Be a Games User Researcher
Run reliable games user research studies that inform and inspire game development.
Expert mentorship just a chat away, a supportive community, and the structure to succeed at your own pace.
Summer 2024 cohort is now closed. Join the waitlist to avoid missing our late 2024 group!
| ⭐ 4.7/5 rating | ⭐ At your own pace | ⭐ Supportive community |
| ⭐ Test real games | ⭐ Industry-ready methods | ⭐ Career help from an industry expert |
Kind words from our former students
…I highly recommend it to anyone in the field or interested in Games user research…
…a super exciting suprise and a new way to open my game career…
…helped me land some freelance work with a major studio…
…Everything I learned in the course became fundamental in my job…
Helping people become games user researchers at…
Becoming a confident games user researcher can feel like a long journey…
Starting your games user research journey? Considering a new career? Already working in games?
There are three ways to know if this course is right for you:
You are the start of your career journey
You’re ready to apply for roles, but not standing out from the competition, and are wondering why
You already work in UX, but want to move into games
You’re looking to apply your skills in a field you can feel passionate about
You work in games, and want to develop professional quality user research skills
You’re aware that there are unbiased and scientific ways of testing your game, and want to be able to deploy them in your role
Regardless of your path, the journey can feel punishing – uncertainty about whether you have the right knowledge, how best to apply it to game development, and what you need to know to stand out.
It feels overwhelming.
…but together, we can build INDUSTRY QUALITY RESEARCH SKILLS
Games User Research is a competitive field, because people are passionate about games. It means you can combine academic or industry research expertise, with working on products that people genuinely care deeply about.
Your expertise will make games that players love, and make a positive difference to top titles.
get prepared with Games User Research
This course is purpose-built to help you get ready for applying user research skills into the games industry.
Get hands on experience planning, running and analysing games user research and ensure you’re ready to apply your expertise to game development.
Be confident deciding when and where to apply research methods throughout the game development process, learn common strategies for games user research, and be able to inspire and influence game teams.
Learn how to apply and adapt your existing skillset, to become a confident and successful games user researcher.
Work with real player data, and gain practical experience that you wouldn’t get from a book.
Ultimately – improve your chances of working in an industry that combines your passion with your professional skills (or just become more valuable in your current role!).
The best place to learn industry-ready games user research
Led By Expert Games User Researcher Steve Bromley
I am an experienced user researcher, who has worked in the games industry for over a decade.
I work with publishers, platforms and studios of all sizes from indies to AAA to run playtests, and integrate user research into the game development process. I’ve spent over 25,000 hours with players!
Prior to this I was a senior user researcher for PlayStation and worked on many of their top European titles, including Horizon Zero Dawn, SingStar, the LittleBigPlanet series and the PlayStation VR lineup. I’ve been recognised in the UK as a member of BAFTA.
I regularly lecture at universities, and accelerator courses, and started the IGDA’s Games User Research mentoring scheme, which has linked hundreds of students with industry professionals from top games companies such as Sony, EA, Valve, Ubisoft and Microsoft.
This inspired my bestselling book How To Be A Games User Researcher which shares the expertise needed to work in the games industry, and has over 50 5-star reviews on Amazon.
I created this course to help people take confident steps into the games industry, and find a career they can feel passionate about.
Who IS THIS COURSE FOR?
Hear from games user research alumni
I highly recommend it to anyone in the field or interested in Games user research…
It offers a comprehensive understanding of all essential aspects of games user research, from understanding team intentions and conducting usability reviews to creating surveys and reporting data… It’s a treasure trove of information for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of games user research.
The course was exactly what I wanted… full of hands on projects – not only honing my skills but boosting my confidence in interviews.
Everything I learned in the course became fundamental in my job.
I was in a work slump, and wanted to learn something new to get a new career…
It opened my eyes on UX research, and my own approach to video games.
As a professional designer… I wanted to learn about the unique needs for games user research.
This was eye-opening, and this knowledge will help me in my career.
I’ve been teaching market and user research for twenty years now… and wanted to learn more about research in the games industry.
Steve has developed a fantastic course to practice the skills you’ll need, and connect you to a community of professionals. I would give this course the highest of recommendations.
I got a part-time job from what I learned in this course!
I used the knowledge and the research template from the course to research the demo of a Chinese mobile game, which impressed the producer of the game. He shared my research with their team and they invited me to join them!
As a student just graduated from the university last month, this is a super exciting surprise and a new way to open my game career.
Making the transition from mainstream user research into games hasn’t been easy and I have had a lot of rejection along the way. I have finally started getting interviews and getting to the final stage of interviews.
I owe a huge thank you to Steve. His book ‘How to be a Games User Researcher’ was so helpful and practical.
Following his guidance in his book and taking his course helped me to land some freelance work with a major studio.
He was available for questions and even has office hours where I was able to get feedback on my portfolio and CV – helping me land an interview at my dream company.
Steve helped me find an opportunity to work with an indie studio. They were looking for someone to help with conducting user research for their prototypes.
I applied what I learned from Steve’s course and performed different user research activities – from formulating research objectives and deciding what types of questions to include in the survey to analyzing the player feedback for actionable insights.
