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In this chapter we provide a pragmatic description of how GUR processes can be employable and impactful even with limited resources and prior user research experience. We also provide guidelines for how GUR processes can start small and be iteratively expanded upon to become an integral part of a developer’s working processes. Included are step-by-step guidelines for starting to work with GUR.

The fierce competition in the video games market and new revenue models such as free-to-play emphasize the importance of good playability for first-time user experience and retention. Cost-effective and flexible evaluation methods such as heuristic evaluation is suitable for identifying playability problems in different phases of the game development life cycle. In this chapter we introduce the heuristic evaluation method with updated playability heuristics, present example studies on identifying playability problems in social network games, and propose new heuristics for evaluating free-to-play games.

Gamers are not a monolithic group; gaming preferences and motivations vary in important ways among gamers. An empirical, validated model of gaming motivations provides a crucial methodological bridge between player preferences and their in-game behaviours, and, more importantly, engagement and retention outcomes. Instead of simply seeing on a key performance indicator dashboard that a certain percentage of gamers are leaving, a motivation model allows us to pinpoint why those gamers are leaving.

Game Analytics (GA) provides new ways to conduct user research, counteracting some of the weaknesses of traditional approaches while retaining essential compatibility with the methodologies of GUR. This chapter provides an overview of what GA is and how it fits within the daily operations of game development across studio sizes, with an emphasis on the intersection with GUR and the synergies that can be leveraged across analytics and user research.

Practising Games User Research within a video game company possesses unique challenges, ranging from tight turnaround of findings to collaborating with the development team and incorporating the needs of the rest of company. This chapter describes processes and best practices for applying GUR in the industry while identifying and avoiding potential pitfalls.

This chapter is aimed at small-to-medium-sized studios wanting to introduce analytics into their development process. It focuses on concepts and techniques that are most useful for smaller studios, and that require minimal skills. While money is always an issue, plenty of free analytics tools exist, whether they are third-party tools or simple in-house solutions. The chapter details how the most important factor is the availability of human resources.

This chapter provides an introduction to the field of Games User Research (GUR) and to the present book. GUR is an interdisciplinary field of practice and research concerned with ensuring the optimal quality of usability and user experience in digital games. GUR inevitably involves any aspect of a video game that players interface with, directly or indirectly. This book aims to provide the foundational, accessible, go-to resource for people interested in GUR. It is a community-driven effort—it is written by passionate professionals and researchers in the GUR community as a handbook and guide for everyone interested in user research and games. We aim to provide the most comprehensive overview from an applied perspective, for a person new to GUR, but which is also useful for experienced user researchers.

This paper presents a set of heuristics (PLAY and GAP) for game design and discusses the history of heuristics for games, describes the use of these heuristics, summarizes research demonstrating their effectiveness, and describes a hypothetical model that reviewers use when evaluating a game. The usage by designers and evaluators when reviewing two released games is also compared. Overall, heuristics were found to be much more effective than informal reviews and their use led not only to problem identification, but to suggested fixes, possible enhancements, and effective aspects of the existing designs.

User testing games does not have to be expensive and time-consuming. In this chapter we focus on the specific situation where the resources, expertise, and time available for user testing is limited, as is usually the case for indie studios. This means adapting affordable and accessible user testing processes for indie studios. We emphasize the contribution of analytics techniques in this adaptation process, and describe different methods of how to incorporate analytics into other Games User Research methods.

As part of conducting research, reporting must occur. In addition to communicating the research result accurately, a report must motivate the team to act on the result, which often means modifying their build to increase the quality of their product. Approaches used to report user research findings back to the development team are just as important as the findings themselves. If the findings are not communicated to the development team effectively, the developers may not take action and miss potentially critical changes that could have made a difference in the development cycle and overall success of the project. If user researchers conduct the best possible study, identify the most critical issues, but fail to communicate or explain the findings in a way that motivates the development team, then changes may not occur. Many chapters in this book discuss methodologies for conducting user research; this chapter focuses on approaches to communicate the findings to the development team.

This chapter describes challenges involved in the development of Dragon Age™: Inquisition, in particular, problems arising from the size of the game world, as well as combat mechanics and player classes and playstyles. It shows how GUR directly contributed to game design decisions, for example, in terms of menu and UI design.

This chapter opens with a discussion of the author’s personal thoughts and experiences post-launch in Games User Research. Its subsequent sections explore data sources that should be leveraged on a live title, and the importance and limitations of benchmark studies. The chapter concludes with a methodological example that can be implemented to kick-start your own post-launch analysis.

This chapter describes each of the eight methods for player research we have used, and covers why the method is used in the context of player research, how it is executed, the time taken, and what is delivered as a result. Each of the methods has been refined over the years to reflect the balance between time and budget required, and accurate and actionable results delivered. The strengths of each of the methods with respect to player appeal, understanding, usability, experience, and successful monetization are presented.

Towards informing the development of new playtesting labs, this chapter outlines the process we used at Player Research for setting up our labs. Setting up a functional lab environment requires a range of considerations—across floor plans, materials selection, technology choices, testing strategies, and more—and in this chapter we describe some of the key lessons we learned along the way.

This chapter is about the think-aloud protocol and its application to player experience. It covers what the protocol is, when to apply it, how to conduct it, its pros and cons, and its variations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of think-aloud protocols with children and the considerations necessary when using child participants.

In this chapter we describe the challenges and learnings in establishing processes for developing actionable biometric procedures for production teams. The chapter, divided in four main sections, describes the ongoing efforts of recent years to facilitate the incorporation of the science of biometrics into the culture of video game production, as illustrated through several case studies. The end goal is making biometric data an accessible option in the tool chest of user researchers and an ally in the team’s decision-making processes. Throughout the chapter, references to related work in games user research and academia are presented.

The increased interest in virtual reality (VR) has yielded a lot of studies and development in both research and game design. Simulation sickness is an issue experienced by a significant subset of players in VR. This chapter focuses on the challenges this issue poses for user research, and suggests practical considerations for researchers to minimize legal and ethical risks.

This chapter provides an overview of challenges that emerge from the involvement of players with special needs in game development, focusing on user involvement in early design stages, and challenges that emerge during playtesting. Through three case studies focusing on young children, people with disabilities, and older adults, we offer insights into appropriate methodology for GUR with diverse audiences. Additionally, we discuss strategies to establish a respectful and empowering process for user involvement.