A story of a Serious Games researcher and his playtesters!

1. The Smart Researcher
A Story by Laila Shoukry
(Teaser for my 2nd Research Talk
at KOM - TU Darmstadt 25.07.2016)

2. Once upon a time there were three Playtesters.

3. Each of them was contacted by a Serious Games
Researcher to playtest a serious game.

4. Playtester 1 was invited to a lab where the
researcher was observing him testing.

5. It was a little difficult to naturally play the game
while the researcher was asking questions..

6. Well, let’s say it was very difficult.

7. After doing this all week where some days no
playtester showed up, Researcher1 was really tired.
X X

8. Then she had to make sense of all this data!

9. The Serious Games Research Community was
very disappointed.

10. Playtester 2 was invited to a lab with LOTS of
sensors.

11. After some time, it wasn’t that funny any
more..

12. The other playtesters either ran away or
asked for more money when they saw this.

13. But although researcher2 had only three
playtesters left, he needed four weeks of sleepless
nights to review and analyze the data.

14. And after all his work and waste of money, he
had poor and conflicting results.

15. The research community didn’t like this.

16. In the meantime, Researcher3 was sleeping
at home while his game was being playtested.

17. His playtesters from all around the world
were having fun at their own homes.

18. They relaxed and played naturally without
any interventions.

19. All the data was ready for him and easy to
analyze.

20. He kept doing more
research and
improving his
outcomes.

21. His research was of great benefit for the
Serious Games Research Community.

22. How did the smart
researcher do it?
More on this in my research talk..
Thank you for your attention!