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It’s not about actual QA and bugs detection – playtesting is more about diagnosing your game to apply the results for adjusting it for potential customers. Mentioned below is a brief interview with Martin, the team lead at a playtesting company who wished to remain anonymous.

Are there any particular test projects for the PC or mobile systems? (Besides the obvious: short sessions, interface features, mobility, etc).

The methodology of testing games implies no adaptation for mobile devices, PC, consoles, and even board games. It’s all about choosing the correct device and the right length of a gaming session. And that’s it.

Could you please shed more light on payment systems testing? How do you measure and define the willingness to pay and the efficiency of a future price model?

Incidentally, since the playtest is all about monetization, the importance of a number of respondents grows – you need at least 75 people to run a series of tests. There are several important points to conduct a monetization playtest:

Create a gaming experience without shopping, then get an estimate of the complexity of the game and study an interest in pursuing a gaming session. Then monetization experience is generated, and estimation of user-friendliness of an interface and ease of navigation take place. Various payment options are good in their own way:

Google and Apple payment emulation

In-game currencies

Prepaid cards

Payment with payment cards and a refund of the of the price paid once the test is complete.

This is where it is needed to simulate the experience of goods purchasing. A respondent evaluates the characteristics of the product, possible improvements, determines the maximum price he or she is willing to pay in terms of real consumption.

We also calculate the optimal price of the game. To do this, we ask respondents to set the maximum price at which they are willing to buy the game. For example, if a person is willing to buy the product for $2.99, the same player will buy it for $1.99 and, of course, for $0.99. The resulting number of deals is multiplied by the price of transactions – thus obtained the estimate.

Does the process of testing games differ from region to region? Is there a possibility, for example, to order a test or playtest for Chinese and German audiences?

The western audience is one thing – people want virtually the same stuff, even if we compare North America and Eastern Europe. The appetites for gameplay and graphics and other stuff are virtually the same. Asia is different. Consumer preferences Eastern countries are fundamentally different to be more exact. The same applies to India. Methodologies that we use in testing games are the same regardless of the selected region, however, we may apply different calculation formulas as for game session, monetization and other components.