COMBINE CREATIVITY WITH PLAYER INSIGHT
Steve Bromley wants you to remember that games are a creative artform, and is here to explain how playtesting can work as part of the creative process, rather than go against it
O
ne of the more common internal barriers that stop teams from playtesting is the fear that it will replace creativity, creating ‘smooth’ but bland games. Teams who are early
in their player experience maturity worry that playtesting will defer decision making to players, removing agency from designers, developers and the internal team. This isn’t the goal for user research or playtesting (we’re not
doing market research). Instead user researchers apply the scientific method to refine the implementation of creativity, by removing barriers between your intended vision, and the experience that players have. We need playtests to start with defining the experience you want to create, uncover the experience players are having, and inspire teams on how to close the gap. A formalised process will help avoid losing control of your
playtests, going through the steps of: • Aligning on your creative vision for the game • Identifying the priority decisions that need to be made, and the data that will support them
• Defining your research objectives • Picking the right playtest method, and designing the study • Executing on the study • Analysing the data • Sharing the results with decision makers, and helping them interpret it Ensuring that playtesting supports (rather than replaces) creativity requires upfront thought and work when defining and running your study - in this article we’ll look at some best practice to ensure that playtesting fits in with your creative process, and inspires your team.
50 | MCV/DEVELOP August/September 2025
USE YOUR CREATIVE VISION TO INFORM THE OBJECTIVES Just like scientific studies, an impactful playtest needs objectives and hypotheses - a definition of ‘what are we hoping to learn’. Under-defined playtests with vague goals of seeing what players think about your game will create unfocused and broad feedback, greatly increasing the risk of reactive decision making. Successful playtests will start with understanding the vision of
the game. Spending time internally to review & define ‘what are we trying to make’ and ‘what behaviour would we expect to see from players if it’s working as expected’ will create a reliable baseline that you can design your playtest around, and will then inspire the objectives - what are we trying to learn from this study. When scheduling your next playtest, run an internal session
to define your intended experience, and identify how that will manifest in the playtest. This focuses your study around identifying gaps between the intended and actual player experience, and centers the intended vision in your data collection.
FIND YOUR GENUINE PLAYERS In order to trust the data gathered from your playtest, we need to be confident that it’s gathered from your real players. A reliable definition of players should be focused on their gaming behaviour - do they play games from your competitor set? Behavioural definitions built around previous gaming behaviour create more reliable data than demographic definitions. Avoid relying too heavily on your existing community - although
often easy to access, they are often more hardcore than 95% of your ‘typical’ players, and will have more extreme viewpoints.
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