Marcos Nunes-Ueno: Usability Tester (2)
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 Are you a gamer? If so, what sort of games do you enjoy? If not, what other hobbies do you enjoy?
I am a gamer, going back to paper-and-pencil RPGs, board games, arcade games, and games on the Mac classic and the 2600. As for the types of games I enjoy, I’d have to say I like games that embrace the art of game design. Some of my favorites include Ico, Sly Cooper, and Freelancer (okay, so I worked on that one – I may be slightly biased). My favorite game of all time is M.U.L.E. You haven’t gamed until ou’ve played 4-person multiplayer M.U.L.E. on a single Commodore 64.
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What was the proudest moment for you with regards to Kameo?
There were actually two; one during the project and one after the project shipped.
During one of the weekend tests, we noticed that there was a steep drop-off on the number of participants who were able to get past a certain level. We drilled down and examined what was causing this and were able to identify various issues on which people were getting stuck. The team made changes to that level and in the next extended playtest very few people got stuck in that area.
The other moment was after the game shipped and people were playing it. A coworker of mine has a young son. After the Thanksgiving break he came into the office and told me that his kid’s favorite game is Kameo and that they are having a blast playing together. It’s easy to get caught up in the details when were in the middle of a project, but this is what’s it really all about – a dad and his kid having fun and playing together.
If someone wants a job like yours, what do you recommend? What kind of education, experience, etc. do they need? How do they get started?
Like many jobs in the game industry, there aren’t official “game user research” degrees, but there are a few qualities all the user research engineers at the Games User Research group possess.
It helps if you’re a gamer, but that’s not sufficient. It’s not enough just to have played a lot of games; you also need to be able to think critically about them. When people play games, they experience the game holistically, as a unified experience of the various components that make up the game. You need to be able to think critically about this gestalt of the game, but you also need to be able to examine and analyze all the individual components, all the minutia, that make up the whole experience.
Many of the user research engineers in our group have a background in research psychology, which will teach you the research methodology and statistics we use when we’re running studies. It’s quite easy to get feedback from players; you can bring in anyone and ask them some questions. It’s much more difficult to get good feedback from players, feedback that is actionable and non-biased. A background in research methodology provides you with the skills you need to design studies that allow you to collect the appropriate type of feedback to help inform the development process.
So, how do you get started in user research?
In five easy steps:
- Play a lot of games. And a lot of different types of games. When you’re playing a game, do so critically. Think about what works and doesn’t work in this game. How would you tweak the game or a component of the game to make it better? How would those tweaks impact other areas of the game?
- Write. A lot. Much of my time is spent writing reports about studies I’ve run. After you’ve played a game, write a critique of the game focusing issues that detracted from your experience and how you would tweak the game to make it better. Send your reports to your friends and colleagues and try to convince them of the Truth of Your Word.
- Go to school. If you’re in high school, stay in school and prepare yourself for 6+ years of school after you graduate. Then go get a college degree. Any undergraduate degree will do but make sure you learn how to write well, how to think critically, and how to work with others. While you’re in school getting that degree, pick up some research design and statistics skills. The social sciences are good for that. (You’ll need those skills to get into a graduate school, see below)
- Go to graduate school for a degree in Human Factors or Ergonomics or Research Psychology (applied, social, or cognitive are good). While in grad school focus your research and studies on game related topics. Make sure it’s applied, though. Nobody outside of academia knows what the big ludology/narratology debates are about.
- Graduate! When you graduate with your degree you should be ready for the glamorous and lucrative world of user research. Hopefully by then every publisher and developer will have in-house user researchers, so finding a position won’t be difficult …. If that’s not the case, check www.mgsuserresearch.com; we may be hiring.
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