Why is playtesting crucial for successful game design?

Playtesting is just user testing, only we're game devs so we wanted our own special name for it. It is the practice of sitting down with a diverse set of actual game players, preferably in person, and watching them play the game. It is one of the most powerful tools you have to build an incredible game. No design survives contact with real players, and regular, consistent testing is the secret to an amazing game.

It is the process of observing individuals playing a game to gather feedback on its mechanics, usability, and overall experience. It involves both qualitative observations and quantitative data analysis to identify areas for improvement. Playtesting helps developers understand how players interact with the game, uncovering issues such as bugs, balancing problems, and user experience issues. By incorporating feedback from playtesting, designers can refine their game to ensure it meets player expectations and delivers an engaging and enjoyable experience.

Playtesting is one of the vital steps to creating an incredible game with amazing results. The responses that you get from your prototype from the players or test subjects are everything. This can help you come up with the functionality of your game along with the unique mechanics. If the testing isn’t taken care of properly, you can end up with an unsuccessful release of your game and possibly losing tons of money.

Playtesting involves an Unbiased party, typically a dedicated QA team that does test cases on different aspects of your product. The goal is to uncover defects, and inconsistencies in your game that could diminish the intended experience. Your QA team will create test cases that give your development team actionable qualitative and quantitative data to address these discoveries. QA/Playtesting should be at the forefront of your development process to give you a well-rounded and solid game.

Playtesting is a form of user research that involves observing and collecting feedback from people who play your game. Playtesting can be done at any stage of development, from the initial prototype to the final product.

Playtesting also plays an important role in prioritizing development work. It's common for devs to prioritize issues that only they are even aware of. If your playtesters don't even notice the issue, then fixing it might not be as important as you thought it was. Conversely, an issue that everyone on the dev team has almost forgotten about because they've gotten so used to working around it is revealed to be a serious problem when first encountered by new players. The team now knows that fixing this should be a higher priority.

Playtesting is an essential step in game development as it can help validate assumptions and hypotheses about design and mechanics, discover and fix bugs, measure engagement, retention, and monetization potential, and gather insights from players to improve features, content, and aesthetics. Additionally, playtesting can evaluate balance, difficulty, pacing, and progression as well as test the game on different platforms, devices, and configurations for compatibility and accessibility.

it provides valuable feedback on gameplay mechanics, user experience, and overall enjoyment. It helps identify potential issues, such as bugs, balancing problems, or confusing elements, that may not be apparent during development. Playtesting also allows developers to observe how players interact with the game in real-world scenarios, enabling them to make informed adjustments and improvements to enhance the overall quality of the game. Additionally, playtesting fosters player engagement and satisfaction by ensuring that the game meets their expectations and delivers an enjoyable experience.

There are several key reasons why playtesting is important/vital to the success of a game: Bug fixing - Every game encounters bugs, play testing ensures that the game is vigorously tested to find as many of these bugs as possible. Having bugs present in your game degrades the quality and playability of the game. Removes developer bias - Devs can often overlook bugs quite easily so play testing can remove any bias such as thinking their game is amazing and polished when in reality it isn't, this helps to add a fresh perspective. Devs can typically be biased when playing their games, so playtesting adds a fresh perspective for those who aren't in-depth with the development of the game.

Playtesting is the bases of Game development. Why playing is important depends on which step you are in your development life cycle. A simple breakdown is Alpha, Beta, and Ship. Alpha: This is within the team or organization or company typically done by your dedicated QA team. Beta: is outside the organization and is usually volunteers you want to test and provide feedback on new features. Shipping: Once you've released your product to your consumers they will still have bugs they discover. So you will want a strike team who addresses these bugs as they arise until you decide to sunset the project. Sometimes bugs are seen as unintended features that players enjoy like the backpeddle speed run glitch in Mario 64. Not all bugs are bad :)

Have a test plan, and make the play testing fun for your beta testers. Typically in our studio, we develop test cases based on the completion criteria or the Definition of Done in our Feature List/Master Task list. One thing we do for our Beta test group is giving them objective dictated by something we call the 3f's of QA Fun/Functional/Fortified, but we present them as goals to do in the game. Making the beta testing experience focused, objective, and goal-oriented. Fun: Asks your play testers if they enjoy the feature Functional: Does the feature work as intended Fortified: the feature has little to no issues in it causing any unforeseen outcome. Try these tips out in your QA planning!

