Denisova, Alena orcid.org/0000-0002-1497-5808, Bromley, Steve, Mirza-Babaei, Pejman et al. (1 more author) (2024) Towards Democratisation of Games User Research:Exploring Playtesting Challenges of Indie Video Game Developers. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 343. ISSN 2573-0142
Abstract
Playtesting is a games user research (GUR) method used to evaluate design decisions based on feedback gathered from players with the goal to improve player experiences (PX). HCI games research has been actively working on and promoting best practices in GUR. However, these practices often require resources, knowledge and expertise, which are not readily available for indie video games developers. Thus, to better understand how GUR can support these developers, we conducted an interview study with 13 indie games professionals to learn about their practices and the challenges they face when doing playtesting. We report on the key findings from this study, including challenges with finding appropriate participants and handling the data from playtests. We provide a discussion of how existing GUR practices can be adapted and what HCI games research can do to help mitigate these challenges to make playtesting more accessible and impactful to indie video games developers.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s) |
Keywords: | Playtesting,Player Experience,PX,User Experience,UX,Games User Research,GUR,Indie game development,Challenges,practices |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Computer Science (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 28 Aug 2024 09:20 |
Last Modified: | 17 Mar 2025 00:10 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1145/3677108 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1145/3677108 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216480 |
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