USING PLAYTESTS TO
HELP FUNDERS SAY YES P
It’s a conservative time for video game investment, but Steve Bromley is here to tell you about how you can use your research to change hearts and minds when it comes to getting funding
laytesting is valuable for understanding if players enjoy our games, and brings clarity to where teams need to focus their attention. The traditional audience for playtesting is
development teams - people who have a direct influence over how the game will be built, and regular playtesting is an important part of the development process from pre-production onwards. I’ve also seen the development of an important secondary
audience for these studies - funders. While the game industry continues to go through difficult times, funders are looking for evidence to help support their decisions on which prototypes or teams they should invest in. This leads to more development teams running formal playtests on their vertical slices - not only to help validate the core game loop, but also to create valuable evidence and convince investors to fund production. In this article, we’ll look into why this occurs, and how user research can help convince investors to fund development.
WHY IS FUNDING MORE DIFFICULT THAN EVER? The games industry continues to struggle, as investors react to a plateau in player numbers, big time-sink games monopolising player attention, and alternative tech investment opportunities being hyped up. This makes publishers and VCs more conservative with their funds - requiring more and more evidence to help de-risk their investment decisions.
MARKET RESEARCH IS PART OF THE ANSWER Market research has always been a core part of the investment process - using the competitive landscape of current games in a genre to anticipate the potential success of future games, and
44 | MCV/DEVELOP October/November 2025
looking for trends in purchase behaviour to decide if a specific game or genre has the potential to be successful. I’ve written about a process for doing this on
gamesuserresearch.com Market research can often be supported by concept testing -
putting ideas in front of players and asking “what do you think about this idea for a game” This will tell you whether the genre has a potential for success.
But looking at competitors and rough concepts can’t answer “is the new game we’re developing going to deliver on that potential”. This creates a big risk, and can cause investors to opt towards safer alternative investments.
PLAYTESTING CAN HELP FUNDERS MAKE CONFIDENT DECISIONS There are a huge number of factors that will influence a game’s potential for success (including advertising, market conditions, and whether GTA VI releases on the same day). However game quality is a pre-requisite for a game to be successful - players need to believe the game is fun. Bringing evidence that players enjoy your game, and the core
loop delivers on the potential makes it easier for funders to say yes. In some contexts, that can be achieved through early access, closed beta or soft launches. But for many AA titles, controlled research studies can give an early insight into whether a prototype is delivering on its potential, earlier and at much less cost.
WHAT SHOULD THE STUDY LOOK LIKE? To get the most value from your playtest, teams should focus on a study that combines qualitative and quantitative insight.
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