Take off your developer blinkers and let them break your game

As a games developer your single biggest asset in your marketing plan is to have a great product. That’s true of almost every business – if the products were crap, no one would buy them. It should be obvious to anyone in games development that you need to test your game before you launch it.

But that doesn’t mean you playing through it once or twice and being happy if you don’t find any bugs. It means stepping back from the game. You are far too close. You have developer blinkers. You’ve been working on it for weeks, months, maybe years.

It means letting others play it, test it, and break it.

I’ve spoken to a lot of developers, and it seems the last thing they wanted to do was to show anyone an unfinished bit of work. But, many of these guys were the same guys who had been working on their games for years. I have a suspicion that for these guys, their game will never been finished. I’ve mentioned before that I think one of the biggest hurdles for indie developers in promoting their game is actually just talking about it. I reckon the second on that list is probably asking people to play it.

The main benefits to asking other people bug test your game for you should be obvious. You essentially have a much more rigorous testing stage. Whereas before you might just have yourself (and perhaps a dozen or so of your friends) testing the game, you can potentially have hundreds. Not only finding bugs, but playing the game in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine. Giving you feedback you weren’t expecting and suggesting improvements you couldn’t have anticipated. You will be playing your game with your developer hat on – you will know things that other players won’t and you’ll be seeing the game through your developer blinkers. It also allows you to get the word out about your game earlier, and allows you to incorporate a beta testing stage as part of your marketing efforts.

In later posts I will go on to explain how to undertake different types of beta tests, as well as how to use beta tests as part of a marketing launch campaign. But for now, here are some things that you will need to think about when you decide to beta test your game.

Considerations

• You have to explain to users that the game is in beta, what this entails what you want from them. The last thing you want is people thinking they are playing a finished game. Also undesirable, but quite as bad, are players that find bugs but don’t tell you.
• Provide a way to give quick and easy feedback. Whether that’s a screen capture tool within the game, or just a detailed contact form that users can submit.
• How long will the beta last? Will you make updates and bug fixes to the game during the beta?
• How many people do you want in the beta? You can easily cap this at a simple maximum number. Or allow users a certain number of invites each.
• What do the users get in return for testing your game?

So, have you asked other people to play your game? Or have you kept it to yourself? Let us know in the comments.