What do you do if playtesters aren't providing valuable feedback for game improvement?

Avoid overwhelming playtesters with too many questions, ensuring they remain motivated to provide feedback. Provide direct questions aligned with specific needs, offering predefined answer options to avoid confusion while still allowing for additional responses. Incorporate various question types, such as multiple-choice, slider mode, or open-ended paragraph answers. Ultimately, gamification aims to make questionnaires enjoyable, so let's have fun with them too!

1. Use the mom test This is used to test out a product by asking questions in a way that is not too obvious 2. Make sure to give them game of similar genre and gameplay if available notice their reaction 3. Get a video of the gameplay of playtesters and analyze it 4. Keep the feedback anonymous 5. Most effective of all is if you have a personal bond with game tester ask them why can't the game be played for an hour or two?

The main requirements for a good playtest on overall are: - Assegure what the questions are imparcials, without influence the tester to pick any side. - On the most of the cases the tester have to never be played the game before; For a original and spontaneous feedback. - This MUST to be reccorded by a camera. How you supose to'now if the final Boss of your game is scary or ridiculous? You need to capture the Emotions of the testers, to of course work on it.

Set a goal for playtesters 1. Set an input and output eg. Play the game and list out all bugs 2. Identify playtesters USP's and leverage it usp is unique selling pt eg. We had a playtester who played loads of puzzle games hence we asked him to play other part skipping the puzzle for unbaised review also making him design a few puzzlee which was then optimized by game designer 3.Always have a northstar metric like prod guys do for all teams plus map the user journey in say mixpabel or any other tool this helps alot changing metrics from say DAU to Average play time per customer and aligning the customer to persona reveal great insights

In my experience users 90% of the time doesn't know what they want, and our players are users in our game. Ofcourse we need to listen to our users, check reviews, playtest forms, hear them to to what they are saying, and what they are complaining, but most of the time a mix of what they are saying combined with aditional metrics and analytics is what will give the right answer on how to improve the game. Don't forget to implement an AB test your changes to see if you are going in the right direction.

I don't like this kind of "fast-questions". The better way to understand the testers brains (and feedbacks) is let them write. It will help a lot to get their reasoning. You can use fast-questions to segmentate your target audience but for specific solves requires specific reasonings. I would also add: too much AI in your tests will make the feedback less human.

For a perfect environment to perform game-testings: - Make the player feels comfortable. - Turn on the camera to capture the player emotions. - Don't answer any questions (during the test). He must'now what he is doing and the Most Crucial: You must'now when he is lost. - Apply the test after the gameplay. - Offer some snacks (everybody like snacks) and talk about what he thinks of the game. *Here is the time for collect the 2nd feedback, informal and powerful.

I will say there should be playtesters representing the TG yes but also make the normal folks of your company playtesters who are not invested in the project in any way this combined with anonymous reviews helps alot and this should be done in MVP stage of the game TG is seen to at times discovered for some games like candy Crush where moms can be seen playing it hence you need to also test the outliers maybe you create a new user segement

There is no fit testing adult games on kids and vice versa. Will just spend your time testing on wrong audience target or creating fake testers to fill quotas.

Before the playtest: Define a clear hypothesis & questions. During the playtest: Throw them away & lead with empathy, because playtesters are people, not data points. Now you absolutely want a specific hypothesis around which you design your playtest protocol and personas. But while you're playtesting, don't be too rigid. Let the player wander. Take notice of their deeds, not just their words. Don't ask pointed, leading, and overly specific questions. People give off signals in lots of different ways. Pay attention, and you'll find the most valuable feedback couched in meaningless interactions, and valuable feedback on questions you never thought to ask.

Have clear pointers on what exactly are you looking for in a playtest. What are you trying to validate? Make your questions clear and sometimes if there is no response, rephrase them to give a different perspective. And an important thing is never try to justify anything in a playtest. Always listen and observe your player and get cues from their body language. That's more powerful than their words.