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How to playtest my own released games with experienced players?
How to playtest my own released games with experienced players?

Playtest with players who already have your game downloaded on their phones using our “Competitor Testing” mode.

Alex Flint avatar
Written by Alex Flint
Updated over a week ago

There is a simple way to playtest a game made by your studio with experienced players playing on their own account, assuming the game has already been released on the Google Play Store: PlaytestCloud's Competitor Testing.

Although the name "Competitor Testing" might seem counterintuitive, a competitor playtest is a good fit for this scenario: Using our specialized PlaytestCloud recording app, we can run playtests on any game in the Google Play Store – including your own!

To playtest with experienced players we offer two options:

  1. We can find and recruit these players from our player pool as part of a Custom Targeting request

  2. You can Bring Your Own Players from your game's community invite them to your playtest through PlaytestCloud


Ordering a Competitor Test

Placing an order for a competitor playtest is super simple and can be achieved in 4 easy steps:

1. Set up your playtest as normal in the order form. Letting us know the playtest type and key target audience demographics.

2. Go to the Google Play or App Store page of the game you would like to test and copy the hyperlink.

3. Paste the URL into the Upload your game section of the order form (under the a Mobile Game option) then click Submit.

4. After a brief check of the URL you will see a confirmation of the game you selected:

Confirmation message reads: Gardenscapes. Android. Bundle identifier: com.playrix.gardenscapes. Specified via Google Play Store link.

And that’s it! Configure the rest of your playtest as desired and then submit your order.


Targeting specific players

Once you've added the your game to the playtest you can then define which players you would like to target:

In the Specify your target audience section of the order form, you can set up different parameters and demographics for the players who'll play your game. To do this select Use PlaytestCloud testers and Pick with specific targeting.

From here you can select the player's age range, gender, location, gamer type, gaming history, and device type (for iOS). For our customers on the Professional and Enterprise plans all targeting without unique special requests are included in the base video token price.

Players who like...

If you select ‘Players who like…’ on the order form, and then select one or multiple genres or specific games from the drop-down menus, we invite players to your playtest that have added at least one of the listed games, or at least one game in any of the requested genres, to their profiles.

We have 56 game genres to choose from, and we have also included a number of popular game titles. If a specific game you want to target isn’t listed, you can also create a custom audience request for players of that game (see Custom Targeting below).

Players inexperienced with...

When you select ‘Players inexperienced with…’ and choose one or multiple genres or games, we will only invite players that have not added any of the specified games, or any games in the selected genres, to their profiles.

While this system works great most of the time, there are instances where players' profiles might not perfectly reflect what they like to play or aren’t experienced with. This can result in a player being invited to your playtest that doesn't meet your ideal target audience. If this happens, you can use the report video feature on the player’s video page to let us know, and we will address the issue during normal business hours.

Custom Targeting

If you require a target audience that is not available through the playtest order form, we can try and find these players for you. It costs more than a standard targeted player (i.e. a player available through the order form) and may mean a slightly longer turnaround time on the playtest, so please keep that in mind!

There are two ways to come to us with your custom targeting request:

  • If you're not ready to start your playtest yet, reach out to us with details on the target audience you'd like to reach. We'll get back to you with a quote right away.

  • If you're ready to start your order, you can also include a description of the target audience you'd like to reach directly in the order form. In the target audience section, choose 'add custom target audience' and describe the target audience that you're looking to reach.

An example of a request might be : "We are building a mobile game based on the popular board game Power Grid. Could you please recruit players who have experience playing the board game?"

To learn how to get the most out of custom targeting with PlaytestCloud, check out this article about special audience targeting.

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