Lol this reddit thread is funny, OP correctly points out that testing your game on non-games is very useful and very good, and half the comments are yelling at him and warning that "non gamers aren't your audience! they wont buy games! don't water it down for CASUALS" www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/co... - ThreadSky

tylerglaiel.com • 7 days ago

Lol this reddit thread is funny, OP correctly points out that testing your game on non-games is very useful and very good, and half the comments are yelling at him and warning that "non gamers aren't your audience! they wont buy games! don't water it down for CASUALS"

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1klh1d5/i_invited_nongamers_to_playtest_and_it_changed/

Comments

uxwd87.bsky.social•7 days ago

I love this

lordsomtnorotr.bsky.social•7 days ago

A technique I heard was to invest in a bunch of pizza, a decently sized space, and invite people to come try out a build of what you're working on. From there, just watch people play and give no instructions as you take notes. Might be too much an investment for dinky solo devs, I dunno, but still

kaiakairos.net•7 days ago

the comments on that are all acting like you can't have multiple people playtest ur game lol. just do both. if youre serious about it you will do both

ninjinister.bsky.social•6 days ago

I realized pretty long ago that "casuals" are going to be who makes up a majority of the audience of any one thing. It's also how you can get sales/hits/whatever metric to *increase* rather than being stagnant.

ninjinister.bsky.social•6 days ago

There probably is a good reason in most cases to appeal to those who have been with you the whole way in the cases of a pre-existing audience or at least fans of the genre already, but in a "holy shit two cakes" way.

konjak.org•7 days ago

If more devs did this we wouldn't have big action games that expect half the time spent in menus and menus

majorarlene.net•7 days ago

and also you can make a gamer out of a nongamer if you appeal to them! this is how the industry grows!

tylerglaiel.com•7 days ago

This isn't even the main reason for testing with non-gamers, its just a really quick way to identify UX or terminology issues and blind spots.

majorarlene.net•7 days ago

oh for sure, but I hate these arguments that making the game appeal to non-Gamers is somehow a bad idea. it's not always if the game is good.

benevogames.bsky.social•7 days ago

I’d just do it so no one would point out the faults in my game

Therefore…
Perfection ✨

zyk.bsky.social•7 days ago

lol these people are VASTLY overestimating the average players skill and game literacy

kingsigy.bsky.social•7 days ago

You'd think it would be super useful so that you can create quicker ways to present information to people who aren't informed or have forgotten, but I guess CASUALS!

ttzera.bsky.social•7 days ago

When I tried to have a friend that never plays any games to play Viewfinder and they weren't doing things that are pretty obvious to me I realized how many things we just assume people will know and how this can be alienating/harmful

I really value accessibility options these days
And hate gamers

lizzellw.bsky.social•6 days ago

There’s gamers and then Gamers(tm) I’ll let you guess which ones are the toxic ones

soulware.us•6 days ago

so much of this thread seems stuck in the mindset of catering to non-gamers meaning: bogging down your game with tedious tutorials, "hand-holding", etc. but it doesn't have to be that way! obviously lots of creative design space here and it's disappointing to see the prevailing opinion is otherwise

soulware.us•6 days ago

& things like tutorials seem overhated when people are stuck on specific examples and aren't thinking of all the games that onboarded them so smoothly they didn't notice it

tylerglaiel.com•7 days ago

I mean I knew r/gamedev is full of gamers cosplaying so they can yell at devs and pretend its an informed opinion, this thread really shows that lmao

tylerglaiel.com•7 days ago

this is correct because I guarantee this guy hasn't made a game and so nobody is his audience lmao

bloodmoonapologist.bsky.social•6 days ago

Also... how do they think the hardcore audience became hardcore?

bento-bongos.bsky.social•7 days ago

I remember this was one of the pillars of the original gamergate.

velwren.vtubers.social•7 days ago

I am going to make my game accessible in terms of features for those with disabilities, but it is going to be miserable.

It's an "art piece" about suffering, using dungeon crawler gameplay to deliver the message.

(Also I'm using sword of moonlight, so it's just naturally going to be kinda jank.)

mjc0961.bsky.social•6 days ago

What

Do they remember that there was a time where they hadn't played any game in their life

Everybody has to have their first game

What the fuck

wonderj.me•7 days ago

It's 2025, why are we still having this "hardcore vs casual" debate from 2010?

cannibal.holiday•7 days ago

That guy is one of the types that were around all the way back in 2001 when it was highly recommended to everyone at the studio I was at to "stay out of the forums" because the loudest voices in the forums are always a tiny minority of jackasses :)

jels.bsky.social•7 days ago

This guy also has no idea how impactful reaching out to a typically non-gaming audience is too, like hello, did we all just conveniently forget how impactful the Wii STILL IS?

krgamestudios.bsky.social•7 days ago

Is it really that bad?

krgamestudios.bsky.social•7 days ago

Wow, a lot of those users are kind of new to this...

nikthenak.bsky.social•7 days ago

I feel like r/gamedev is like 99% terrible and 1% actual useful and it's hard to sort

sentient6.bsky.social•6 days ago

@docseuss.bsky.social

docseuss.bsky.social•6 days ago

Correct

theaboyboy.bsky.social•6 days ago

"Lord Gaben says" jfc lmao

jagriff.bsky.social•7 days ago

Getting people not in your target audience to play your game can be extremely valuable because they will find SO MANY issues. You just have to be knowledgeable enough about your genre / target audience to know which issues you should address. Chances are there will be many that need fixing.

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