A Survey of Game Usability Practices in Northern European Game Companies

Abstract. In today’s heavily competitive game market, it has become very important to make a game that stands out from the other games. Even though the game design might not be very unique, a game can still offer a better playing experience by having a better usability than a similar game with worse usability. The human-computer interaction research could provide game companies with the practical tools and methods needed to improve the game usability. This study investigates the views of the Northern European game companies on the concept of game usability, the extent to which the game companies utilize usability methods, and the methods they use. Data from two surveys conducted in Northern European game companies were analyzed; the unit of analysis of the survey data was company. The respondents – professionals with different roles in game development – regarded usability as a broad concept and rated it as having high importance in games. Game companies used multitude of usability methods, but these methods and their usage have not stabilized. Surprisingly, only a few game companies used heuristic evaluation, mostly employing in-house game usability heuristics