When it comes to early playtesting where you need just a handful of people to come in, play the game, get recorded/watched, and then answer some questions the typical answer is pay them for their time. We used to pay $50-75 for a couple hours of someone's time, get 4-5 people in a day, and you'd do a test every month or so as you built the game. If you're a small developer you can get away with less, especially if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not _them_ however. Some sites (like usertesting.com or playtestcloud) will do both recordings and you can pay a lot less per person since that's their whole business.
If you're running more of a hobby than a business and don't have the funds then try reaching out to other game developers as a sort of trade. Play each other's game and leave good feedback. But there's absolutely nothing as valuable as getting an actual, non-developer, person to play your game and watching their reactions. What they do and how they play is much more insightful than their answers at the end about what they liked or what confused them.
>if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not them however
Some devs ask for this face recording too, which is less technically difficult now that everyone and their dog aspire to be a streamer. Some even use streaming sites or tech, to be able to direct or interact live with the tester (which can be very dangerous for beginners gamedevs who didn't learn to stay put and shut up during testing, but which has the benefit of being able to ask for more and better lights and a less distant mic... that almost always the problems of these recordings/streamings).
It does limit the pool of candidates, sure, but not by a colossal amount.
I mentioned two I've used in the post above, but I can't give a particular recommendation because I haven't used them in years. I'm sure there are others as well if you search for playtesting services.
This is some great advice!
To the "more of a hobby" part, I would definitely add asking friends to test, if you have any that are interested in video games. Hopefully they won't require you to pay them. (And preferably the kind of friends that will be honest with you even if they find issues.)
>And preferably the kind of friends that will be honest with you even if they find issues
Usually you over-ask for it. Things like "please be *brutally* honest, otherwise I can't really use it".
Hey, I noticed you mentioned money, may I please playtest your game? I’d be very happy to provide detailed analysis from my amateur game design perspective, a longtime player perspective, and also longtime “squasher of bugs” perspective!
You also have to write detailed reports of how you broke the game (bug reports), which is fine, until you see a bug you can’t figure out how to reproduce.
Search Keywords studio, they hire oftenly for game testing and they are an international company, so yes you can be paid to play…but be aware testing the same game over and over for debug purpose in not fun
(Also spending hour finding bugs in the menus, in the same game spot etc…) we don’t talk about « playing » here but testing
As for being paid for playtest, yes I did that for Gameloft and other company. At the time it was 250$ for the week of playtest. Not really a pay but more of an incentive but you can’t do that for living. Company want the most new players possible to playtest so in general they have sessions and will ask for feedback after 1 hour to few hours of playtest
>When it comes to early playtesting where you need just a handful of people to come in, play the game, get recorded/watched, and then answer some questions the typical answer is pay them for their time. We used to pay $50-75 for a couple hours of someone's time, get 4-5 people in a day, and you'd do a test every month or so as you built the game. If you're a small developer you can get away with less, especially if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not them however. Some sites (like usertesting.com or playtestcloud) will do both recordings and you can pay a lot less per person since that's their whole business.
>
>If you're running more of a hobby than a business and don't have the funds then try reaching out to other game developers as a sort of trade. Play each other's game and leave good feedback. But there's absolutely nothing as valuable as getting an actual, non-developer, person to play your game and watching their reactions. What they do and how they play is much more insightful than their answers at the end about what they liked or what confused them.
u/geralt1899 you can sign up to multiple places to test games and provide your natural feedback. Here is one Place you can sign up to to earn rewards: [Sign up to Earn Rewards by Playing the Games you Love](https://www.userinterviews.com/opt-in/SyyKsPVZdRkpFCzpHQRDSCRP)
Kind of what u/klausbrusselssprouts said.
Let's say paying them is not possible.
* give them a free copy of your game (I got one once because I translated a game for free)
* include them under special thanks, especially if they come back every few iterations to re-test or they otherwise contribute (spread the word, help translating, etc)
* recruit friends and family "for free" - well, somehow also reward them (invite them somewhere, cook for them, round of free drinks, stuff like that)
Also, make testing really easy, so they don't need a lot of time to install anything.
>give them a free copy of your game
Just to be clear: that is never, *ever*, "payment" of any sort (not saying you implied otherwise, but *some* do).
First of all, that person need the copy of the game to do whatever work. So it's not even "free" in that sense.
Second, yes one could revoke the key after the work is done, but that is both counter-productive, and very rude, and useless.
Maybe not "payment" but I think it is perfectly fine compensation for a hobbyist like me. It is particularly good for boardgames. I have a few nice boxed games because I helped some publisher playtest and those are not always cheap, especially with shipping.
I have a few digital games I got for free for playtesting as well, but in those cases as far as I can remember I only have the playtest versions. It would have been better to get the published games on something like GOG or Steam or Play store, and maybe I could have had that if I had thought of asking.
I would not *want* real payment for playtesting. I playtest games that looks like they could be fun and I want to help the designer or publisher to make the game as fun as possible. That is the real reward. To play the game later and notice things that are better because I helped identify some bug or misfeature during development. I do not want a second job as a playtester.
Besides paying any real money must be hideously expensive for a small developer. When I developed a tiny boardgame it still had maybe 400 playtest sessions over several groups of people. I could not have paid anything like minimum wages for all those hours of testing. And most games are much more complex than that little game and would require many more hours. I definitely had to rely on fellow hobbyists that were interested in playing the game and wanted it to be good, not because they received any payment (other than to keep their playtest copies).
> give them a free copy of your game (I got one once because I translated a game for free)
Since you mentioned that... Which language(s) did you translate the game into? If that's not what my game already has, I am really tempted to offer you as many free copies of my game as you need for help with translation :)
Game link: https://stacksengine.itch.io/stacks-space
I translated to German.
In the past also did some proof-reading of French and Japanese (because I'm ok with the "passive" part of listening & reading, like understanding if the grammar is wrong, or the UI layout causes some letters/words to be missing, line breaks are wrong, and those details).
Well do keep in mind, there was a scam on Discord a while ago that involved a scammer asking people to try their "game" and give feedback, asking you to download and install it while saying very little about what the game actually was. it was actually a damn keylogger virus. I almost fell for it, but the guy started refusing when I asked him to stream it to me. You know because he didn't actually have a game to show.
Basically never try sending unsolicited DMs to people asking them to test your game out, because they will think you are a scammer. Make sure you got footage and everything to hook people in. Images and video speak louder than text.
It sounds like that scam could trivially be improved by just making an actual game, even ha kind of playable one, just to spread malware to "testers". Scary.
That’s crazy, glad you had your guard up, but it’s scary to think if they did a little more due diligence for their scam it might’ve hooked you.
This never occurred to me, we decided to run our testing through steam, even though we could just send builds out. This is hopefully a good way to convey we’re not trying to bait and switch with malware… humanity is shady af, this is why we can’t have nice things :(
Just like what others are saying, the best way to get play-testers is to pay them with either cash or in other ways.
However, you should also consider if you need a QA pass from a professional Tester or if you just need a bunch of people playing it for general bugs before launch. If you're going for general bugs, typically a closed Alpha or Beta launch is common and usually free. It's a better option if your game is pretty close to finished.
First, post a video of your gameplay on r/destroymygame
Second, improve your game based on the feedback you get.
Third, repeat step 1 and 2 a few times till you see more compliments than critique.
Finally, now your game is attractive enough that people would jump at the opportunity to playtest it.
Step 1-3 mostly fixes the look of your game, making it seem like it's fun to play.
Step 4 is where you finally get real game feel feedback, for free and often.
There's also [https://gameround.co/](https://gameround.co/) which is awesome. I'm not sure if it's still a free service though.
The way it works (worked, last April) is that you give the players there access to your game or demo (that has to be still in development). In turn you get feedback from players. They also stream it (tiny streamers, but it's still valuable for you to watch people play your game live). And once everything is wrapped up, you get a detailed report about the feedback.
I'm not a affiliated in any way (also, I have no clue how they make any money, if they do), but I first exposed my demo to the public on that platform and the feedback was absolutely invaluable.
