The Playtesting Gap: Why Great Games Still Fail to Connect with Players

Playtest session

A publisher invests $5M in a promising indie studio. Internally, the game tests extremely well, the team have fun working on it, early testers appreciate the mechanics, and the production values inspire confidence. Marketing is optimistic. Everyone believes this will be a success.

It launches...

Week one goes well...

By week two, numbers begin to drop...

Within two months, player retention collapses. Steam reviews are mixed. The community goes quiet. Players move on to another game...

The game isn’t broken. It’s stable, well-crafted, and even genuinely fun at times, BUT it doesn’t click with players in a way that keeps them coming back. It fails to inspire the emotional connection and engagement that create passionate fan bases and lasting success.

This situation happens far more often in the industry than anyone admits. It’s not usually because of a lack of talent or funding, it’s because many teams still approach playtesting the wrong way.

Most studios DO test. They just test too late, with the wrong players, asking the wrong questions, and often ignore what those sessions truly reveal.

The Five Costly Playtesting Mistakes

Mistake 1: Testing too late

A pattern I have witnessed time and time again:

The dev team spend over a year in production, then begin meaningful playtesting a few months before launch. By that stage, core systems are locked and major changes are almost impossible.

When late testing exposes serious issues like weak engagement loops, confusing onboarding or balancing issues, only small tweaks can be made. It’s too late to fix the underlying problems.

The result? A game that looks great but doesn’t hold attention.

A better approach:

Engage and test your ideas as soon as possible, even if it’s just a pitch illustrated with concept art, rough prototypes or grey-box levels. Don’t aim to confirm that it’s “good”, aim to uncover what isn’t working while changes are still cheap and fast.

Mistake 2: Testing with the wrong people

Friends & Family want to be supportive. Studio members know the game too well to provide real insight. They already understand the intended systems and strategies. To them, everything feels intuitive.

But new players don’t have that context. When the game finally reaches them, they may find the tutorial unclear, the pacing too slow, or the mechanics confusing.

The consequence? You end up designing for an imaginary “super player” instead of the real one who has no prior knowledge, limited patience and no affect.

The fix:

Test with players who resemble your target audience but have never seen the game. Their frustration or confusion isn’t failure, it’s feedback about how clearly the design resonates.

At Game Changr, for example, we recruit experienced gamers (Pro players, streamers or industry professionals) with no attachment to the development team. Their honest, sometimes 'rough around the edges' feedback exposes the friction points that would otherwise hurt the game at launch.

Mistake 3: Focusing on features, not the full experience

Many teams approach testing as a checklist:

• “Does combat work?”,

• "Is crafting functional?”

• “Can players finish the tutorial?”

But games aren’t just the addition of all its features and mechanics, they’re emotional journeys, creative experiences. Every system affects the player’s overall experience.

A studio may design deep, strategic combat, but if players find it as chaotic button-mashing, the intent doesn’t matter. The systems work, but the feeling doesn’t.

A better way:

Observe how the whole experience unfolds. Where do players get excited? when do they lose interest? Which moments generate frustration?

Supergiant's Hades - 2020

Mistake 4: Treating playtesting as a final exam.

Some studios run one big test near the end and treat it like a final exam for the game. It's is extramely risky. One session can’t reveal everything, and discovering major issues late can be disastrous.

Instead, testing should be seen as an ongoing process of discovery, not validation.

You’re not trying to prove the game works, you’re trying to learn what truly engages players.

What works:

Frequent, small tests with few players every couple of weeks or a longitudinal research with a small community of expert gamers (eg. Our Spearheads communities), can identify recurring problems early. Over time, patterns emerge: what consistently works and generate excitement, what consistently frustrates, and what need rethinking.

Mistake 5: Ignoring what testing reveals

Perhaps the most damaging mistake is gathering feedback and... then ignoring it.

Maybe it challenges an original vision too restrictive, feels too costly to address, or conflicts with internal assumptions. We’ve seen studios identify clear problems (eg. poor onboarding or pacing issues) and explain them away.

“It will be fixed by a simple tweak.” “It's a problem with this session's build”, “It's mostly an UI problem”...

But when testers struggle with the same elements time and time again, it’s not a coincidence, it’s a design issue.

Patterns in feedback should be treated as data, not opinion. They are low signals that need to be taken into account.

What the Most Successful Studios Do Differently

Studios that consistently connect with players share a mindset.

They test concepts, not just content. Nintendo iterates on rough prototypes until they feel right, long before adding art or polish. If it doesn’t work in its simplest form, no amount of visuals will save it.

They focus on player behavior, not just opinions. People often can’t articulate why something feels off but their body language and engagement patterns reveal the truth. Watching where players hesitate, smile, or check their phones provides more insight than post-session surveys.

They test throughout the entire process. Supergiant didn’t just open Hades to the public they listened deeply and adjusted fundamental systems across two years of development.

They see players as collaborators, not test subjects. Instead of treating feedback as a verdict, they treat it as guidance. If players are confused, the system isn’t communicating clearly. If players stop playing, it’s a signal about engagement.

How Game Changr Approaches Playtesting

At Game Changr, we’ve built our methods around one principle: successful games come from understanding how players actually experience them, not from assuming what should work.

Instead of simply asking if someone “liked” the game, we analyze whether it satisfies key motivators such as mastery, autonomy, and relatedness.

Our player community provides honest, detailed feedback because they care about the craft of gaming.

We partner with studios from concept to launch, helping identify friction points before they become expensive problems. Testing early, with the right players, and acting on what you learn isn’t optional, it’s the foundation of making a game that people truly love.