How to Become a Games User Researcher
Games are a multi-billion dollar industry, with revenue of over $360 billion predicted for 2023. There are over 3 billion players worldwide.
Gaming is big business, and globally game developers invest in user research and UX to ensure their games are enjoyable and usable. Games user research, the structured practice of testing games, is a growing field in the games industry and is recognized as an essential part of the process to de-risk game development.
In this Master Class, Games User Research expert, Steve Bromley, will walk you through the fundamentals of games user research, how it informs games throughout development and how to start a career in games user research. This webinar will serve as an introduction to this topic, with more advanced sessions to come in future.
In this Master Class, you’ll learn
- What games user research is.
- Where games user research has an impact on the game development process, and how it helps de-risk game design decisions.
- The methods and approaches practiced in the games industry.
- The nuances that make user research in games different from mainstream UX.
- What you need to know to start your own career in games user research, or to start testing games yourself.
This Master Class is for anyone interested in user research for games and for researchers who want to transition from other industries to games UX research.
Speaker
Steve Bromley has been working with the games industry for over a decade, running playtests and helping companies create their own UX research process.
Previously, 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 launch lineup.
Steve started the 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 regularly speaks at games industry conferences and podcasts about games user research and playtesting, and wrote the bestselling book How To Be A Games User Researcher to share the expertise needed to work in the games industry.
To learn more about Steve and to start your own career in Games User Research, visit his website gamesuserresearch.com
Watch Now
Student, Professional and Company members of the Interaction Design Foundation enjoy a discounted member price:
Sign up for a membership or log in to save on all Master Classes!
Get A Certificate of Participation
You’ll get a certificate after every Master Class Webinar you attend. Use your Master Class Certificate to showcase that you got advice and insights from design masters through our webinar series.
Prove to managers and clients that you're committed to continuously upskilling yourself.
Organized by the Interaction Design Foundation
Get advice and insights from design masters through our webinar series. Learn more about how we are revolutionizing design education worldwide
Frequently Asked Questions
Why aren’t the Master Class webinars free of cost for members?
While the Master Class webinars aren’t free, they are open to both members and non-members of Interaction Design Foundation. While non-members pay $50 per webinar, members pay only $5. We charge this nominal fee to cover a few costs associated with producing the webinars, including:
The cost of using Zoom as our webinar partner. Zoom is one of the most reliable webinar hosting platforms, but it’s also one of the most expensive. We chose quality over affordability to bring you a better viewing experience, and the nominal fee we charge helps us cover these costs, without making the webinars expensive.
Along with the cost of Zoom, we also cover webinar costs associated with servers, payment gateways and code maintenance. In fact, 40 cents off every dollar in a transaction goes towards just the payment gateway alone!
Charging this small fee goes a long way in helping us cover these costs and enables us to continue to bring you high-quality content with the best experts.
Will the Master Class webinar be recorded?
What happens if I can't attend a Master Class webinar live?
I’m a member, but when I try to register for the Master Class webinar, I’m being charged the non-member price. How can I get the discounted price for members?
If you use another email address, our system will not recognize you as a member. As long as you’re using the correct email address as a member, you will receive the special member price.
I just signed up for a Master Class webinar—what's next?
This email is sent from noreply@zoom.us so if you can’t locate it in your inbox, please check your Spam folder. If you still cannot locate this email, please reach out to mads.soegaard@interaction-design.org and we'll help you out!
I signed up for a Master Class webinar which aired recently, but I cannot find the recording in my email inbox. What can I do?
In case you have not received it, please search your Spam for an email from mads.soegaard@interaction-design.org received on the date of the webinar in question. If you still cannot locate it, please send an email to this very same email address and we will help you!
I missed registering for some of the Master Class webinars hosted in previous months. How can I get access to them now?
I’m a member, but I cannot see all the Master Classes I purchased on my profile. How can I find the ones that are missing?
After each Master Class broadcast, our video editors painstakingly edit, improve and enhance the quality of these recordings to give you a better experience—but this process takes time, and that’s why there’s sometimes a delay in making them available within your profile.
Until recent Master Class recordings appear in your profile, you can always playback any of the Master Classes you’ve purchased using the Zoom recording links you received after the broadcast. Can’t find these recording links? Then please email mads.soegaard@interaction-design.org for assistance.