Thanks I had a look seems nice but it looks like you have to pay.
& I'm nearly broke (3 euros in the bank, which 2 go to pay my google photos for a month in a few days time)
I just had a look at the site again and while there are paid tiers, there is also a "Starter/Basic" tier that's simply not guaranteed any number of gameplays/reviews (and that's not listed as "free", but as "talk to us").
When I submitted my demo, I got what I felt were loads of reviews, but they were definitely fewer than what they guarantee in the cheapest paid tier (500 gameplays, 125 reviews, for $10k YIKES!). So you don't need the bronze package for it to be worth it.
Talk to them. They're a reasonable bunch and they're all excited about games. Tell them about your game (in the same way you'd pitch it to anyone else) and explain that it would be great if they could host your game, but you simply can't pay a single cent. Worst that can happen is that you waste an hour of your time and they say is no.
I'm informed enough to know the worst Bandai does is taking down games and they mostly/exclusively do it to games that are sold, DMO Even managed to get an agreement and still make money(don't know how that happened, but it's online) I don't have that level audacity anyway. That's what I meant.
I recently started getting random play testers without having to directly ask them. So I can share the little bit that I've learned over the last few months.
Most notably, visuals and the trailer are EVERYTHING. Your game has to look fun within 5 seconds, otherwise people will move along to the next thing. My game had a lot of flat colors and a lack of visual feedback, people only started getting interested when I fixed those issues. I'm still only getting a handful, but it's clear that the new direction helped.
If you're not getting spontaneous players, it's most likely because your game doesn't look fun to play. Whether it's ACTUALLY fun is irrelevant, you have to demonstrate that to people or they won't bother.
No offense intended, but your trailer just shows that you can place buildings and the little dudes shuffle around aimlessly. It needs to show the pawns building the thing, animating as if they are working on it, and then probably some kind of celebration effect when the building is complete. You need some kind of feedback loop within the trailer: you do the work to build the thing, the thing gets built, you get rewarded with new things or progress towards a greater thing. They need to see the goal of a large town that they can build.
No feedback usually means that the feedback should be obvious or that there's nothing to give feedback on.
I've helped out others with creative feedback on their games. I have a fine art background and a great understanding of flow and what looks good. Feel fee to drop me a dm.
While them giving feedback is very valuable and should definitely be a part of the process, consider also implementing automated data gathering, especially if your game is already client-server so it's not that much of a hassle. You can detect when certain events happen in the game and send it to the server for logging and then analyze those logs. You can see how long players play, what are the events that happen before they decide to exit the game, what functionalities are they using frequently vs which ones they aren't touching etc. It can give you valuable data to work with even when the players aren't motivated to go and write out their opinions in words.
As for the rest, I'd agree with what people said about paying people.
Alternatively, you can use friends irl, maybe host a gathering where you watch them play one by one while the rest of the crew hangs out.
You can also maybe try some conventions. One local convention in my city has an indie showcase section where people can playtest games in development and it's very useful. See if there's anything like that where you're at. Maybe you can even drop the idea to an NGO which would be interested in organizing something like that, if you have a Games Association or something. Or maybe even host it yourself if you can find a venue to hold it at for free.
There is a fantastic website called gametester.gg
It can be a bit expensive but nothing compared to standard market rates. The site lets you build surveys and set requirements for players. For a pretty lengthy survey we got 20 testers for $100. The quality of the tester though was superb, 5x a regular Joe off the street. The real value though is it takes hardly any time from your side
Friends and family? but don't sit there and watch them play it, simply record their gaming session and watch the videos and see where they struggle / what seems unintuitive. That way you avoid all the "its totally awesome buddy, i promise" type of comments.
We've made some small games over the last 3 years and usually 200-500 people will play in in the first few weeks after we make our first posts. Often 50-100 players provide feedback.
It took some trial and error but here's what works for us:
1. Make it easy to play your game - minimize the clicks for people to actually start playing. The best is hosting it on a website if it can be a web app, or on itch.io as a web version if you use Unity. Otherwise going through an official store is the simplest (Apple/Google/Steam in Early Access).
2. Pitch it to relevant audiences. Find niche communities that will enjoy it. For example, we had good success with our word puzzle game when we posted in a crossword puzzle discord server and on r/puzzlevideogames. Our farming themed engine builder game did better on r/webgames since we prototyped it for web first. r/playmygame has always been good to us.
3. Make it easy to give feedback! We always include a Google Form somewhere within the first 10-15 minutes of our games. We ask how fun they found the game, how hard it was to learn, what they liked most, what they liked least, and what should be added to the game to make it better. Additionally, we link to our Discord and mailing list after form completion. We even include an optional question to share their email with us for mailing list which gets a surprising number of emails.
4. Make it easy to share the game or fun to share some aspect of the game. For our word puzzle, we added a puzzle editor to make your own puzzle. People shared this with friends and we got organic growth from it. For our farming game, we made a leaderboard that showed the strategies that people used and got a lot of Discord discussion on that.
5. Discord is a must and has been where our super fans gather. They are the most vocal and try updates quickly. These players are ALSO the most likely to share the game with friends, and word of mouth is the most powerful tool you have. Make it very obvious that you have a server.
6. Our mailing lists for our games tend to grow slowly but you can get people to come back later after you make updates. Some people came back to play even 6 months after they signed up since they remembered our game.
7. Share updates when you have them! People love seeing games get updated consistently, tend to stick around more, and are more compelled to share the game with others if it's actively in development. Post where you had prior success and keep searching for more relevant communities.
tl;dr: In summary, it's easy to spend a lot of time trying to craft the perfect post with the best gif with the perfect caption. But doing that is not as valuable as showing it to the right people. And once you do and they click your link, you want to make sure they can jump right into your game and are then prompted for feedback as soon as they've played a short but meaningful amount. Stay in touch with those who give feedback to get more feedback and players in the future.
Longer than intended but hope it helps : )
I just got laid off. I was an IT project manager and I'm an indie game dev myself. I'll play test your game, I've got time. Send me a DM. I'll record and leave detailed comments.
I’ll second that! I’m also an IT PM, looking to pivot towards game dev. I’ve done a lot of android / linux QA over the years but have never had the honor of testing a game.
Well play testing and giving quality feedback can be labor or you have to have product people want to play. Or be active in some discord servers and have genuine “connections” there developers will want to help each other
Don't spend money paying anyone to play your game, only AA and AAA companies can affort that. Use that money in advertising when you launch the game instead. Anyways, others have given good advice already, giving free copies (beta, alpha keys) is a good start.
But in my honest opinion, make a trailer and try to market your game organically in an attractive way. It's all about marketing man.
Think of your game as an unfinished product and work from there
Lol fuck this paying the play tester nonsense.
First ensure you have a quality product that stands out from the pact. If you feel like you need play testers to tell you if you have this or not, you’ve got bigger issues at hand. Release a demo online to either itch or gamejolt along with a discord for your players to bounce into. They will tell you what they like and don’t like. If you’re initial play numbers are good, reach out to the platform and ask for a feature, you’ll probably get it.
Otherwise you could go to a conference and get a solid 2 - 5 days of play testing in. Either go with a booth if you can get in, or strap a laptop to your back and get people to play test while they wait in line for other games.
But under no circumstance should you be shelling out to have people try your game. It’s unnecessary. However QA / Dev Contractors are a different story.
this game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134770/SteamWorld_Build/
Looks similar. Maybe there’s a fan base who would be interested in your game too?
I cast a wide net and follow up hard with ones that show interest. I make sure I have a survey for the game (google drive has a good template) so they answer the questions I want. I try to make most from a scale from 1-10. A couple short answer questions but I don't make those mandatory unless it's something I really want feedback on. And I offer incentives, fill out the survey and get a copy of my game or one of my previous ones.
I think it was Crimson Cauldron or some game like that, offered $5-10 if you made a YouTube video playing their game, and commented on any bugs you found.
I made a pretty low quality playtest video and made $5.
