Focus group testing is conducted to ensure that the game is reviewed from an end user perspective. Any game hitting the market will appreciate wide range of opinions that can affect gaining popularity among the audience. Of all the opinions, the critical ones will be a major concern. Our final goal is to address this concern before hitting the market and make the game more appealing to wider audience.
These are the various points we take into consideration during our Focus Group Sessions:
Age Based Opinion – We conduct focus groups consisting of gamers, non-gamers, and casual players of different age groups ranging from 18 – 45 years.
Gender Based Opinion – Different genders might prefer to play games that may be little intense in nature or relaxing and fun. Our groups consist a mix of male gamers and non-gamers, female gamers and non-gamers, helping us target a wider audience.
Game Immersiveness – This is the most important factor, which is evaluated with the help of focus group testing to determine the engaging factor within the game. The play times recorded during the test session helps us determine the engaging factor.
Game Progression/Game Balance – The difficulty of each level in the game should be progressive, it is important that the game ensures every player stays on a level for the right amount of time before losing interest. The game must appear to be winnable to all players, beginners and experts, but it must never truly be winnable or it will lose its appeal. We use this as a metric for FGT, which is delivered to the client.
Ease of Use (UI/UX Elements) – The most important part of the game along with the storyline and gameplay is the User Interface. If the end user finds it difficult to use, reports tell us that 90% of the end user do not play the game again. We help identifying the changes with the UI that ensures end-user retention.
We also perform play testing as a service offering, where we provide a much more detailed feedback that includes game balancing, level tuning, game design and the above-mentioned factors along with a detailed bug report to our clients.
We can help gather constructive feedback across gender, age, opinion etc to help understand if the games are behaving as expected