User research sessions like these had been a staple of Control’s development.
Remedy even built a playtesting lab in their Espoo offices.
For the final months of development, Remedy partnered with playtesting specialists Player Research for larger-scale sessions and their fresh take on Control’s player experience.
Thinking about the design of debug UI seems like misspent time. It is, by its nature, only to be used by our development team, and never to be seen by our eventual players. Why spend more than a single moment considering practicality, or utility, or legibility of UI destined for the trash?
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is full of interesting design choices. In this article I explore why their designers may have chosen to have players unlock their own UI quality-of-life upgrades, and if the design pattern has value for other titles.
Following the publication of my primer on games user experience, consultancy firm KPMG featured me in their “Insights” magazine.
Recognizing these challenges, most major video game publishers and developers have invested in UX in the past five years. Typically, Long notes, they use player psychology to support game design, test games with real players, use data science to analyze player behavior and have a leader whose job it is to represent the player on the project and within the company. Yet UX is too crucial to be entrusted to any particular group, no matter how able, in video gaming, it is everybody’s responsibility.
KPMG Currents Magazine, issue 25
Brighton is a great place to make games. Development magazine MCV published a regional spotlight, highlighting Player Research among the city’s gamedev success stories.
Wireframe Magazine published a 6-page feature on games user research, including Player Reasearch’s facilities, staff and contributions to the domain.
Develop’s 30 Under 30 highlights up-and-coming development talent from across with world. I was included in 2013, in the sixth edition of the awards, nearly two years after the foundation of Player Research.
Approaching his two-year anniversary as a user researcher at Player Research, Sebastian Long, 27, has positively impacted more than 50 titles across all platforms. And his peers say he is a talented and professional researcher. Long evaluates behaviour and emotion via playtesting, user research and player interviews.
Develop 30 Under 30
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts support the professionals working within the film, games and television industries. I’ve been a BAFTA member since 2017.
Our curated academy of members sits at the heart of everything we do, from supporting our charitable aims, acting as mentors to emerging young talent, lending their knowledge and experience to our BAFTA Guru programmes, to forming our board and committees, and participating in voting for our Awards
BAFTA
Heuristic Analyses – otherwise known as ‘expert analyses’ – are a powerful method in games user research. They’re also some of the most difficult to perform: no player data, no triangulation, and a game-wide remit.
At the 2018 gamesUR conference in San Fran I presented a talk in the Foundations track, based on a meta-analyses of expert reviews by junior researchers.
A GDC microtalk session on the types and value of player data for exploring retention. Slides are available free, but the video requires GDC Vault access.