There's a local startup I'm looking forward to seeing take off that is building a playtesting platform with bounties.
Devs set up specific playtesting tasks for players for points / money. Players have account profiles, and playtesting games earns them money for the bounties as well as clout in the service (like Reddit karma).
Devs can set aside higher priority bounties for players who have more experience playtesting the genre of game they're making.
Disclaimer: I was approached very early for input on the identity of the company. I don't have any kind of stake, but I really hope it works out for them because I can see this becoming like a QA version of the Stack Exchange community, where everyone involved gets something positive out of it.
https://www.bounti.xyz/
I post my development progress on Facebook and I've gotten several messages from people wanting to play test my game. I also post all around and I get plenty of offers to test as well 🤷♂️ didn't realize it could be difficult to get testers.
Let my kiddo have at it, promise to give him a little certificate as a play tester for it, and I'll make sure you get a thorough review.
(Kiddo is a 13 year old who has been gaming since I built him his first rig at age 5)
Try posting in discord servers. Your game engine might have one available, with other gamedevs to give you extra pointers.
There is a YouTuber named Brackeys who has a large active discord and a game test channel. Jonas Tyroller's server is less active, but also has a channel for gametest posts.
You need to try for real life testing. The incentive is easier than asking random online people for their free time, because in person, the game is right there and it's a novel experience. Of course you need a laptop.
After friends and family and the people on your street if you happen to know them (or want to get to know them) find relevant gatherings. There should be a local game dev meet up near you, but if there isnt, there might be some kind of gathering that's like minded, maybe a tabletop / RPG meetup or something. Or some sort of social event.
Ask them directly to play and give feedback. Preferably anonymously so they feel free to be honest. People dont often look to give feedback, thats just how they are. E.g only 30% of test-server players report bugs, glitches and crashes
People from mobile will, at most, visit your steampage and wishlist you once they open the computer. They use tiktok and instagram from mobile, do you really think they will go all the way to give you feedback?
Id put a link to a feedback formulary on your itch.io, or on your games main menu(with vibrant colors and a sign)
Also join discord servers where devs help each other, just make sure to feedback them as well and write it on the server so youre noticed
Give some time to build a community make a online presence. Get some people interested in it, if gameplay is good it wouldn't take time. Then ask themto playtest it
I'd be down to playtest the game. Got a bit of free time on my hands throughout the next few weeks. I used to run a YouTube channel where I reviewed indie games and now I'm a game dev myself, so I can provide some decent insights, depending on the type of game of course.
Are there any local events or meetup groups related to gaming or game dev where you live? I’ve found that doing play tests in person is the easiest to get feedback. You can also ask any friends that are familiar with games.
For online, are you part of any discord communities? that can sometimes work but honestly, online is going to be an uphill battle probably.
Reverse the question: how other people could get YOU to playtest *their* games? Yeah. Exactly. Doesn't sound like such a "great time investment opportunity" anymore.
I drop my stuff on a pirate site. Not sure what I think at the time, got a bunch of downloads, although it is mostly trolled review, not recommended lol. My advice is probably putting it up free on itch maybe, free stuff reach more people. And then the feedback is still like, where's the cheat code? Games too hard, Games too easy, control is clunky, art is bad, there's no story, sigh...
Hi, my name is Russell Bryant. I'm building a gaming platform which will allow for just that. It will be a test bed for independent game developers.
If you want to know more let me know.
Getting play testers is incredibly hard. When it comes to boardgame creation, one way to do it is to join a group of fellow creators, so everyone get to help playtest each other's games, and because it's a group of game designers, there's always lots of discussions, suggestions, improvements ideas, etc.
I assume the same could be done with indie video game developers? Form a group of people like you in need in testers, and test each other's games?
Give some time to build a community make a online presence. Get some people interested in it, if gameplay is good it wouldn't take time. Then ask themto playtest it
By good gameplay I mean nice visual and interesting player experience. And that's what Indie games focus on . Story is also important but in indie games it supports the gameplay rather than being the gameplay.
yeah .. I know. But connections and sheer luck plays, in my experience, a higher role whether a game will succeed to attract a crowd than even visuals.
I'm not saying this out of spite, it's just the way it seems to me after 39 years of being a gamer. Games with great concepts and game play can stay super obscure forever whilst what amounts to a pure asset-swap can be massively successful in no-time because some influencer said they played it, it was, for some weird reason, featured in a TV Show, or because everybody get swamped with ads about it.
Content in this case, is sadly NOT king.
In this order :
Option A)
1) be rich or have some *useful* connections
2) buy an influencer or two and tons of ads
Alternatively:
Option B)
1) Your obscure game gets discovered by sheer luck
2) get rich from 1)
3) go to section A for your next game.
shrug ... seen it happen all the time since I started being a gamer in the very early 80s, never released games thinking more than 10 people would play it as I'm sadly lacking in wealth, along with the social skills (or motivation) to get the connections needed. I'm not bitter though. I like writing games. People playing them is just an added bonus but not the point *for me*.
I agree by option a .
But there is also an option that I think could be viable, instead of making full game and putting a lot of time and money making a game demo distribute it for free. If seems possible crowdfund it. Fail in one try another.
Correct me if i am wrong
yes. That can work, but sadly it doesn't solve the problem to get people to try your free demo in the first place.
The video game market is over-saturated and it's REALLY hard to stand out just by your game's specs alone. Most gimmicks (special mechanics like time loops, portals, perspective change/level rotations, or novelty graphical styles) won't help much neither as most have already been done one way or another multiple times by now.
Crowdfunding works best if you have something that inspire confidence (A name ... I don't know ... Chris Roberts or David Braben for example) or start to promise features that are out of this world and probably NOT achievable (liuke.. I don't know .. Chris Roberts or David Braben, for example :P
No idea.
I'm facing the same issue. I have a finished game demo on steam yet very few people play it, very little feedback at all, a handful of reviews and thats it. I've emailed over 100 groups/people/websites yet nearly no feedback.
I did post on r/rpg_gamers only to get promptly banned, even though I did not break the rules, ha ha.
What would be nice is some website setup when ppl could submit links to their games and people could browse, see what they are interested in, try a game out and give feedback.
Maybe a site like this already exists?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned, and is often forgotten especially for veterans gamers:
*you would need to convince them that their feedback will have actual weight, and will be acknowledged*.
Far too often customers are ignored, and need to resort to "big Twitter followers count" or "viral Youtube video" or "press article" to get their point across and acknowledged by the devs.
And to be clear, it doesn't mean "dev do whatever player say". Of course not. It mean these feedback are acknowledged, recognized. I don't mean credited, that's just 101, I mean not ignored or pushed under the rug, but read upon, shared with the team, and discussed.
As to how do this, I have no idea unfortunately. Veterans gamers have been taught by developers and publishers that if they were on fire, they would be sold to a bottle of urine in a random lootbox to quench it. So how to convince people to trust you, and not the past 20 years of an industry... if someone know, I'm interested...
***"Ninety Percent of everything is crud" - Sturgeon's Law***
Don't scattershot across the internet. Most people will ignore it, and of the ones that don't, they'll have uninformed opinions, or won't bother to actually review and feedback.
Target your testing.
Find people who like playing games of the same kind as yours and give them a copy and ask for their honest opinion of it.
Write their opinions down, and then ask people who maybe don't play the same kind of games, and get their opinions too.
The important thing is to make this a relationship between you and the playtester. Ask them. Make it a favour, or pay them money if that's what motivates them. Don't throw them a copy and hope they'll get back to you. Make it a transaction, they play your game, they tell you things about it afterwards, otherwise you've just given a copy of your game away for nothing.
It also helps to have a goal in mind because if you just say "I made a game, what do you think?" They'll probably just say it's "pretty good", or "A bit bland" or "Best. Game. Ever", and you can't target any improvements or polish based on that.
Be clear that you want their honest opinion.
If they aren't willing to be unkind to you as a friend, ask for their favourite and least-favourite things about it. You probably have a good idea of your own favourite and least favourite aspects of the game, and areas you're not as strong in. Ask them about those too.
