Asking players questions about their experience playing games can be so useful that we've made it a standard component that you can add to your playtests.
The following three questions are included by default on all playtest types. Unless you turn them off, we will ask them regardless of whether or not you choose to add your own survey questions:
How much fun did you have playing this game? Rate from 1 (least fun) to 10 (most fun).
How likely is it that you would play this game again? Rate from 1 (least likely) to 10 (most likely).
How likely is it that you would recommend this game to a friend? Rate from 1 (least likely) to 10 (most likely).
Reminder: You can ask ten survey questions for all playtest types.
The five-star ratings
On the right side of the video player page under the Survey section there are three sets of five-star ratings with the following labels: Fun, Would play again?, and Would recommend?
The questions match up with the five-star ratings as follows:
How much fun did you have playing this game? = Fun
How likely is it that you would play this game again? = Would play again?
How likely is it that you would recommend this game to a friend? = Would recommend?
The five-star ratings come from the answers to the three questions and are calculated as one point per half-star. For example, if a player rates your game 8/10 for the question "How much fun did you have playing this game?", then your Fun star rating would be four out of five.
The five-star ratings also appear on the Playtests page of PlaytestCloud, so you can quickly see the average rating of all players, giving you an overview of how the players received your game.
Typically, it's a good idea to look closer at videos with especially negative or positive ratings.
In addition to asking your own questions via the included survey editor (during the playtest setup process), you can also ask players follow-up questions up-to four weeks after a playtest is complete.
Keep in mind that players are not obligated to reply to follow up questions, unlike the survey questions, which players are required to answer.
Interpreting the star ratings
Remember: if you're running small studies focusing on usability, quantitative survey questions (like these star ratings) should not be the main source of your research insights.
Instead, look to your videos and listen to what your players are saying, both in thinkaloud and in their free text survey responses.
This isn't to say that these star ratings - and other quantitative survey questions - aren't useful in a small study. In fact, you can use them to provide context and richness for the insights you get from the video. Maybe player A had a series of misunderstandings during the initial tutorial, and the star ratings for that player tell you that they had a bad experience with the game overall. This will tell you the importance of the FTUE in your game: early misunderstandings could be having a big impact on the overall perceptions of the experience.
A rule of thumb here? If you have 5 sets of quantitative survey responses, don't think about averages: instead treat these as five little case studies with your game. Read the survey responses for each player in tandem with your analysis.
And if you do want to examine appreciation and fun in your game, you may need to run a study with a larger sample if you want to feel more confident about those insights; a typical appreciation study aims for around 30-50 players per targeting group.
Next steps
Questions? Reach out to us by opening the chat bubble in the lower right corner of your screen.
Happy playtesting!