Re: Playtesting - Investment versus Payback

[gds]

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

This is a very powerful point. Thanks.

[Pelgrane]

One of the first tests of a game's viability is the response to your post to request a playtest. If your game concept and blurb isn't grabby enough, you aren't going to get any playtesters. You need to use exactly same online techniques to get playtesters that you do to get non-playtesters interested in your game. There are twenty or so sites you can pick up playtesters. If you can't get any playtesters from your trawling, something is wrong.

[Valamir]

Yeah, I'm not sure I buy the premise of the thread.

If you can't get people excited enough to playtest a game...what makes it likely that they'd get excited enough to buy and play it when its finished.

Or put in reverse...if one is confident that the game is exciting enough to attract players, than one should also be confident that it will attract play testers.


Those willing to do playtesting are only a subset of those willing to play.  And those actually good at it (and worth working with) are only a subset of that; but the hard part is in locating those folks...not in convincing them that the payoff is worth it.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

[gds]

Interesting comments all.

I guess my point is that grabbing people's attention is easier when you are established - you have a name, you can afford to licence, you can afford a known author or some art or whatever to make your pitch a sure-sell. One of the the feelings that seems to be floating around at the moment is that there are lots of games by first-time authors that don't get the playtesting they need, and I think it's because making your pitch is tricky the first time around. As Joshua says, you need to have something fairly polished before people will invest in looking at it for you. Generally, you won't have the art or the whatever that the established guys do to help them along.

I think what we could do to help is offer some kind of more formalised method of putting authors in touch with playtesters. Exactly how, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, just a though.

EvilD

[Pelgrane]

Interesting comments all.

I guess my point is that grabbing people's attention is easier when you are established - you have a name, you can afford to licence, you can afford a known author or some art or whatever to make your pitch a sure-sell. One of the the feelings that seems to be floating around at the moment is that there are lots of games by first-time authors that don't get the playtesting they need, and I think it's because making your pitch is tricky the first time around. As Joshua says, you need to have something fairly polished before people will invest in looking at it for you. Generally, you won't have the art or the whatever that the established guys do to help them along.

I think what we could do to help is offer some kind of more formalised method of putting authors in touch with playtesters. Exactly how, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, just a though.

EvilD

I'll make an offer here - I will set up a list, email all the succesful playtesters I know (that is ones who gave me a playtest report), and invite them to join a mail list. I'll ask other publishers to do the same. Then publishers can put their ideas in the queue and playtesters can email publishers directly if they want to play test. This is only for games that have had substantial in-house playtesting.

[gds]

That sounds like a great idea Pelgrane. Would you other folks out there be willing to share you playtest groups in this way?

Cheers,

EvilD

[Pelgrane]

A minor adjustment - I'll do it if there is participation from a couple of other publishers, and some interest shown by potential publishers.

[gds]

Fair enough. Some come on everyone else out there, willing to share?

EvilD

[woodelf]

Well, i've got a game that's definitely had the in-house (and convention) playtesting, but could use a couple blind playtests. We've been running the current version of Four Colors al Fresco for--well, we finished it up the Sunday of the first Indy GenCon, so...nearly 4 years? And running it in some form for 7 years. But, AFAIK, no one has played it who didn't first play it with one of the creators. So it's more about making sure we've written the game down sufficiently, than about whether the game itself works.

Anyway, it won't be at that stage for a few more months--i'm in the beginning stages of a complete ground-up rewrite--but i'll be happy to contribute that part of supporting a playtesters list. Likewise for new games, as they happen. However, i've got no playtest groups of my own to bring to the list, if that's the sort of publisher support you're looking for. I've always adhocked blind playtests, and couldn't necessarily count on any of those folks on a regular basis.

[Channelm]

Witch Girls Adventures (My game)

had two Play testing sets
1. The Friends: I offered free food and drinks to come a few weekends sit make characters play and then I handed out feedback sheets.

The Friends group was easy it was a matter of them having the time and  the quick start guide printed up. We sat talked during and after the games.  I went back and did some tweaking. The idea here is don't be afraid to ask and always have at least one non-gamer in your group or at least a few who are not avid gamers.  These are the people if you can entertain you have a chance.

2. CON!
Take it out to the Con. I took mine to Owl con.
It was written up as a play test  Being a new game it was hard to find players. I knew it would be so I made little business card size flyers handed them out and Not only were my games filed but I had people ask to play afterwards .
Here you divide your play test up.
1. Character generation. This was my selling point everyone could make a character in under 10 minutes and they did (thanks to Quick start booklets that every player had).
2. Play was second, a quick 4 hour adventure to cover all your rules see how they play.
3. talk. After I was done I talked to the players and had them fill out a questionnaire of likes, dislikes and changes.

Also keep in mind that your project should look good. Cool art attracts.
Cool layout attracts. Confidence in your product attracts.

[TwoCrows]