Player Research | Video game playtesting and user research

ABOUT US

Are players experiencing your game exactly how you’d anticipate? What issues lurk between your expectations and players’ actual experiences?

Player Research are industry-leading playtesting and user research specialists. Our clients employ our understanding of players and our cutting-edge research labs to gather actionable feedback on game usability and the player experience, toward the development of truly successful games.

We ensure players’ experiences are as close as possible to the designers’ vision, helping our clients achieve chart-topping, genre-leading games. Our experience spans all genres, platforms and audiences, and has impacted more than one billion gamers worldwide.

Explore our unique selection of services

Every iOS game we’ve contributed to has made the front page of the Apple App Store, and our console and non-mobile games enjoy equal success, including number-one selling and critically-acclaimed titles.

Player Research is proud to be a part of the Keywords Studios group.

SOME OF OUR CLIENTS

”[Player Research’s] work is quickly becoming a must for all studios” – Develop Online

”Partnering with Player Research has tangibly helped to improve our game and help us craft it around the needs of real players. Their deep understanding of game development and design principles mean they go well beyond just highlighting problems; their analysis identifies the underlying causes and their expertise provides robust solutions. They’re friendly, reliable and flexible and have been a pleasure to work with.”
-Phil Mansell, JAGEX

”Player Research helped us identify key issues to improve Day 1 Retention for Rival Kingdoms. There’s no better way to find the major obstacles to player engagement.” – Joe Raeburn, Space Ape Games.

”A great experience working with Player Research from early in our project. In the current climate it’s refreshing to have a group of experts so focused on helping to unlock the core usability and fun of a game above everything else.”
– Jonathan Alpine, Hutch Games

”Player Research offer brilliant user research services and playtesting. They will add a lot to your UX process, giving a different angle and insight into your UX design, and do extended, effective user testing.”
– Ella Romanos, Strike Gamelabs

”Player Research’s expertise, and their easy-to-digest delivery of their findings, provided valuable feedback, helping us ensure that LEGO Ninjago: Nindroids was up to the level the fans of the series expected it to be.”
-Chris Rose, TT Games

”Their meticulous, fact-based approach to the science of user testing is driven by an impressive academic background, and results in the most accurate player observation and behaviour interpretation I have ever seen”
– Jean-Maxime Moris, DONTNOD

”We’ve been reading & re-reading the expert review from Player Research on LA Cops – It’s SO useful. If you can work with them, do it!”
– Ollie Clarke, Modern Dream

THE PLAYER RESEARCH TEAM

Graham McAllister PhD

Amy Hunt MSc

Seb Long BSc

Bob Tilford PhD

Aaron Walker MRes

Matt White PhD

Jozef Kulik MSc

Alistair Greo MSc

Harvey Owen MSc

Morgan Kennedy

Gareth Lloyd PhD

Jonathan Venne

Benoit Lefort

FULL CYCLE SERVICES

Our researchers run weekly usability playtests, conduct research focused on actionable results, evaluate games with UX Analysis and implement games analytics. Our research services are each designed in conjunction with game developers to perfectly match their questions and commercial needs, from indie through to AAA games.

Player Research engage from project start to product launch. By building in our services from early stages of development, teams leverage our tools, methods and expertise, developed through years of playtesting and games UX research, to avoid costly usability issues, barriers to monetisation and flaws in the player experience.

PLAYTESTING

ABOUT US

SOME OF OUR CLIENTS

THE PLAYER RESEARCH TEAM

FULL CYCLE SERVICES

CONTACT US