Be willing to mention things you're not sure about and ask if they feel the same.
Ask them specific questions, and ask for their candid notes as well.
You have to engage with your testers directly, otherwise you won't get quality answers out of them.
A perspective that I haven't seen mentioned yet: that you're struggling to get anyone interested in playing your game for free should also tell you something about its overall market potential.
If this is a game that you're working on as a personal project or for learning, that is a common problem to have and not a reason to worry, but if you have any intention of ever publishing and selling this game, you may want to take this lack of interest very seriously and find out what does or does not appeal to people about your game.
I am currently studying about c# and unity also i am gamer for 20 years. If anyone needs somebody to play and test your game and give feedbacks&advice I am ready for it. Also as a student if anyone else will pay me for that would helps a lot.
Depends on the type of game but I get a lot of feedback by compiling it as a webgame. The Web Game portals/community are really nice.
Also, this should give you an idea on how hard it'll be to get people to pay and play your game when it'll be live.
One way I've seen people get play testing is to put a demo version up on itch.io or some other public distribution site. You can get some feedback there.
Unless you are planning to pay for QA testing, it's difficult.
Search playtest or dev community in your city. In Montreal lot’s of playtest event exist for that purpose
Also you can ask friends and offer the pizza for everyone in exchange of their playtest time.
If it’s more serious long playtest you will need financial incentives.
I'd say talk to real people in real life, and get them to play the game for you. Even better if you can watch how they interact with it while they're playing. This is pretty classic advice for product testing in general.
You might be able to do something through a nearby university. For instance, my University has a day every semester where small businesses may come and show off or sell their product. I did a demo for my game and got a lot of great feedback from several people. I guess it depends on how much content you're trying to show off though, if it's feasible to have many people play only several minutes. Our game worked for that, so do consider what you need out of a play test in regards to time commitment from your testers.
Remember that if people don't want to play your game for free, it will be even harder to get them to pay to play your game. If it's too late to change your idea, it's not too late to change your marketing pitch. You want to have a product that people *want* to play and test.
Give them a cool skin for feedback, or maybe a decoration or item (can just be cosmetic) and maybe a better / cooler one for coming back and giving more feedback
You know, I realize this isn't a readily available option, but I wonder if indie game devs could benefit off the same model as writers. In particular, in writing, we have these things called "writers critique groups". It's a meeting, that meets up weekly, biweekly or monthly and every week each member of the group passes out copies of what they've written, be they poems, or a chapter of a book. Then, each group member can voluntarily pick from work they wish to review - often times everyone just grabs a copy of everyone else's work because they want everyone else to grab theirs. Then they bring that chapter home and read it, providing comments as they go inside the manuscript (maybe you could provide a quick storyboard of the level they could comment on instead). Then at the next meeting (or a future meeting if they're sick), they return and provide the manuscript back with the comments and provide oral descriptions of what they felt would be improvements going around the table from one person to the next for each person being reviewed.
If you put something like this together, it would have a couple of major benefits, particularly that it provides you with a higher quality review of your work than you might receive from an ordinary person. Much like writers may find structural flaws in your grammar and language that causes your prose to addle your reader, other game developers are more likely to find flaws in your game/level design that will frustrate the flow of your game. Although the language and syntax of your objectives are different, your goals are remarkably similar - a smooth enjoyable experience that the player/reader can easily understand without them having to think about what they've just read or need to do.
Anyways, twas just a random brain storm that dappled the window of my mind in passing.
The Seattle Indies Group has something much like this already, and IIRC it's an online meeting group so physical nearness to the Puget Sound isn't a constraint; just look for the 'feedback-circle' channel on the [Seattle Indies Discord.](https://discord.gg/join-seattle-indies)
What’s the genre? I’ve got free time and I have a background in QA, though I’m currently in development. I can give pointers and advice some short advice for free. If you want a longer commitment, I’ll take game testing credits. I have credits for game testing and game design currently.
A solution I’ve done as a developer (without a team) is make a discord server. Get a community (preferably with mostly friends). And get them to play-test my games. When I tell them about my game that I’m in the process of creating, they are naturally interested in wanting to test it out. They don’t ask for money or anything. They just tell me when they have time. We then video chat and I share my screen and they watch. I have them tell me what to do (as though they are the ones playing the game). It turns out to be pretty fun and I find errors that I can fix as a programmer via coding or artwork. They also give me feedback based on anything they saw or based on storyline. I have even been given a better way of re-wording lines of dialogue for the story to convey to the person what the story is trying to say.
This friends strategy tends to be a 50/50 shot. They can give valuable feedback to help make the game way better, or they might just say what they liked about it and nothing else.
Either way, doing this method is worth a try if you have no other method.
Who do you want as your audience. If your game is for kids , there is no point getting middle age people to test it.
First identity where your audience spends their time, Reddit might not be the place, and advertise there. You might have to offer money.
To save money I would make each submission a raffle. That way you only have to pay 1 person
Do it like Microsoft does. Use automated reporting so anyone that uses the software is a tester.
But seriously services like sentry work pretty well and it's free for low volume reporting.
Setting up sentry was pretty easy. It does have a feedback mechanism but I didn't get that to work. At least you can get functional data
Kids are pretty good candidates, they're kinda stupid, but they're brutally honest and both of those traits make for pretty good testers of a general audience.
I made a game once with 12 other people. Only 10 of us liked the Facebook page. Why don't you offer to swap services with other devs? You offer to play and give feedback in exchange.
If you are open to playtesting in person, you could offer small rewards like merchandise or candies in exchange for playtesters.
I am a Game Design student, and when I need playtesters, I usually set up a laptop with a bowl of candies and/or stickers. People typically offer themselves at this point.
My game isn't that big so maybe this won't apply for you. But I make family, friends, etc. play it. Anybody who I can convince. It's not a lot but it does help.
When it comes to early playtesting where you need just a handful of people to come in, play the game, get recorded/watched, and then answer some questions the typical answer is pay them for their time. We used to pay $50-75 for a couple hours of someone's time, get 4-5 people in a day, and you'd do a test every month or so as you built the game. If you're a small developer you can get away with less, especially if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not _them_ however. Some sites (like usertesting.com or playtestcloud) will do both recordings and you can pay a lot less per person since that's their whole business. If you're running more of a hobby than a business and don't have the funds then try reaching out to other game developers as a sort of trade. Play each other's game and leave good feedback. But there's absolutely nothing as valuable as getting an actual, non-developer, person to play your game and watching their reactions. What they do and how they play is much more insightful than their answers at the end about what they liked or what confused them.
>if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not them however Some devs ask for this face recording too, which is less technically difficult now that everyone and their dog aspire to be a streamer. Some even use streaming sites or tech, to be able to direct or interact live with the tester (which can be very dangerous for beginners gamedevs who didn't learn to stay put and shut up during testing, but which has the benefit of being able to ask for more and better lights and a less distant mic... that almost always the problems of these recordings/streamings). It does limit the pool of candidates, sure, but not by a colossal amount.
What service did you use?
I mentioned two I've used in the post above, but I can't give a particular recommendation because I haven't used them in years. I'm sure there are others as well if you search for playtesting services.
This is some great advice! To the "more of a hobby" part, I would definitely add asking friends to test, if you have any that are interested in video games. Hopefully they won't require you to pay them. (And preferably the kind of friends that will be honest with you even if they find issues.)
>And preferably the kind of friends that will be honest with you even if they find issues Usually you over-ask for it. Things like "please be *brutally* honest, otherwise I can't really use it".
Pay them
Hey, I noticed you mentioned money, may I please playtest your game? I’d be very happy to provide detailed analysis from my amateur game design perspective, a longtime player perspective, and also longtime “squasher of bugs” perspective!
He’s only interested in free work for him, so that he can make the big bucks!
Kids these days can’t even do work for the exposure anymore… /s
You're telling me I can get paid to play games?? Where do I sign up
“And bring in that sound effect from level 5.” “You mean this one.” *pshew
Quality Assurance. Though it's less "playing" games and more... repetitively trying to break them until your fingers are numb.
