Chapter 25 Playtesting .......................

Chapter 25 Playtesting.........................

“The common denominator, I would guess, is passion. Everyone says, ‘Well,

why aren’t games better — why aren’t there more really good games?’ And I

think that the answer is that what this industry doesn’t do, amazingly, is play

the games it makes. We create a game, we ask the teams to work all the hours

God sends, and we don’t give them time to play the game. That’s really what

makes the difference — sitting down and playing for hours and hours and

hours.”

— Peter Molyneux

P

laytesting can be one of the most exhilarating parts of the game development
cycle. It is then that you take the project you have been working on for months
or years, during which time only the development team has played the game,
and show it to people outside the team. And, if all goes well, you can watch as they are
entertained by your work, want to play it more, compliment you on what you have done,
and have suggestions for how you might make it better. Playtesting is not just a minor
stepping-stone to getting the game shipped to the duplicators or uploaded to the

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