BioWare’s DeRosa: Tracking Player Feedback To Improve Game Design

Passive tracking systems are used in the gaming industry to measure and improve the player experience. Gamasutra has an article by Philip DeRosa, the Director of Quality Assurance at BioWare Corp., detailing how the experience of using target audiences (potential customers) along with iterative processes of experimentation and observation to help improve product quality in Sesame Street led to establishing the tracking systems used by BioWare today.

Through trial and error, the television producer of Sesame Street perfected a process that has made the show the long lived hit it is today: “-hire an expert, define a test process, test the product with the target audience, objectively observe and recording findings, review, improve and repeat as needed.” Applying this model to interactive entertainment software is more difficult because each experience is different in non-linear games and there is much more data to aggregate and analyze.

The article describes the elements BioWare used to build their own passive tracking systems. It details the team of people needed to implement the process and the tools and technology necessary to gather, aggregate and analyze all the information. Finally it explains the testing processes and reports needed to interpret feedback used to improve game design.

via Gamasutra