How to use these questions
Where possible, we try to provide survey response option scales that include:
Five or seven response points, in order to provide a reasonable trade off between granularity and ease of response,
A central neutral option,
Negative responses below the neutral response, and positive responses above it.
This structure allows us to assign positive, negative or neutral scores to responses (from -2 to +2, or -3 to +3) which can be helpful in visualising and communicating outcomes later on.
Some questions are scored in specific ways:
Where questions are reverse coded, this means that responses on the upper end of the scale are negative. If you want to compare these questions directly with other questions that are non reverse coded, you will need invert the scores.
Where questions are middle-optimal, this means that the most positive response is in the middle of the response scale. The lowest and highest scores here represent negative extremes: e.g. 'too hard' or 'too easy'.
These questions are not formally validated or part of a single tool or scale, so feel free to use individual items or modify questions for your current research goal. However, you might find more value in them by using them repeatedly, whether across multiple playtests, or in some cases, on multiple days on a longitudinal playtest. This way you can track changes to these responses over time, especially where you have enough players to aggregate responses.
I always knew when I was playing against other real players
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Strongly disagree
2 – Disagree
3 – Somewhat disagree
4 – Neither agree or disagree
5 – Somewhat agree
6 – Agree
7 – Strongly agree
Compared to other players I played against, overall I felt..
1 – Much more skillful
2 – Somewhat more skillful
3 – Slightly more skillful
4 – About as skilful as them
5 – Slightly less skillful
6 – Somewhat less skillful
7 – Much less skillful
I always knew when I was playing against bots
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Strongly disagree
2 – Disagree
3 – Somewhat disagree
4 – Neither agree or disagree
5 – Somewhat agree
6 – Agree
7 – Strongly agree
It was clear how to start a match/game with other real players
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Strongly disagree
2 – Disagree
3 – Somewhat disagree
4 – Neither agree or disagree
5 – Somewhat agree
6 – Agree
7 – Strongly agree
I felt that I was matched up against players who were..
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Much more skillful than me
2 – Somewhat more skillful than me
3 – Slightly more skillful than me
4 – About as skilful as me
5 – Slightly less skillful than me
6 – Somewhat less skillful than me
7 – Much less skillful than me
My performance was negatively affected by the game's controls
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – Strongly disagree
2 – Disagree
3 – Somewhat disagree
4 – Neither agree or disagree
5 – Somewhat agree
6 – Agree
7 – Strongly agree
The controls worked well for this type of game
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Strongly disagree
2 – Disagree
3 – Somewhat disagree
4 – Neither agree or disagree
5 – Somewhat agree
6 – Agree
7 – Strongly agree