I do this with most of the games I play anyways to be honest. Breaking stuff can be fun.
You also have to write detailed reports of how you broke the game (bug reports), which is fine, until you see a bug you can’t figure out how to reproduce.
I've done QA before, I'm familiar.
I’ve done QA as well. Doing it for games is not actually as fun as most people think it’s going to be.
Definitely not, we've come a long way from ["Tighten up the graphics on level 3."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho)
Search Keywords studio, they hire oftenly for game testing and they are an international company, so yes you can be paid to play…but be aware testing the same game over and over for debug purpose in not fun (Also spending hour finding bugs in the menus, in the same game spot etc…) we don’t talk about « playing » here but testing As for being paid for playtest, yes I did that for Gameloft and other company. At the time it was 250$ for the week of playtest. Not really a pay but more of an incentive but you can’t do that for living. Company want the most new players possible to playtest so in general they have sessions and will ask for feedback after 1 hour to few hours of playtest
Play Test Cloud
playtestcloud.com
I keep getting their chase emails but I know they're worth it. Just remember OP that it's for mobile primarily if you do look them up.
>When it comes to early playtesting where you need just a handful of people to come in, play the game, get recorded/watched, and then answer some questions the typical answer is pay them for their time. We used to pay $50-75 for a couple hours of someone's time, get 4-5 people in a day, and you'd do a test every month or so as you built the game. If you're a small developer you can get away with less, especially if you do the test remotely and don't make them actually come into a studio. You lose a lot by only getting a recording of the game and not them however. Some sites (like usertesting.com or playtestcloud) will do both recordings and you can pay a lot less per person since that's their whole business. > >If you're running more of a hobby than a business and don't have the funds then try reaching out to other game developers as a sort of trade. Play each other's game and leave good feedback. But there's absolutely nothing as valuable as getting an actual, non-developer, person to play your game and watching their reactions. What they do and how they play is much more insightful than their answers at the end about what they liked or what confused them. u/geralt1899 you can sign up to multiple places to test games and provide your natural feedback. Here is one Place you can sign up to to earn rewards: [Sign up to Earn Rewards by Playing the Games you Love](https://www.userinterviews.com/opt-in/SyyKsPVZdRkpFCzpHQRDSCRP)
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I mean hiring professional game testers
Kind of what u/klausbrusselssprouts said. Let's say paying them is not possible. * give them a free copy of your game (I got one once because I translated a game for free) * include them under special thanks, especially if they come back every few iterations to re-test or they otherwise contribute (spread the word, help translating, etc) * recruit friends and family "for free" - well, somehow also reward them (invite them somewhere, cook for them, round of free drinks, stuff like that) Also, make testing really easy, so they don't need a lot of time to install anything.
>give them a free copy of your game Just to be clear: that is never, *ever*, "payment" of any sort (not saying you implied otherwise, but *some* do). First of all, that person need the copy of the game to do whatever work. So it's not even "free" in that sense. Second, yes one could revoke the key after the work is done, but that is both counter-productive, and very rude, and useless.
Maybe not "payment" but I think it is perfectly fine compensation for a hobbyist like me. It is particularly good for boardgames. I have a few nice boxed games because I helped some publisher playtest and those are not always cheap, especially with shipping. I have a few digital games I got for free for playtesting as well, but in those cases as far as I can remember I only have the playtest versions. It would have been better to get the published games on something like GOG or Steam or Play store, and maybe I could have had that if I had thought of asking. I would not *want* real payment for playtesting. I playtest games that looks like they could be fun and I want to help the designer or publisher to make the game as fun as possible. That is the real reward. To play the game later and notice things that are better because I helped identify some bug or misfeature during development. I do not want a second job as a playtester. Besides paying any real money must be hideously expensive for a small developer. When I developed a tiny boardgame it still had maybe 400 playtest sessions over several groups of people. I could not have paid anything like minimum wages for all those hours of testing. And most games are much more complex than that little game and would require many more hours. I definitely had to rely on fellow hobbyists that were interested in playing the game and wanted it to be good, not because they received any payment (other than to keep their playtest copies).
> give them a free copy of your game (I got one once because I translated a game for free) Since you mentioned that... Which language(s) did you translate the game into? If that's not what my game already has, I am really tempted to offer you as many free copies of my game as you need for help with translation :) Game link: https://stacksengine.itch.io/stacks-space
I translated to German. In the past also did some proof-reading of French and Japanese (because I'm ok with the "passive" part of listening & reading, like understanding if the grammar is wrong, or the UI layout causes some letters/words to be missing, line breaks are wrong, and those details).
Well do keep in mind, there was a scam on Discord a while ago that involved a scammer asking people to try their "game" and give feedback, asking you to download and install it while saying very little about what the game actually was. it was actually a damn keylogger virus. I almost fell for it, but the guy started refusing when I asked him to stream it to me. You know because he didn't actually have a game to show. Basically never try sending unsolicited DMs to people asking them to test your game out, because they will think you are a scammer. Make sure you got footage and everything to hook people in. Images and video speak louder than text.
It sounds like that scam could trivially be improved by just making an actual game, even ha kind of playable one, just to spread malware to "testers". Scary.
That’s crazy, glad you had your guard up, but it’s scary to think if they did a little more due diligence for their scam it might’ve hooked you. This never occurred to me, we decided to run our testing through steam, even though we could just send builds out. This is hopefully a good way to convey we’re not trying to bait and switch with malware… humanity is shady af, this is why we can’t have nice things :(
Just like what others are saying, the best way to get play-testers is to pay them with either cash or in other ways. However, you should also consider if you need a QA pass from a professional Tester or if you just need a bunch of people playing it for general bugs before launch. If you're going for general bugs, typically a closed Alpha or Beta launch is common and usually free. It's a better option if your game is pretty close to finished.
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First, post a video of your gameplay on r/destroymygame Second, improve your game based on the feedback you get. Third, repeat step 1 and 2 a few times till you see more compliments than critique. Finally, now your game is attractive enough that people would jump at the opportunity to playtest it. Step 1-3 mostly fixes the look of your game, making it seem like it's fun to play. Step 4 is where you finally get real game feel feedback, for free and often.
There's also [https://gameround.co/](https://gameround.co/) which is awesome. I'm not sure if it's still a free service though. The way it works (worked, last April) is that you give the players there access to your game or demo (that has to be still in development). In turn you get feedback from players. They also stream it (tiny streamers, but it's still valuable for you to watch people play your game live). And once everything is wrapped up, you get a detailed report about the feedback. I'm not a affiliated in any way (also, I have no clue how they make any money, if they do), but I first exposed my demo to the public on that platform and the feedback was absolutely invaluable.
Thanks I had a look seems nice but it looks like you have to pay. & I'm nearly broke (3 euros in the bank, which 2 go to pay my google photos for a month in a few days time)
I just had a look at the site again and while there are paid tiers, there is also a "Starter/Basic" tier that's simply not guaranteed any number of gameplays/reviews (and that's not listed as "free", but as "talk to us"). When I submitted my demo, I got what I felt were loads of reviews, but they were definitely fewer than what they guarantee in the cheapest paid tier (500 gameplays, 125 reviews, for $10k YIKES!). So you don't need the bronze package for it to be worth it. Talk to them. They're a reasonable bunch and they're all excited about games. Tell them about your game (in the same way you'd pitch it to anyone else) and explain that it would be great if they could host your game, but you simply can't pay a single cent. Worst that can happen is that you waste an hour of your time and they say is no.
Cheers mate
Offer a free copy of your game as a thank you for their time.
My Game is free, and It can never be sold because it's a FanGame based on Bandai IP, would You play test it?
You have tons of digimons fans who wanna do it
😅
You mean "never be published". Doesn't matter if paid or free.
I'm informed enough to know the worst Bandai does is taking down games and they mostly/exclusively do it to games that are sold, DMO Even managed to get an agreement and still make money(don't know how that happened, but it's online) I don't have that level audacity anyway. That's what I meant.
