Despite this, we know that game development doesn’t
wait - and having a quick turnaround between ‘the test build is ready’, and ‘we have some results’ is important, otherwise decisions will be made regardless. It’s important not to skip analysis (or defer this to a computer), but professional researchers will develop techniques that allow them to give early readings from the data within 24 hours of a test, to start inspiring decisions immediately.
FEAR: PLAYTESTERS ARE BIASED Every individual is biased - whether you are playtesting with friends, families, other developers, or getting feedback from publishers. The best participants are those who represent your target audience. This means we need to define the target audience (usually based on what they play) and make sure we’re validating that our playtesters match that definition. From experience, the best playtesters are those who
don’t do it often (frequent flyers end up becoming increasingly different to ‘typical players’). In practice I recommend spending more money on player recruitment and prioritising in-person testing, instead of going with cheaper online playtest methods, to make sure teams can trust the results they get.
FEAR: PLAYTEST RESULTS WILL SCARE PUBLISHERS/FUNDERS Some teams are worried that exposing the game to players will create awareness of ‘problems’ that will scare their publisher or funders. Games can often be in a messy state until late in development, and both experience and faith is needed to believe it can all come together by launch (...hopefully). To avoid playtests becoming a source of
alarm, playtests need to become a collaborative process - defining the scope for the playtest together, co-defining the priority topics to learn about, and agreeing what is out of scope due to not being ready. Opening up the research process, such as
inviting the development team and publisher to observe sessions together, can help give context to results from playtests, and help create an atmosphere of healthy conversations about ‘where is the game’ and ‘what are the most important actions to prioritise for the team’, and avoid playtests becoming a source of friction in the relationship.
FEAR: THE PLAYTEST WILL LEAK We’re lucky in the games industry that fans are very passionate. However, that creates
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risks - players can share what they see or hear on the internet. There are some steps we can take to minimise the risk of that - including running lab- based studies where we can remove players phones/ ability to record the session, leaving them with no evidence of the session. Tight build control, watermarking builds, anonymising the game during recruitment and screening players to ensure that they don’t know each other, or work in ‘risky’ industries (such as journalism or streaming) can reduce the risk of leaks further. It’s impossible to avoid the risk of leaks entirely,
but in almost two decades of running playtests, I’ve seen that running sessions in a controlled playtest lab means that there’s nothing of value that players can share on Reddit, and no-one will believe them…
WHAT’S PUTTING YOUR TEAM OFF PLAYTESTING? Although the fears I’ve covered come up relatively frequently, your team will have had different histories with playtests that can put them off the process. Start with a chat about their previous experiences with playtesting to start to uncover these opinions and decide how to address them.
Steve Bromley is an experienced games user researcher who works with studios and publishers to run impactful playtests throughout development. Get his free book ‘Playtest Plus’ at
gamesuserresearch.com
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