'I can't work the buttons'

Interesting reading in 'Games TM' magazine this month (number 95, with Red Dead Redemption on the front cover).

In it there's a quote from Jens Matthies, creative director of Machinegames. The discussion is around violence in videogames... Matthies says that violence isn't necessarily the reason non-gamers don't play games, but rather the gaming knowledge needed to start hasn't developed. Definately no arguments here!

Now, the quote - "I remember we tried testing The Darkness with a group of non-gamers and it was a complete disaster. They couldn't even work out how to leave the first room. They just didn't understand the controls or how to interact with the game".

I've not played The Darkness, but the concept of playtesting a complex 1st person shooter with non-gamers is... interesting. The playtesters would need to get some help to get going, and they'd spend their time coming to terms with the concept, rather than the game.

The key question you must ask before recruiting for playtesting - who's your audience? If the developers of The Darkness were genuinely targeting non-gamers from the outset it's a valid to bring in non-gamers... And the results should have led to some major design adjustments. If the game isn't aimed at 'non-gamers' - what will you gain by playtesting with them?

Everything you test will have a target audience. That is who will be using the product, that is who will buy the product. So make sure they can use it. If you have some extra budget, perform more rounds of testing, don't expand the playtesting audience to see how you can do in other demographics.

Additional rounds of testing allow you to "mark your homework" - you can check and see how well your changes fix the problems encountered, and make sure no new problems are introduced.

Context of game play is key - Part 2

I'm playing a few classic older games at the moment:

• Fallout 3
• Mass Effect
• Bioshock

All great games circa 2007-8. Why so old?

Up to recently, I didn't have much of a chance to play games. I lived with my Grandfather, he had 1 TV, he watched it a lot. This meant if I wanted to play any console game I had to wait for him to walk away from the TV (not a regular occurrence). Then I would sneak on and have a gaming frenzy.

Unfortunately as that wasn't that often, I was reduced to playing games on my old conked out PC. In the cold cold cold spare bedroom. If I wanted to play a game I'd have to wrap up like a Michelin man. Unsurprisingly I fell out of the habit.

"I'm off to game!"

That's a major problem with games, they take up an entire living room. If you're playing, it's hard for someone else to be in the room doing something else. One of you will distract the other. There's a great shot of me playing Dead Space Extraction in the front room with headphones on, trying to be discreet. I managed to distract the housemates watching TV by flailing my arms around (physical attacks in the game) and jumping (scary bits).

The solution? There is none. Get headphones, get a PSP/DS... That's about it. You're then either still taking up the TV or playing on a much smaller screen. Players know you need a room, it's one of the prices of entry (you know, in addition to the actual prices for games/equipment themselves).

It also has an implication for how you go about playtesting games - natural environment (in the lab or in the players homes), familiar company (friends and family), etc, etc. This is a further blog post for another day though...

Coming up shortly - iPhone Pocket God playtest! oooooo...