The (Usable) World is Not Enough: Making Games More Fun

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Speaker
Bill Fulton and Keith Steury
User-testing Group, Microsoft Games

When
-

Where
Wean Hall 7500

Description

Games have to be fun, not just “usable,” in order to be successful. This additional criterion for success requires different approaches to gathering feedback from users that improve the games. This talk is about the methods the User-testing Group at Microsoft Game Studios have adapted and developed to investigate and measure “fun.” We will discuss how we employ these methods to both decrease usability problems and increase the fun in our games. We will give a tour through the beginning of the game “Halo” (Game of the Year in 2001) and show where user-testing work resulted in improvements in the game.

Speaker's Bio

Bill Fulton is a founder of the User-Testing Group for Microsoft Games, which uses psychological research methods to get feedback that improves the usability and fun of games published by Microsoft. Since 1998, the group has tested 13,000+ gamers playing 100+ different games including Age of Kings, Halo and Zoo Tycoon, to name a few. Prior to working at Microsoft, Bill did 4 years of post-graduate training in Cognitive & Quantitative Psychology at the University of Washington, studying how people form judgments and make decisions, and how to meaningfully quantify theoretical ideas.

Keith Steury has worked in Microsoft Game Studios’ User-testing Group for two years. During this time, he conducted 50 studies on the attitudes and behaviors of over 1200 gamers in an effort to improve games. He has worked as the user-testing project lead on over 10 different titles including NFL Fever and Halo. Prior to working at Microsoft Game Studios, Keith received his Master’s degree at the University of Washington in cognitive psychology, and spent nine months at Microsoft Research doing usability testing on Speech Recognition software.

Host
Randy Pausch