gamesuserresearch.com

Towards Democratisation of Games User Research: Exploring Playtesting Challenges of Indie Video Game Developers

Independent game developers face a significant disconnect between the formal principles of Games User Research and the practical realities of resource-constrained production environments.

• Indie developers lack dedicated physical spaces for playtesting, forcing them to rely on suboptimal environments like office desks or public events, which compromises data reliability and introduces observer bias.
• The absence of formal Games User Research (GUR) training leads developers to react impulsively to isolated player feedback rather than using structured, objective-based evaluation methods.
• Recruitment for playtests is predominantly limited to existing community members, creating significant sampling bias that can skew results and misrepresent the experiences of broader, non-expert player audiences.