Customer Driven Game Development

Purpose and goal

This project aims to develop user centered methodologies for innovation and idea generation within the field of game development to be used throughout the entire development phase. This will help the Swedish gaming industry to maintain its leading position. The project has succeeded in identifying methods for user involvement. How this will effect the business is too early to say.

Expected results and effects

An early and central conclusion of the project was that interaction with customers / players should revolve around ´fragments´ of the game, not complete game ideas. By presenting these to presumptive customers we were able to facilitate valuable feedback and idea generation that could be used in the development and adaptation of the game. What could be observed was that the customers interviewed had a reasoning was very similar to the developers. Many of their ideas were identical to the ideas of the developers. More useful was the negative feedback received on ideas and fragments.

Planned approach and implementation

The project was carried out in an iterative process where every interaction consisted of employee interaction, customer interaction, and workshops. The early iterations used a broad customer interaction while the latter focused on the types of interaction techniques that had proved most suitable to implement in real production.