them have been told they are too old?
But i never get surveys since years ☹️
I guess except your feedback... you have to recurse.
KIDDING.
I'll look into it!
@mortuus Did you turn them off? I believe surveys are controlled by Settings / Send me events, offers, and updates.
If only a few more people CORE subscribed....
I just got the same tactless rejection.
I realize the 55+ demographic is only valued by a limited number of advertisers, but given how many older people play Ingress, this is really bad PR.
How long does it really take to fix a survey, @NianticThia ?
This cracks me up… Like, even a survey can’t be sent out correctly and without some hiccup. Classic Niantic here…
One constant facepalm.
From a business perspective, doing a marketing survey and/or a feasibility study involving certain demographics (i.e. 18-54, female/male players) will likely shape the future of a product with the intention of attracting and retaining players. Unfortunately, some demographics have to be excluded; it's just the way it is.
The flaw in this survey is that they are targeting Ingress players with an age cut off. If they had a survey target group of non-players or would-be could-be players then I think the age cut-off would be better understood. Instead, the survey has detailed questions about things like store medals and ancient events like city shards, but first they are showing players who might know about these things to the door because of age. Finally, someone at Niantic/Ingress also stated that one of their goals was to retain players and get retired players back to the game. Surely this survey totally undermines those lofty goals.
thanks Thia,, no they are not off... thats the strange part.... i just checked my emails, last time i got a survey was:
Tue, May 1, 2018
xD
A further comment: rejecting survey participants after their demographic is filled is common when users are being offered a reward for participation. Perhaps the survey company thought that, like most games, Ingress was offering people an in-game reward for helping the game producers collect information, in which case it would be typical to reject extra surveys.
Similar surveys I've done in the past usually didn't have a reward. If anything, maybe a chance to be entered in a drawing which could be some enticement to doing the survey.
I just don't know what this list of monthly surveys comes from because it's usually on the 20th of each month. (This one was a week early)