Session Name: | User Research on Destiny |
Speaker(s): | John Hopson |
Company Name(s): | Bungie |
Track / Format: | Production |
Overview: | Destiny's ambitious game design broke the mold that Bungie had created with Halo and presented huge challenges for user research. The complexity of the game pushed our user research efforts into new directions, and this talk will focus on how we adapted, what worked and what didn't. We'll discuss novel types of research studies on topics ranging from validating the artistic intentions of character design on a new IP to using pre-existing gamer clans to test hardcore endgame raids. We'll also cover how we incorporated new technologies such as eye tracking, dial testing, three dimensional in-engine data visualizations, and Hadoop-based big data analysis. Finally, we will go into how the results of this research helped shape Destiny, including the data behind the concept of the "omnivore" player that was central to Destiny's design. |