A chance for the community to affect game development: Incorporating player feedback to game development during Early Access
Halén, Laura (2023)
Halén, Laura
2023
Master's Programme in Game Studies
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-05-10
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304133677
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304133677
Tiivistelmä
The goal of this thesis is to research how Early Access affects game development, and how player feedback affects the development and design of the games in question. In this thesis I will explain why Early Access is used (or why it might not be the right development choice), how developers handle transparency during it, which methods are used in communicating with the audiences and what types of feedback is implemented in the development and design of the game. I will explain how the players could affect the game design in the case of my research participants, and how Early Access affected the development process of those participants.
Background research was done in an exploratory way, using both academic and non-academic sources, such as game developer interviews available online. After forming a base where I cover Early Access in general, and where I explain it as a part of a game development process, I conducted my own research using a survey and interviews. I then analyzed the data with a thematic analysis. Combining the survey answers and the interviews, a total of eight participants took part in this research. All of them are game developers, who have worked with an Early Access title. Thematic analysis was then used to raise themes from the data, and five themes were selected. These themes cover the reasons to use Early Access, strategies to give out information and gather information from the players, and incorporating gathered feedback to the development and design of the game.
Early Access was felt to be a good development choice when the developers were uncertain about some aspects of their game, or if they wanted to get feedback from the players to make the game better suited for players. Other reasons for using Early Access were mainly funding and marketing. All of the participants agreed that feedback was one of the main reasons to use Early Access, and thus they all had systems to communicate with their players. Different tools for transparency and informing players are listed in this thesis, as well as the ways the participants gathered feedback. Lastly, I discuss what type of feedback was incorporated to the game designs of the participants’ games, and what limitations the developers had (i.e., what feedback was not taken into consideration).
According to this research, Early Access is a viable solution for some game developers and for certain types of games, but it requires a lot of work and transparency. With Early Access the game in development might be better suited for the players after the release, and some participants said that Early Access is the ‘right way’ to develop games. However, that requires commitment to communicate with the players. The developers need to adjust to the open development practices and set clear limits and restrictions for preventing things like tiredness, burnout, or work and personal life mixing. If executed correctly and managing the communications with the players in an orderly manner, Early Access is a suitable solution in creating games with the players, and the players have a chance to affect the game in a direction they would want it to go.
Background research was done in an exploratory way, using both academic and non-academic sources, such as game developer interviews available online. After forming a base where I cover Early Access in general, and where I explain it as a part of a game development process, I conducted my own research using a survey and interviews. I then analyzed the data with a thematic analysis. Combining the survey answers and the interviews, a total of eight participants took part in this research. All of them are game developers, who have worked with an Early Access title. Thematic analysis was then used to raise themes from the data, and five themes were selected. These themes cover the reasons to use Early Access, strategies to give out information and gather information from the players, and incorporating gathered feedback to the development and design of the game.
Early Access was felt to be a good development choice when the developers were uncertain about some aspects of their game, or if they wanted to get feedback from the players to make the game better suited for players. Other reasons for using Early Access were mainly funding and marketing. All of the participants agreed that feedback was one of the main reasons to use Early Access, and thus they all had systems to communicate with their players. Different tools for transparency and informing players are listed in this thesis, as well as the ways the participants gathered feedback. Lastly, I discuss what type of feedback was incorporated to the game designs of the participants’ games, and what limitations the developers had (i.e., what feedback was not taken into consideration).
According to this research, Early Access is a viable solution for some game developers and for certain types of games, but it requires a lot of work and transparency. With Early Access the game in development might be better suited for the players after the release, and some participants said that Early Access is the ‘right way’ to develop games. However, that requires commitment to communicate with the players. The developers need to adjust to the open development practices and set clear limits and restrictions for preventing things like tiredness, burnout, or work and personal life mixing. If executed correctly and managing the communications with the players in an orderly manner, Early Access is a suitable solution in creating games with the players, and the players have a chance to affect the game in a direction they would want it to go.