A excellent piece on why 'Design by Reddit' is a terrible replacement for actual user research. Keeping a finger on the pulse of social media sentiment can be an important *complement* to understanding your users (and even add context to your research responses), but can't replace #GamesUR

Xbox Research is looking for feedback on accessibility options in video games!

The IGDA GURSIG is happy to announce the #gamesUR Summit 2026 in Helsinki, Finland this May 2026. We look forward to connecting our community again! Keep an eye on our website for details. www.gamesur.com/coming-soon-... #GamesUR #UserResearch #GameDev

This is the core issue with tools promising to automate playtest/UR data analysis. We run studies to find new answers. Hallucinations create plausible sounding answers. There’s no way to identify what the hallucinations are without doing the same analysis yourself.

Last year I ran a lot of playtests on “difficult” games - it was a big year for soulslikes. One challenge came up again and again: How do you handle difficulty in a genre that’s famous for being hard?

“How did we make Wizards good? We asked players which bits were bad, then fixed them” Love the focus on playtesting for running a sustainable game studio.

This month our interview series spoke to Sharkmob’s Brynley Gibson about user research for live service games and balancing data with creativity. gamesuserresearch.com/how-sharkmob...

It’ll be sad when Jools does his last Hootenanny. Lucky it won’t be in our lifetimes.

51 books this year, similar pace to last year. Some favourites I read for the first time in 2026: - Klara and the Sun ☀️ - Lincoln in the Bardo 🪦 - Strange Pictures 🖼️ - Time for lights out ⛄️ - Politics on the edge 🏛️

New from my blog: The only winning move is not to play https://gregg.io/the-only-winning-move "Let’s not debase ourselves as user researchers further"

It's been a while! But we're pleased to say that all our micro talks from our event are live on Youtube 🥳 www.youtube.com/@GameAccessi... Huge thanks to our wonderful speakers!

forgive me for the quick promo, but my first FREE game is almost at 50 reviews on steam, only 10 more to go! as a reward, i'm planning on setting up a 50% off discount code for my patreon when the game hits 50 reviews. more info below, but EVERY REVIEW helps! #gamedev #indiedev #solodev #indiegame

“But for me it was Tuesday, Charlie Brown”

Listening to Mr Blue Sky in five second bursts, spread over a year, whenever my phone forgets i’m listening to a podcast and defaults to Apple Music

On to the last episode of Dispatch. Enjoyed this very much - looking forward to another playthrough with different choices. The comics have been fun too!

I’ve accidentally lit the beacon, and now Rohan’s army will be here in five days. Does anyone know if there is a call-out fee?

So unbelievably hooked on Hades 2. Started this weekend and can’t stop with new runs.

Had a session as a research participant today, which was enlightening. I could see a number of factors where the platform could have lead to me not knowing when or how to join the session - potentially creating no-shows. Worth checking the participant experience for the platform you use!

Your idea ain't shit if it don't playtest well.

Excellent this is now Steam Deck optimised - jumped to the top of my weekend to-play list!

AI in “can’t deliver when anyone cares about the quality of the output” shocker.

Our team are running user research concerning games accessibility. This is a paid research session open to UK residents. Please register your interest below if you are interested in taking part. @researchi.bsky.social www.researchi.co.uk/projects/RI9...

Huge fan of previous Size Five games - in particular Behold The Kickmen, and Lair Of The Clockwork God. Looking forward to what’s next!

Tom Arnold on this list also confirms True Lies 2… still waiting!

With the invention of the .webp format, humanity has finally achieved it’s goal of creating an image format no-one can open.

Played ‘and Roger’ this weekend. Can’t say too much about it, but it will stick with me for a long time.

A lot of my work has been from the perspective of user researchers - so I’m really excited about this new series of playtesting interviews showing a different viewpoint - starting with experienced producer Tom O’Connor: gamesuserresearch.com/how-to-build...

The Age of Man is … approx a couple of weeks?

Puzzle gaming today - played through Time Flies, and Ooo, with Blue Prince next. I always think puzzle games are interesting from a playtesting perspective - specifically how to balance the intended difficulty bs frustration.

Worryingly, life membership of the Tate is only 25 years. What do they know that I don't?

It’s been such a bonkers couple of weeks, but this is HUGE news and affirmation for my new #gameDev book. If endorsements from folks like Will Wright and Jesse Schell and @stevebromley.bsky.social weren’t enough, we’re being featured by Kirkus Reviews as a recommendation in their print mag Oct 15. 💜

My experience in many games

I recently enjoyed the book LAN Party, with its many pictures bringing back memories of late, nerdy, nights.

I really liked the mechanic in I Am Alive of bullets being very scarce in the post-apocalyptic world, making each shot a concious and costly decision. It also ended on a cliffhanger - would be fun to see it come back!

Concerned seeing teams rely on automated analysis of think-aloud data to find usability issues with games. In complex systems like games, players often don’t know they are experiencing issues or haven’t understood correctly. You need to watch them, and ask questions, to uncover this!

Game development is a challenging environment for user researchers, because we can’t rely on user needs as the baseline for our studies. Good playtesting will push teams first to define “what are we trying to make”, & then iterate that vision based on seeing players interactions.

Really excited to see this announced - It’s been fantastic supporting Fireshine and the @denshattack.bsky.social team with research for this - a very stylish and fun game!

The Coolest Thing From Gamescom ONL Was This Wild Train Game

It was: Gone Home Thirty Flights of Loving Papers Please Stanley Parable The Beginners Guide … I was mostly a console player.

Some early thinking of what levers we can pull on, to help encourage game development stakeholders to prioritise (and act on) research studies. New article on this coming up shortly, which will be shared on the mailing list at gamesuserresearch.com.

Picked up this new hardware “synthetic user”. Will be using it for research studies where teams accept AI participants - saves on SaaS subscription fees.

I’ve been on training run by Clara before and it was hugely impactful - strong recommend if you’re running workshops or facilitating sessions:

I'm going to run Advocating for UCD training course online in October. If you'd like to attend, please fill in this survey to let me know which of these dates works for you forms.gle/nUVUTxu1Lriz... If you have any colleagues who might be interested, please send it on to them as well.

My experience of side quests in Elden Ring: - Meet a new NPC. - Not see them again for 20 hours. - Hear that they died.

Good insight into how games user research, and marketing helps publishers. In this article, Martin Wein suggests using 10% of your marketing budget for studies.

If you’re at Develop, pick up a copy of MCV/Develop magazine, to see this handsome chap in print (and in person!)

I think the entire time I worked as a designer on Fallen London, including the last couple years as its lead creative, I had about zero conversations about 'fun'.

This year we're excited to be hosting the Game Accessibility Gathering remotely as well as in person! Here's what to expect if you're joining us remote: 🧵 1/5

Spotify assumes you’re done with an audiobook after you’re 90% through, and stops showing it on the homepage. Presumably this logic works for podcasts, but surprisingly I want to hear the end of the books I listen to.