You also need to account for two factors: 1. Studios often develop an internal logic and language for why they have made a variety of design and development decisions, and this can make it difficult to set effective playtesting or conduct it. Virtually every studio innately resists playtest results that seem to fall outside of that logic and language, so some translation of results will be required. 2. Many games sent for playtesting are not ready for it. If the game loop is not fully implemented, for example, playtesting feedback is often wildly off the mark and focuses on nonsense topics that distract wider development. Don’t plan to seriously playtest until you have a decent chunk of your core systems in place.

Clear communication and an effective feedback loop are essential. It's important to keep participants informed about the purpose of the playtesting and how their feedback will be used. Although this may not seem directly related to playtesting, the Helldivers II PSN situation is a critical example to consider. When online methods are enforced on a game, it is crucial to clearly inform everyone, especially gamers. Nothing diminishes the quality and overall enjoyment of a game more than unexpected online requirements, lack of transparency, or poor communication about critical features. Ensuring that players know what to expect fosters trust and enhances their overall experience.

The most important thing you can do for yourself is to have *pre-planned questions you are trying to answer.* Write out the top 1-3 things you are hoping to take away from the playtest. Perhaps you're trying to figure out why players keep getting stuck on a specific level, or you're trying to test a new boss battle, or you're trying to ascertain if a major feature change is the right call. Whatever it is, write out what you are trying to prove or disprove ahead of time, then come into the test seeking the truth above all else. (AKA. Don't be biased yo).

Here are my top excellent playtest tips: 1. Give only enough info for the player to play. You should keep your pre-amble to just a few sentences. 2. Ask them to think out loud as much as possible, and assure them that they *won't hurt your feelings.* 3. Shut up. Seriously. Just sit quietly, observe their play, and take lots of notes. 4. Avoid answering questions unless they are truly blocked. Instead say "I'll answer that after the test" 5. Mark down potential action items and follow up questions for after the test.

During a playtest, you want to hear as much as you can from the player, and as little as possible from the developers. Never provide any information that is not going to ship with the game. It’s painful to watch players do the wrong thing every time, but funnel your pain into improvements. Their confusion is always your responsibility to fix in the game. Watch what players DO - actions speak louder than words. But do ask them what they think - you may see a player who looks frustrated but if you ask them about it they were having a great time.

A key aspect that’s often overlooked is allowing the game designers to physically see the playtest occurring (such as in a focus test). While those setups can feel awkward, it helps designers to interpret the data that comes from playtesting by correlating it to human behavior.

Some people are very good at speaking their thoughts aloud as they think them, but I find that most people are not naturally good at this. A little trick you can do is to ask two players to share a computer or controller, forcing them to speak their plans, expectations, and reactions aloud to one another. This is especially useful when playtesting with children, but with kids you need to make sure the pairs get along well before they start.

If someone was not having fun, consider if that part of the playtest was supposed to be fun for that type of person. If it was meant to delight that player’s interests, fix it. Playtests are great for finding bugs. Put them into your usual reporting and triage. If someone was confused about your core gameplay and how it’s supposed to work, drop everything and fix that immediately. If the player doesn’t know how to do the fun part of the game, or doesn’t find the goals engaging, or doesn’t see how their actions relate to the challenges, that’s a big problem that is up your the game designer to solve quickly.

Beware of overcorrecting your design based on a single playtest. Small sample sizes can deliver wildly aberrant results. That said, if one group's experience diverges greatly from the expected norm and delivers a troubling result, it's worth some effort to determine why that occurred. Is it a random element that needs a tweak? Did your playtesters misunderstand a rule that needs clarification? What's required to replicate the experience, and are you willing to live with that rather than spend the time and effort to solve the issue?

There are three key types of analysis to perform: 1. Objective data: Anonymized data showing progress, currency totals, leveling progression etc etc (depending on what you test), ideally split into a control group and a test group. 2. Surveys: These can be useful (although question design is key, and often not handled well) for answers on more subjective questions such as story impact or game feel. 3. Interviews: These rarely scale, but a handful of real user interviews explaining what they liked, did or didn’t understand, can help illuminate topics like player motivation.

Remember that the role of playtesting is to identify problems, but solutions have to come from your team after playtesting is over and you've had a chance to organize and interpret the feedback fully. It's tempting to take suggestions from playtesters, but I would be very wary of doing this. It's easy to misattribute one's own thoughts and feelings in the throes of gameplay, and well-meaning suggestions often miss the mark entirely.