9. Beta Testing and Feedback

Tasks

What is beta testing?

Beta testing is the second stage of game testing. In beta testing, the game is shared with users other than the game developers for the first time. Beta testing provides the first glimpse of how real players will respond to the game.

Like alpha testing, beta testing helps ensure that bugs or functionality issues are discovered and addressed. However, beta testing also involves collecting feedback from players about the game itself – for example, about whether it is fun to play, whether it is too difficult or too easy, and whether the game elements could be improved.

Observing how beta testers behave in your game can also provide valuable information. Have they responded to levels or situations in the ways that you had expected? Did they come up with any new or unexpected solutions to problems in the game?

Selecting your beta testers

Beta testers are supposed to provide a fresh, unbiased perspective on the game. Because of this, it is important that people you recruit for beta testing have not ever seen or played your game before, and that they have no knowledge of how you have developed it.

You should try to recruit a range of different people to beta test your game, as this will provide you with broader and more useful feedback. Don’t just share the game with people who are similar to you! Try to find people who are of different ages and genders, and who have different backgrounds and levels of experience with gaming.

Finally, it is important that you allow beta testers to play your game without any interference. If you explain key parts of the game to your beta testers before or as they are playing, you can undermine their ability to give you balanced and objective feedback.

Getting feedback from beta testers

Ask beta testers to play through your game and evaluate it using the Beta testing checklist. This checklist is based on the Scoring Rubric and will ensure that you receive balanced feedback that will help you refine your game so that it can achieve the highest score possible.

Before they play your game, you should encourage beta testers to be as honest as possible. Let them know that you will value their feedback and that they should feel comfortable to share their full thoughts on the game with you.

Be sure to tell beta testers to write down any bugs that they encounter as they play, so that you can address them later. Ask beta testers to be as specific as they can when they do this, i.e. to note down what the problem was, where and when it appeared, and what the steps are to reproduce it.

Once your beta testers have provided feedback on your game, be sure to thank them for their time and effort!

Incorporating feedback

You’ve worked hard on your game, so it can be difficult not to take things personally. Remember that the purpose of beta testing is to find and solve problems. Be open-minded when reviewing your feedback. Every suggestion can help to make your game better!

If you don’t understand any of the feedback you’ve received, be sure to follow up with your beta testers and clarify what they meant.

You might find that beta testers provide contradictory feedback (for instance, one player might have found a level too difficult, while another player found it too easy). Make sure you consider each point of feedback in context. You don’t necessarily need to act on every recommendation that your beta testers give you, but you should consider them all carefully. Make sure you pay particular attention to any suggestions that were made by multiple beta testers – these are more likely to be important.

As you refine your game, you should record some key points in the reflection section of your GDD:

• What were the main points of feedback that beta testers provided?

• What changes could you make to the game in light of the feedback?

• Did players respond to the game as you expected? If not, why not?

Level-up activities

It can be helpful to have beta testers record their playing experiences using software such as OBS Studio, provided you obtain their consent, and that they feel comfortable to use such software.

Reviewing gameplay footage produced by beta testers can make it easier to find and eliminate bugs. It can also give you useful insights into how real players might actually behave in your game.

Before beta testers record any footage of their gameplay for you, you should always tell them:

1. Who will be reviewing the footage

1. What you will use the footage for (i.e. to improve your game).