Assessing the value of early user experience testing in VR games
Sudakova, Longina (2019)
Sudakova, Longina
2019
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019121025807
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019121025807
Tiivistelmä
Despite the recent growth of market share of Virtual Reality (VR) gaming due to VR headsets price reduction, game companies are still facing a few obstacles related to VR games design and development. One of them is the lack of player-centred perspective in game design. User Experience (UX) assessment as one of the main tools of player-centred design offers a variety of methods that help investigate player behaviour, emotions, and experience. However, game companies are not in a hurry to proceed with UX on board due to disbelief and uncertainty about the benefits and costs of UX research. Academic literature offers little research investigating benefits and costs of UX research on actual game subjects. This thesis aims to diminish that knowledge gap.
The VR game ‘Crumbling Factory’ (CF) developed byTurku Game Lab and students of Turku University of Applied Sciences was commissioned as a subject of this research. Preliminary UX study was conducted where key issues were identified and a list of recommendations for further development was formulated. Two versions of CF were tested, namely Version One, an initial version of the game, and Version Two, a result of further development according to guidlines given by the preliminary UX study. Twenty people, ten people per each version, completed a survey and evaluated their experience with CF.
A comparative analysis of data gathered throughout the survey demonstrated that preliminary UX study was able to correctly identify problems in player experience with Version One of CF, and deliver accurate specific recommendations for its further development. That resulted into 66% growth of positive experience of Version Two compared to Version One.
The cost-benefit analysis of the preliminary study and further development process proved that the benefits of having UX evaluation as an integral part of game design and development process outweighed its costs. Although the goal of this study was not to determine whether or not Crumbling Factory is capable of succeeding on the market, the study demonstrated how closely player experience is tied to the game’s revenue. In the light of the results of this thesis, it is recommended that game companies working with VR start integration of UX evaluation in the development process as early as on the first stages of game design.
The VR game ‘Crumbling Factory’ (CF) developed byTurku Game Lab and students of Turku University of Applied Sciences was commissioned as a subject of this research. Preliminary UX study was conducted where key issues were identified and a list of recommendations for further development was formulated. Two versions of CF were tested, namely Version One, an initial version of the game, and Version Two, a result of further development according to guidlines given by the preliminary UX study. Twenty people, ten people per each version, completed a survey and evaluated their experience with CF.
A comparative analysis of data gathered throughout the survey demonstrated that preliminary UX study was able to correctly identify problems in player experience with Version One of CF, and deliver accurate specific recommendations for its further development. That resulted into 66% growth of positive experience of Version Two compared to Version One.
The cost-benefit analysis of the preliminary study and further development process proved that the benefits of having UX evaluation as an integral part of game design and development process outweighed its costs. Although the goal of this study was not to determine whether or not Crumbling Factory is capable of succeeding on the market, the study demonstrated how closely player experience is tied to the game’s revenue. In the light of the results of this thesis, it is recommended that game companies working with VR start integration of UX evaluation in the development process as early as on the first stages of game design.