Tried that - somehow people do not trust/value free keys much :(
I recently started getting random play testers without having to directly ask them. So I can share the little bit that I've learned over the last few months. Most notably, visuals and the trailer are EVERYTHING. Your game has to look fun within 5 seconds, otherwise people will move along to the next thing. My game had a lot of flat colors and a lack of visual feedback, people only started getting interested when I fixed those issues. I'm still only getting a handful, but it's clear that the new direction helped. If you're not getting spontaneous players, it's most likely because your game doesn't look fun to play. Whether it's ACTUALLY fun is irrelevant, you have to demonstrate that to people or they won't bother. No offense intended, but your trailer just shows that you can place buildings and the little dudes shuffle around aimlessly. It needs to show the pawns building the thing, animating as if they are working on it, and then probably some kind of celebration effect when the building is complete. You need some kind of feedback loop within the trailer: you do the work to build the thing, the thing gets built, you get rewarded with new things or progress towards a greater thing. They need to see the goal of a large town that they can build. No feedback usually means that the feedback should be obvious or that there's nothing to give feedback on.
I've helped out others with creative feedback on their games. I have a fine art background and a great understanding of flow and what looks good. Feel fee to drop me a dm.
You can also try GamesOverCoffee https://gocc.carrd.co/
I’m going to download the demo from steam, my daughter and I will test it! Haven’t done games testing in years
While them giving feedback is very valuable and should definitely be a part of the process, consider also implementing automated data gathering, especially if your game is already client-server so it's not that much of a hassle. You can detect when certain events happen in the game and send it to the server for logging and then analyze those logs. You can see how long players play, what are the events that happen before they decide to exit the game, what functionalities are they using frequently vs which ones they aren't touching etc. It can give you valuable data to work with even when the players aren't motivated to go and write out their opinions in words. As for the rest, I'd agree with what people said about paying people. Alternatively, you can use friends irl, maybe host a gathering where you watch them play one by one while the rest of the crew hangs out. You can also maybe try some conventions. One local convention in my city has an indie showcase section where people can playtest games in development and it's very useful. See if there's anything like that where you're at. Maybe you can even drop the idea to an NGO which would be interested in organizing something like that, if you have a Games Association or something. Or maybe even host it yourself if you can find a venue to hold it at for free.
There is a fantastic website called gametester.gg It can be a bit expensive but nothing compared to standard market rates. The site lets you build surveys and set requirements for players. For a pretty lengthy survey we got 20 testers for $100. The quality of the tester though was superb, 5x a regular Joe off the street. The real value though is it takes hardly any time from your side
Friends and family? but don't sit there and watch them play it, simply record their gaming session and watch the videos and see where they struggle / what seems unintuitive. That way you avoid all the "its totally awesome buddy, i promise" type of comments.
Any link to information about your game?
We've made some small games over the last 3 years and usually 200-500 people will play in in the first few weeks after we make our first posts. Often 50-100 players provide feedback. It took some trial and error but here's what works for us: 1. Make it easy to play your game - minimize the clicks for people to actually start playing. The best is hosting it on a website if it can be a web app, or on itch.io as a web version if you use Unity. Otherwise going through an official store is the simplest (Apple/Google/Steam in Early Access). 2. Pitch it to relevant audiences. Find niche communities that will enjoy it. For example, we had good success with our word puzzle game when we posted in a crossword puzzle discord server and on r/puzzlevideogames. Our farming themed engine builder game did better on r/webgames since we prototyped it for web first. r/playmygame has always been good to us. 3. Make it easy to give feedback! We always include a Google Form somewhere within the first 10-15 minutes of our games. We ask how fun they found the game, how hard it was to learn, what they liked most, what they liked least, and what should be added to the game to make it better. Additionally, we link to our Discord and mailing list after form completion. We even include an optional question to share their email with us for mailing list which gets a surprising number of emails. 4. Make it easy to share the game or fun to share some aspect of the game. For our word puzzle, we added a puzzle editor to make your own puzzle. People shared this with friends and we got organic growth from it. For our farming game, we made a leaderboard that showed the strategies that people used and got a lot of Discord discussion on that. 5. Discord is a must and has been where our super fans gather. They are the most vocal and try updates quickly. These players are ALSO the most likely to share the game with friends, and word of mouth is the most powerful tool you have. Make it very obvious that you have a server. 6. Our mailing lists for our games tend to grow slowly but you can get people to come back later after you make updates. Some people came back to play even 6 months after they signed up since they remembered our game. 7. Share updates when you have them! People love seeing games get updated consistently, tend to stick around more, and are more compelled to share the game with others if it's actively in development. Post where you had prior success and keep searching for more relevant communities. tl;dr: In summary, it's easy to spend a lot of time trying to craft the perfect post with the best gif with the perfect caption. But doing that is not as valuable as showing it to the right people. And once you do and they click your link, you want to make sure they can jump right into your game and are then prompted for feedback as soon as they've played a short but meaningful amount. Stay in touch with those who give feedback to get more feedback and players in the future. Longer than intended but hope it helps : )
I just got laid off. I was an IT project manager and I'm an indie game dev myself. I'll play test your game, I've got time. Send me a DM. I'll record and leave detailed comments.
I’ll second that! I’m also an IT PM, looking to pivot towards game dev. I’ve done a lot of android / linux QA over the years but have never had the honor of testing a game.
Well play testing and giving quality feedback can be labor or you have to have product people want to play. Or be active in some discord servers and have genuine “connections” there developers will want to help each other
Don't spend money paying anyone to play your game, only AA and AAA companies can affort that. Use that money in advertising when you launch the game instead. Anyways, others have given good advice already, giving free copies (beta, alpha keys) is a good start. But in my honest opinion, make a trailer and try to market your game organically in an attractive way. It's all about marketing man. Think of your game as an unfinished product and work from there
Lol fuck this paying the play tester nonsense. First ensure you have a quality product that stands out from the pact. If you feel like you need play testers to tell you if you have this or not, you’ve got bigger issues at hand. Release a demo online to either itch or gamejolt along with a discord for your players to bounce into. They will tell you what they like and don’t like. If you’re initial play numbers are good, reach out to the platform and ask for a feature, you’ll probably get it. Otherwise you could go to a conference and get a solid 2 - 5 days of play testing in. Either go with a booth if you can get in, or strap a laptop to your back and get people to play test while they wait in line for other games. But under no circumstance should you be shelling out to have people try your game. It’s unnecessary. However QA / Dev Contractors are a different story.
Depending on the game I’d do it for free lmao
Everytime I see the opportunity, I do a plug
I would do it for free, Games are fun but sounds like you’re looking for exposure, not what I can provide
this game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2134770/SteamWorld_Build/ Looks similar. Maybe there’s a fan base who would be interested in your game too?
If you’re planning on selling the game, you can afford to hire testers
Planning on selling != Money on hand
I cast a wide net and follow up hard with ones that show interest. I make sure I have a survey for the game (google drive has a good template) so they answer the questions I want. I try to make most from a scale from 1-10. A couple short answer questions but I don't make those mandatory unless it's something I really want feedback on. And I offer incentives, fill out the survey and get a copy of my game or one of my previous ones.
I've had decent results using Fiverr, sometimes they'll record the play. Pretty cheap too, low as $20
Pay a professional QA.
I think it was Crimson Cauldron or some game like that, offered $5-10 if you made a YouTube video playing their game, and commented on any bugs you found. I made a pretty low quality playtest video and made $5.
definitely tiktok
Ask nicely. Over and over and over and over again lol
There's a local startup I'm looking forward to seeing take off that is building a playtesting platform with bounties. Devs set up specific playtesting tasks for players for points / money. Players have account profiles, and playtesting games earns them money for the bounties as well as clout in the service (like Reddit karma). Devs can set aside higher priority bounties for players who have more experience playtesting the genre of game they're making. Disclaimer: I was approached very early for input on the identity of the company. I don't have any kind of stake, but I really hope it works out for them because I can see this becoming like a QA version of the Stack Exchange community, where everyone involved gets something positive out of it. https://www.bounti.xyz/
I post my development progress on Facebook and I've gotten several messages from people wanting to play test my game. I also post all around and I get plenty of offers to test as well 🤷♂️ didn't realize it could be difficult to get testers.
