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[weasello]

Saw an interesting talk at Casual Connect;

- Games that get "free" user testing (friends/family/coworkers/etc) are baseline

- Games that have paid-for user testing (spending $50 on a street corner even) generate anywhere from 2-8X more money than baseline.

- Games that have no user testing (just developers/girlfriends/roommates/others close to the developer) get a quarter to half as much revenue than baseline.

I always knew user testing was important, but it was good to see someone actually analyze all the data out there and be able to make some rules like this. Whee!

[Radix]

Sounds like correlation/causation disconnect bullshit to me. More likely that the use of testing reflects an attitude in the developer of developing for the market rather than themselves, as is probably the case with untested games.

[weasello]

Oh yeah, that's totally what it is. It's not that the act of testing makes things better; it's the attitude behind development.

[Vino]

Link?

[weasello]

It was a physical talk in meatspace, they don't have URLs for that kind of thing

[bateleur]

Do you happen to recall who gave the talk?