S2 E3 Episode Title: Putting Playtesting into your Process with Steve Bromley
Games user researcher and educator Steve Bromley literally wrote the book on games user research, and he’s been coaching and teaching the gaming community in how to get the most from their playtesting and research efforts for 15 years. He’s working on his third book, Playtest Plus, while his most popular book How To Be A Games User Researcher serves as the basis for his semiannual class for devs looking to amp up the effectiveness of their playtesting practice. As always, this episode is for anyone regardless of discipline. We cover topics like interdisciplinary collaboration and strategy, common pitfalls in playtesting, onboarding and player comprehension, games research communities, and so much more.
For readers of Cheryl’s book The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode pairs particularly well with Chapter 1 (player motivation), Chapter 3 (the many disciplines in game development, Chapter 5 (user experience design and research), and Chapter 15 (common development pitfalls).
Listen Now: Enduring Play Season 2 Episode 3
Episode Transcript [PDF]
Featured in this Episode
Steve Bromley (he/him)
Author, How to Be a Games User Researcher
Steve Bromley is one of the world’s best known games user researchers, with a long history of helping teams use player insight to create successful games.
Prior to being freelance he was a senior user researcher for PlayStation and worked on many of their top European titles, including Horizon Zero Dawn, SingStar, the LittleBigPlanet series and the PlayStation VR lineup.
With over a decade of experience supporting teams such as Guerilla Games, Media Molecule, Sega and Netflix, he works with publishers, platforms and studios to transform their game development process, and build research strategies that combine player data with creativity. He works from ideation to post-launch to reveal the true motivators that are genuinely driving players behaviour, inspire game design decisions and help games come in on budget and on time.
Steve Bromley started the IGDA’s Games User Research mentoring scheme, which has linked hundreds of students with industry professionals from top games companies such as Sony, EA, Valve, Ubisoft and Microsoft. He wrote the bestselling book How To Be A Games User Researcher to share the expertise needed to run high impact research in the games industry. He also wrote the bestselling book Building User Research Teams, and helps teams build impactful research practice in-house.
He is a regular speaker at games industry conferences and on podcasts about games user research + playtesting, and has been recognised as a member of BAFTA.
Show Notes
Steve’s Links
| Steve’s Website | https://gamesuserresearch.com/ |
| Steve on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevebromley/ |
| Steve’s Books (Released) | How to be a Games User Researcher Building User Research Teams |
| Steve’s next book | Playtest Plus (Early Access) |
Supporting Show Links
Game links are provided for conversational reference only; they are not endorsed, sponsored, or vetted.
| International Game Developers Association | https://igda.org/ |
| Carol Kantor, the First Games Researcher | https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/carol-kantor-the-video-game-industrys-first-market-researcher/ |
| Book: The Art of Game Design, A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell | https://amzn.to/46M3aj8 |
| Book: Quantifying the User Experience by Jeff Sauro | https://amzn.to/4lkz1NZ |
| Book: Design Beyond Devices by Cheryl Platz | Design Beyond Devices | Rosenfeld Media |
Episode Outline
| Scene | Time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Podcast Start | 2:05 | Introductions |
| Host Commentary | 3:33 | Explaining X-Dev |
| Level 1 | 4:27 | From In-House to Independent |
| Level 2 | 6:32 | Discovering Context of Play |
| Host Commentary | 10:00 | CROW for User Research |
| Level 3 | 10:44 | Career Mentoring for Games User Researchers |
| Host Commentary | 12:19 | International Game Developers Association |
| Level 4 | 13:04 | Better Playtesting for Everyone |
| Host Commentary | 15:12 | Getting your free book |
| Level 5 | 16:19 | Differentiating playtesting and usability research |
| Host Commentary | 19:10 | Carol Kantor, The First Games Researcher |
| Level 6 | 19:56 | Setting games research up for success |
| Level 7 | 23:16 | Aligning on creative vision to define success |
| Level 8 | 27:31 | The risk of avoiding risk mitigation |
| Level 9 | 30:36 | The games user research community |
| Level 10 | 34:15 | Collaborating for optimal impact |
| Host Commentary | 37:36 | Your biggest challenge is other people |
| Level 11 | 39:33 | Perfect is the enemy of exists |
| Level 12 | 41:27 | Coping with industry instability |
| Level 13 | 43:33 | The Difference between Theory and Practice in Games Education |
| Level 14 | 47:19 | Starting your Games User Research education |
| Level 15 | 46:05 | In pursuit of deeper user research comprehension |
| Level 16 | 50:50 | The changing role of cognitive psychology |
| Level 17 | 52:33 | The joy of iterative strategic research roadmaps |
| Boss Level | 54:33 | Generative AI and user research |
| Final Level | 56:27 | Links and Follow-up |
The Game Development Strategy Guide
Enduring Play is the companion podcast to The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games that Thrive. Season 1 features the interviews that inspired the book, and Season 2 expands our understanding of how to create sustainable gaming experiences.
Enduring Play is the companion podcast to The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games that Thrive. Season 1 features the interviews that inspired the book, and Season 2 expands our understanding of how to create sustainable gaming experiences. The book is available at all major online booksellers and at publisher Rosenfeld Media’s website.
Use code ENDURINGPLAYS2 at RosenfeldMedia.com to get 15% off your order – and all physical orders at Rosenfeld Media receive a free ebook. Podcast Season 2 offer expires July 31, 2026.
DISCOUNT CODE
ENDURINGPLAYS2
