Developers should not polish games based only on their intuition, friends or other developers. They need evidence from their target players.
This should actually be divided into two related disciplines.
Part A: Qualitative research
Teach developers how to:
- Recruit people who resemble the target audience.
- Watch players without explaining the game to them.
- Use think-aloud testing.
- Ask non-leading questions.
- Separate bugs, usability problems, confusion and personal preferences.
- Identify the moment a player understands—or abandons—the game.
- Turn player comments into testable hypotheses.
PlaytestCloud is particularly strong here because it records gameplay, audio and interactions while adding transcripts and surveys for qualitative context. It also supports moderated research and targeted player recruitment.
Part B: Quantitative analytics
Teach developers to instrument:
- Game loaded.
- Game started.
- Tutorial started and completed.
- First core action.
- First success.
- First failure.
- Level or quest started.
- Level or quest completed.
- Session duration.
- Return sessions.
- Monetization events.
They should understand funnels, cohorts, retention, completion rates and experiments—not merely total plays.