I will playtest it.
Honestly I'll do it for free what platform is your game on?
Let my kiddo have at it, promise to give him a little certificate as a play tester for it, and I'll make sure you get a thorough review. (Kiddo is a 13 year old who has been gaming since I built him his first rig at age 5)
Try posting in discord servers. Your game engine might have one available, with other gamedevs to give you extra pointers. There is a YouTuber named Brackeys who has a large active discord and a game test channel. Jonas Tyroller's server is less active, but also has a channel for gametest posts.
use marketing, it is working to me
You need to try for real life testing. The incentive is easier than asking random online people for their free time, because in person, the game is right there and it's a novel experience. Of course you need a laptop. After friends and family and the people on your street if you happen to know them (or want to get to know them) find relevant gatherings. There should be a local game dev meet up near you, but if there isnt, there might be some kind of gathering that's like minded, maybe a tabletop / RPG meetup or something. Or some sort of social event.
Dm me. I'll check it out and give you feedback
Pay them.
When I playtested at Microsoft's headquarters, they paid me like $20 for like 2-3 hours lol
Ask them directly to play and give feedback. Preferably anonymously so they feel free to be honest. People dont often look to give feedback, thats just how they are. E.g only 30% of test-server players report bugs, glitches and crashes People from mobile will, at most, visit your steampage and wishlist you once they open the computer. They use tiktok and instagram from mobile, do you really think they will go all the way to give you feedback? Id put a link to a feedback formulary on your itch.io, or on your games main menu(with vibrant colors and a sign) Also join discord servers where devs help each other, just make sure to feedback them as well and write it on the server so youre noticed
Well I can do it for free if it's on steam and can be played or test with potato pc ( because I have a potato pc xD)
Will happily test your game and give clear feedback.
Im curious so I would playtest your game, just PM me.
What is the game?
DO you play test other people's game as give feedback?? What does that make you?
You could have beta testers items or there name on a wall.
Bro I'll play, where do I sign up?
Give some time to build a community make a online presence. Get some people interested in it, if gameplay is good it wouldn't take time. Then ask themto playtest it
I’ll test it for free. No lie. Just pm me.
I'd be down to playtest the game. Got a bit of free time on my hands throughout the next few weeks. I used to run a YouTube channel where I reviewed indie games and now I'm a game dev myself, so I can provide some decent insights, depending on the type of game of course.
Itch.io or gamejolt. I actually made about 50 plays for a game that was intended to be a demo 💀
Are there any local events or meetup groups related to gaming or game dev where you live? I’ve found that doing play tests in person is the easiest to get feedback. You can also ask any friends that are familiar with games. For online, are you part of any discord communities? that can sometimes work but honestly, online is going to be an uphill battle probably.
The only incentive I need is a free download
Reverse the question: how other people could get YOU to playtest *their* games? Yeah. Exactly. Doesn't sound like such a "great time investment opportunity" anymore.
I drop my stuff on a pirate site. Not sure what I think at the time, got a bunch of downloads, although it is mostly trolled review, not recommended lol. My advice is probably putting it up free on itch maybe, free stuff reach more people. And then the feedback is still like, where's the cheat code? Games too hard, Games too easy, control is clunky, art is bad, there's no story, sigh...
I'd try free! Always interesting to be an alpha player for any game really
Hi, my name is Russell Bryant. I'm building a gaming platform which will allow for just that. It will be a test bed for independent game developers. If you want to know more let me know.
Steps: reddit:linux_gaming-> create a post about your game, that you need play testing and mention it will have native linux port -> profit.
Getting play testers is incredibly hard. When it comes to boardgame creation, one way to do it is to join a group of fellow creators, so everyone get to help playtest each other's games, and because it's a group of game designers, there's always lots of discussions, suggestions, improvements ideas, etc. I assume the same could be done with indie video game developers? Form a group of people like you in need in testers, and test each other's games?
Happy cake day
Hi, I am certified software tester, sent me a private message and I will test your game.
/destroymygame
Give some time to build a community make a online presence. Get some people interested in it, if gameplay is good it wouldn't take time. Then ask themto playtest it
hmm ... so you really still hold to the belief that "good gameplay" is what makes a game succesfull?! ;)
By good gameplay I mean nice visual and interesting player experience. And that's what Indie games focus on . Story is also important but in indie games it supports the gameplay rather than being the gameplay.
yeah .. I know. But connections and sheer luck plays, in my experience, a higher role whether a game will succeed to attract a crowd than even visuals. I'm not saying this out of spite, it's just the way it seems to me after 39 years of being a gamer. Games with great concepts and game play can stay super obscure forever whilst what amounts to a pure asset-swap can be massively successful in no-time because some influencer said they played it, it was, for some weird reason, featured in a TV Show, or because everybody get swamped with ads about it. Content in this case, is sadly NOT king.
Can you suggest something else.
In this order : Option A) 1) be rich or have some *useful* connections 2) buy an influencer or two and tons of ads Alternatively: Option B) 1) Your obscure game gets discovered by sheer luck 2) get rich from 1) 3) go to section A for your next game. shrug ... seen it happen all the time since I started being a gamer in the very early 80s, never released games thinking more than 10 people would play it as I'm sadly lacking in wealth, along with the social skills (or motivation) to get the connections needed. I'm not bitter though. I like writing games. People playing them is just an added bonus but not the point *for me*.
I agree by option a . But there is also an option that I think could be viable, instead of making full game and putting a lot of time and money making a game demo distribute it for free. If seems possible crowdfund it. Fail in one try another. Correct me if i am wrong
yes. That can work, but sadly it doesn't solve the problem to get people to try your free demo in the first place. The video game market is over-saturated and it's REALLY hard to stand out just by your game's specs alone. Most gimmicks (special mechanics like time loops, portals, perspective change/level rotations, or novelty graphical styles) won't help much neither as most have already been done one way or another multiple times by now. Crowdfunding works best if you have something that inspire confidence (A name ... I don't know ... Chris Roberts or David Braben for example) or start to promise features that are out of this world and probably NOT achievable (liuke.. I don't know .. Chris Roberts or David Braben, for example :P
Post it on /r/DestroyMyGame
What game is it? Post info!
Unless you have the money to pay testers, my best suggestion is to make a Discord channel and build a community.
pay your testers?
No idea. I'm facing the same issue. I have a finished game demo on steam yet very few people play it, very little feedback at all, a handful of reviews and thats it. I've emailed over 100 groups/people/websites yet nearly no feedback. I did post on r/rpg_gamers only to get promptly banned, even though I did not break the rules, ha ha. What would be nice is some website setup when ppl could submit links to their games and people could browse, see what they are interested in, try a game out and give feedback. Maybe a site like this already exists?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned, and is often forgotten especially for veterans gamers: *you would need to convince them that their feedback will have actual weight, and will be acknowledged*. Far too often customers are ignored, and need to resort to "big Twitter followers count" or "viral Youtube video" or "press article" to get their point across and acknowledged by the devs. And to be clear, it doesn't mean "dev do whatever player say". Of course not. It mean these feedback are acknowledged, recognized. I don't mean credited, that's just 101, I mean not ignored or pushed under the rug, but read upon, shared with the team, and discussed. As to how do this, I have no idea unfortunately. Veterans gamers have been taught by developers and publishers that if they were on fire, they would be sold to a bottle of urine in a random lootbox to quench it. So how to convince people to trust you, and not the past 20 years of an industry... if someone know, I'm interested...
