Make your team members part of the process. Hearing feedback from fellow teammates might carry more weight than “outsiders”. Or maybe it’s a problem that your team doesn’t know who the play testers are. Make sure that testers are treated the same as team members. They are just as important as anyone else making the game!!

I know this might sound self-serving, but hiring an outsider like me to package hard truths can be one of the best ways to overcome internal resistance. Here’s why: 1. I have no agenda. Every team, no matter how skilled, develops internal agendas that color feedback. Teams often rationalize and interpret input on their own terms, even with data, making it hard to fully absorb insights from within. 2. I know things. While studios know their game well, they often lack a broader understanding of why other games succeed or fail, making it hard to prioritize and gauge market expectations. Bringing an external voice in often helps with both problems, whether on game design, product strategy, marketing, you name it.

Start by understanding their emotional investment—feedback can feel like criticism. Involve the team early in the playtesting process, making them part of the solution. Normalize feedback as a tool for improvement and focus on data, not opinions. Highlight wins that come from implementing suggestions, showing the positive impact. By creating a culture of open feedback and continuous improvement, resistance can turn into a driver for growth.

To address resistance to playtesting feedback, start by acknowledging the team’s concerns and validating their perspective. Emphasize the value of feedback in improving the product and share success stories from past projects. Break feedback into actionable steps to prevent feeling overwhelmed and encourage open dialogue to involve the team in decision-making. Highlight that feedback is essential for meeting user expectations and encourage collaboration on solutions. Lead by example by embracing feedback yourself and set clear expectations for integrating it into the development process.

Everyone is accountable for quality. Once everyone agrees on this, it is necessary to understand what are the main aspects that cause resistance from the team regarding the testing process. The next steps are to promote training, mentoring and provide an environment that shows the value of using tests as a way to obtain feedback during software development.