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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 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 chapter discusses the user testing process in a lab and the inevitability of biases when testing under these conditions. It also describes the difficulties to obtain the data needed by the researcher when the conditions are closer to real life, and the difficulties to project data to everyday situations when closer to experimental conditions. Lastly, it describes the importance of reducing biases in the study to increase its validity in order to obtain more useful and meaningful results.

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 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.

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.

In this chapter, we aim to give ideas on how to run user tests (aka playtests) with limited resources. You may be a developer trying to test your game on the side, or someone trying (or has been tasked) to test a game. We will ramp up from almost no resources whatsoever to the basis to create a dedicated lab space.

This chapter points out the key benefits of a well-designed process in Games User Research. For example, the creation of templates and question databases can ensure that information is collected in a comprehensive, shareable manner. Maintaining this documentation can facilitate future optimization for increased research efficiency.

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.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the philosophy and then definition of the RITE method. It then delves into the benefits of this method and provides practical notes on running RITE tests effectively. The chapter concludes with an overview of the original case study behind the 2002 article documenting this method.

This chapter presents the physiological metrics used in Games User Research (GUR). Aimed at GUR professionals in the games industry, it explains what methods are available to researchers to measure biometric data while subjects are engaged in play. It sets out when it is appropriate to use biometric measures in GUR projects, the kind of data generated, and the differing ways it can be analysed. The chapter also discusses the trade-offs required when interpreting physiological data, and will help games researchers to make informed decisions about which research questions can benefit from biometric methodologies. As the equipment needed to collect biometric data becomes more sophisticated as well as cheaper, physiological testing of players during a game’s development will become more common. At the same time, Games User Researchers will become more discriminating in its use. Where in the past professionals in the games industry have used biometric testing to generate quick, actionable feedback about player responses to elements of a game, and have been less concerned with the scientific robustness of their methodology, as GUR develops a new breed of games industry professionals are attempting to deploy good academic practice in their researches.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As user experience (UX) research in game development becomes more established, many studios are now incorporating UX practices within their studio. However, the maturity level of UX within a studio can vary widely, from those who are hostile towards UX up to those who embrace UX at all levels in the organization. This chapter is for both game developers and Games User Researchers who are interested in assessing where they currently are on a UX maturity scale, and also keen to understand what more could be done to become more player-focused.

Interviews provide direct insight into the player’s behaviours, motivations, and understanding of how the game works. This chapter explores the preparation of an interview, interviews during the session, final interviews, and interview tips. It concludes with a discussion of data capture and analysis, as well as thoughts on the future of the method.

This chapter covers the applied methods to uncover usability problems and the concrete guidelines on how to plan for capturing usability events. And overview of tools and processes that can help to document and analyse observations made by the researchers is also presented.