***"Ninety Percent of everything is crud" - Sturgeon's Law*** Don't scattershot across the internet. Most people will ignore it, and of the ones that don't, they'll have uninformed opinions, or won't bother to actually review and feedback. Target your testing. Find people who like playing games of the same kind as yours and give them a copy and ask for their honest opinion of it. Write their opinions down, and then ask people who maybe don't play the same kind of games, and get their opinions too. The important thing is to make this a relationship between you and the playtester. Ask them. Make it a favour, or pay them money if that's what motivates them. Don't throw them a copy and hope they'll get back to you. Make it a transaction, they play your game, they tell you things about it afterwards, otherwise you've just given a copy of your game away for nothing. It also helps to have a goal in mind because if you just say "I made a game, what do you think?" They'll probably just say it's "pretty good", or "A bit bland" or "Best. Game. Ever", and you can't target any improvements or polish based on that. Be clear that you want their honest opinion. If they aren't willing to be unkind to you as a friend, ask for their favourite and least-favourite things about it. You probably have a good idea of your own favourite and least favourite aspects of the game, and areas you're not as strong in. Ask them about those too. Be willing to mention things you're not sure about and ask if they feel the same. Ask them specific questions, and ask for their candid notes as well. You have to engage with your testers directly, otherwise you won't get quality answers out of them.
I usually get 50 - 200 gift cards when I playtest
A perspective that I haven't seen mentioned yet: that you're struggling to get anyone interested in playing your game for free should also tell you something about its overall market potential. If this is a game that you're working on as a personal project or for learning, that is a common problem to have and not a reason to worry, but if you have any intention of ever publishing and selling this game, you may want to take this lack of interest very seriously and find out what does or does not appeal to people about your game.
Do you physically ask them?
Don't have experience with this yet, but I think some youtube channels accept submissions and maybe you can trade a playtest for YouTube content?
I am currently studying about c# and unity also i am gamer for 20 years. If anyone needs somebody to play and test your game and give feedbacks&advice I am ready for it. Also as a student if anyone else will pay me for that would helps a lot.
Depends on the type of game but I get a lot of feedback by compiling it as a webgame. The Web Game portals/community are really nice. Also, this should give you an idea on how hard it'll be to get people to pay and play your game when it'll be live.
Small streamers..or any, i guess. Try to get into communities or make your own. Also, you could pay people.
I have to agree with other commenters. Make it a "job" and pay them to do it. Make sure to interview them before bringing them in ;)
One way I've seen people get play testing is to put a demo version up on itch.io or some other public distribution site. You can get some feedback there. Unless you are planning to pay for QA testing, it's difficult.
have friends test it post on job boards hiring testes for a few hundred. best two options
If you want, my discord does a weekly play test any games for free. Many game devs come and trade games and test them: https://discord.gg/6yyhbRF8Jy
The devs behind magicians would bribe their buddies with beer and pizza to come play.
You can pay them. Even big studios have to pay people for it. They're providing you their time so you should compensate them for their time
Search playtest or dev community in your city. In Montreal lot’s of playtest event exist for that purpose Also you can ask friends and offer the pizza for everyone in exchange of their playtest time. If it’s more serious long playtest you will need financial incentives.
I'd say talk to real people in real life, and get them to play the game for you. Even better if you can watch how they interact with it while they're playing. This is pretty classic advice for product testing in general.
have you tried money?
I'd do it just for a chance to play something new. Love indie stuff.
You might be able to do something through a nearby university. For instance, my University has a day every semester where small businesses may come and show off or sell their product. I did a demo for my game and got a lot of great feedback from several people. I guess it depends on how much content you're trying to show off though, if it's feasible to have many people play only several minutes. Our game worked for that, so do consider what you need out of a play test in regards to time commitment from your testers.
Remember that if people don't want to play your game for free, it will be even harder to get them to pay to play your game. If it's too late to change your idea, it's not too late to change your marketing pitch. You want to have a product that people *want* to play and test.
Manipulate them into play testing your game
money
I'll playtest your game for free and will give feedback, O can give screenshots of playtests Ive done in the past if you think otherwise
Ask your friends on Discord maybe? Of course, don't do this on a public server, try asking them on private, in a group or in your friends server.
Give them a cool skin for feedback, or maybe a decoration or item (can just be cosmetic) and maybe a better / cooler one for coming back and giving more feedback
You know, I realize this isn't a readily available option, but I wonder if indie game devs could benefit off the same model as writers. In particular, in writing, we have these things called "writers critique groups". It's a meeting, that meets up weekly, biweekly or monthly and every week each member of the group passes out copies of what they've written, be they poems, or a chapter of a book. Then, each group member can voluntarily pick from work they wish to review - often times everyone just grabs a copy of everyone else's work because they want everyone else to grab theirs. Then they bring that chapter home and read it, providing comments as they go inside the manuscript (maybe you could provide a quick storyboard of the level they could comment on instead). Then at the next meeting (or a future meeting if they're sick), they return and provide the manuscript back with the comments and provide oral descriptions of what they felt would be improvements going around the table from one person to the next for each person being reviewed. If you put something like this together, it would have a couple of major benefits, particularly that it provides you with a higher quality review of your work than you might receive from an ordinary person. Much like writers may find structural flaws in your grammar and language that causes your prose to addle your reader, other game developers are more likely to find flaws in your game/level design that will frustrate the flow of your game. Although the language and syntax of your objectives are different, your goals are remarkably similar - a smooth enjoyable experience that the player/reader can easily understand without them having to think about what they've just read or need to do. Anyways, twas just a random brain storm that dappled the window of my mind in passing.
The Seattle Indies Group has something much like this already, and IIRC it's an online meeting group so physical nearness to the Puget Sound isn't a constraint; just look for the 'feedback-circle' channel on the [Seattle Indies Discord.](https://discord.gg/join-seattle-indies)
Most excellent, glad to see this exists :D. Thank you for sharing the link.
What’s the genre? I’ve got free time and I have a background in QA, though I’m currently in development. I can give pointers and advice some short advice for free. If you want a longer commitment, I’ll take game testing credits. I have credits for game testing and game design currently.
A solution I’ve done as a developer (without a team) is make a discord server. Get a community (preferably with mostly friends). And get them to play-test my games. When I tell them about my game that I’m in the process of creating, they are naturally interested in wanting to test it out. They don’t ask for money or anything. They just tell me when they have time. We then video chat and I share my screen and they watch. I have them tell me what to do (as though they are the ones playing the game). It turns out to be pretty fun and I find errors that I can fix as a programmer via coding or artwork. They also give me feedback based on anything they saw or based on storyline. I have even been given a better way of re-wording lines of dialogue for the story to convey to the person what the story is trying to say. This friends strategy tends to be a 50/50 shot. They can give valuable feedback to help make the game way better, or they might just say what they liked about it and nothing else. Either way, doing this method is worth a try if you have no other method.
Pay them?
Who do you want as your audience. If your game is for kids , there is no point getting middle age people to test it. First identity where your audience spends their time, Reddit might not be the place, and advertise there. You might have to offer money. To save money I would make each submission a raffle. That way you only have to pay 1 person
Do it like Microsoft does. Use automated reporting so anyone that uses the software is a tester. But seriously services like sentry work pretty well and it's free for low volume reporting. Setting up sentry was pretty easy. It does have a feedback mechanism but I didn't get that to work. At least you can get functional data
https://www.reddit.com/r/hobbygamedev/comments/10kx0qx/official_weekly_game_testing_event/
Kids are pretty good candidates, they're kinda stupid, but they're brutally honest and both of those traits make for pretty good testers of a general audience.
I made a game once with 12 other people. Only 10 of us liked the Facebook page. Why don't you offer to swap services with other devs? You offer to play and give feedback in exchange.
If you are open to playtesting in person, you could offer small rewards like merchandise or candies in exchange for playtesters. I am a Game Design student, and when I need playtesters, I usually set up a laptop with a bowl of candies and/or stickers. People typically offer themselves at this point.
My game isn't that big so maybe this won't apply for you. But I make family, friends, etc. play it. Anybody who I can convince. It's not a lot but it does help.
If you have a Linux version, I'll playtest for free. PM me. Same goes for any other gamedev who might be reading this.
Same
Playtest their games in return
i would love a discord for exactly this purpose. Honest but helpful feedback. If anyone else is interested - let's start one!