This was a great experience for me to practice the skills I learned and get a sense of what it’s like working in games user research.
I’m super grateful for Steve’s support and highly recommend checking out his plethora of resources for getting into games user research. Thanks again, Steve!
What you will learn
(Not just theory – practical activities will let you practice these skills throughout using real playtest data!)
🧱 How Games Get Made – The game production process, and where to integrate UX research and playtesting to make games better
🔬 User Research Methods – Popular research methods, including interviews, usability tests and survey design and when to deploy them
👩🔬 Qualitative User Research – Run a complete study, including code screening, designing the study, moderating, analysis and debriefing your first user research study.
📊 Quantitative User Research – Design and analyse a survey, working with real player data.
💼 Career Skills – Access powerful techniques for making a career in games, including how to design your CV, and succeed when applying for jobs.
➕ Regular guest lectures, deep diving on 🔥 topics such as statistics, VR testing, accessibility, interview skills and more…
Included: Run a real User Research Study
Starting this Summer, we’ve partnered with PlaytestCloud to offer all students over $1500 of playtest credits for remote research.
Design and run your own study with real players, run moderated and unmoderated studies, interviews and surveys – all included in the price of the course!
You will develop your own industry-quality work, supported by our active community, and come away with real industry experience you can share.
Included: A supportive Community
Its dangerous to go alone…luckily you won’t have to.
Alongside the self-paced course, you will have access to a supportive community of game professionals, and people looking to progress into game development.
Join the community discord for live Q&As, regular guest speakers, feedback on your progress, job opportunities, and support on your journey.
Included: Regular Guest Industry Speakers…
Best Practices for Playtesting in VR
How To Run Concept Tests
UX Design For Games
Running Playtests With Kids
(And more!)
Access a library of expert speaker talks on topics such as Statistics for Games User Research, Transitioning from Academia and testing in VR, with new talks added regularly – and opportunities to meet the experts.
Affordable, straightforward pricing
Fundamentals
$429
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Learn Games User Research at your own pace with lifetime access to 60+ videos
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Qualitative & Quantitative methods
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Work with real playtest data
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Support and guidance from Steve & the supportive community
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Run your own study with $1500+ tokens for PlaytestCloud
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Bonus industry guest lessons
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Bonus Pokemon Unite Playtest data
Professional
$549
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Everything in Fundamentals, PLUS…
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The Playtest Kit – every template and process needed to set up a high impact research team, used by hundreds of developers (worth $219)
Work with Steve
$1095
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Everything in Professional, PLUS…
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Run Your Study With Steve – Use your PlaytestCloud credits to plan and run a study on a real game, with 1:1 support from Steve
Let the industry know you ARE A games User Researcher
When you’ve completed the course, you’ll be ready to run qualitative and quantitative user research studies in the games industry – and have the certificate to prove it.
Perfect for your LinkedIn profile and to show future employers!
The guarantee
I care more about advocating for good research and helping you develop your skills than taking your money. Developing a career in games user research takes perseverance, and is a long-term commitment.
I’m confident this course will equip you with industry-appropriate research skills, but if you DO NOT feel more prepared for running games user research 90 days after you begin doing the work, I will try to work with you to identify what’s missing. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll give you a full refund.
FAQs
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Which version of the course is right for me?
This year, I’ve made multiple versions of the course. All will equip you with the skills required to start running industry-quality qualitative and quantitative research.
The Fundamentals tier is most relevant for people who are hoping to move into the games industry from studying, or a user research role in another sector, and will help you convert your skills and become industry ready.
The Professional tier is designed for people already working in the games industry, and includes the Playtest Kit, which has all of the processes and templates needed to establish a user research function – as well as some time with Steve to answer your questions, and help overcome any tricky user research issues.
The top tier is for people who would like to work 1:1 with me on planning and running their study, using the included PlaytestCloud credits. I’ll be active helping everyone in the community discord, but this gives us the freedom to spend more time 1:1 giving direct feedback on your study design, analysis and reporting.
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How long will the course take?
This is a self-paced course, and you can choose to go as slow or fast as you want!
If you’re just starting out, it will take longer than someone who has already run user research in another sector.
There are 60+ lessons, and lengths vary but expect to spend on average 10 to 30 minutes on each lesson, and approximately an hour on each of the activities (there are approximately 10 of them!).
The bonus activity – analysing a full playtest, is a longer term commitment, and will take a few days.
(Then stick with the community for bonus lessons, guest speakers, and more opportunities to develop your career)
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Is the course good?
I’m confident in saying Yes! The average student score from previous versions is 4.7 out of 5, and this new version has a huge amount of additional content.
I also wrote the bestselling book How To Be A Games User Researcher, which has over 50 5* ratings on Amazon – so you can be confident you’re in safe hands.
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Do I need any special software?
Nope – we work with free web-based software, such as Google Suite.
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I have a less frequently asked question…
That’s ok – contact Steve using the contact form in the top navigation, and he will answer it!
Dont miss out. Get on the waitlist!
Our cohorts only open a few times a year. Missed it? Enter your info below to join the mailing list and hear when our next cohort will run later in the year.