Case study: Netent
Netent are a market leader in the igaming industry. An online video slots provider with a portfolio of over 200+ games, they have numerous gaming awards and always strive for perfection.
Research Objectives
With an ever-growing library of online video slots, Netent wanted to ensure that their upcoming games provided the best experience possible. They understood that placing the user at the heart of development was crucial for this, and the best way to do this was to get feedback directly from them.
The main aspects that Netent wanted to focus on were enjoyment, usability and understanding. By gathering feedback and improving these, this would ensure that players found each new game a fun experience, whilst also being blocker-free and easy to use.
The launch of each new video slot is crucial and requires a ‘right-first-time’ approach. Netent were also hoping that by placing their games in front of players, they could remove any potential issues before launch.
The main research questions for Netent were:
- Are Netent games enjoyable to play and exciting for the player?
- Are Netent games easy to use, and clearly understandable?
- Do upcoming games contain any launch-affecting issues or major blockers?
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Andra Mirica
Business Performance and Player Testing Analyst, NetentOur Approach
Netent wanted to approach games development with a user-centred focus. The best method to tackle their objectives was to utilise a one-to-one usability test. Utilising this, participants interacted with their game and gave feedback across all aspects of the slot. We have carried out testing with hundreds of participants across many different titles.
Within each session, our expert moderators elicited unbiased feedback from participants, gathering the reasons WHY behind player opinions, behaviour and suggestions. Finding out the detail behind these problems is crucial to finding the solution and this was a core focus for Gutsy Ninja.
Throughout the process, Netent were able to view live sessions either in-person or through a live stream. This helped bring the feedback to life and show the real users that they are developing for. After each round of testing, the data was collated, analysed and organised into a concise report. These were visual, with prioritised findings and clear recommendations based on evidence gathered.
Impact & Results
Over several rounds of testing, Netent gained extensive feedback across all aspects of their games. Feedback on enjoyment and excitement helped Netent ensure that games were fun for users to play. Findings here led to changes in the core mechanics and features of some games to be more aligned with player expectations, and in many cases exceed them.
- Design feedback helped tweak the aesthetics of the games and ensured they were at the cutting-edge of modern slot graphics. Insights into art styles, themes, symbols and animations all helped Netent retain their edge over competitors.
- Usability and ‘understanding’ feedback helped Netent provide players with an easy-to-use experience, resolving issues that would cause some players to leave the game out of frustration. This was fundamental for ensuring a successful launch.
In addition to the individual game feedback, testing this many players allowed us to generate trends in typical player behaviour and to see patterns developing across the player base. Here, Netent were able to segment different player groups and even see differences between players in different countries.
As Gutsy Ninja continued to work with Netent, the research was able to evolve and adapt to each individual project to ensure the most important findings were gathered. Through the research, Netent came to truly value feedback from their users and saw how crucial it is to place the user at the heart of the product. They felt this so strongly that they even ran multiple rounds of testing on the same game, to validate changes and improvements that they had made from the previous round.