2023: Year in Playtesting
Let’s take a look back at a great 2023, where we Inspired the Future of Play together!
As we enter the holiday season, let’s reflect on an incredible year of Playtesting. We can’t thank our Playtesters enough for helping us Inspire the Future of Play!
The Playtesting Community grew stronger than ever
The Electronic Arts Playtesting Community grew to a colossal 2.5 million Playtesters! We’re so proud of the community we’ve built together and love seeing both new and familiar faces at our Playtests!
Inspire the Future of Play
In 2023, we held a massive 266 Playtests - that’s 36% more than in 2022. Over 94,000 Playtesters got involved this year, completing more than 28,000 feedback surveys. We can’t express enough how important your feedback was in providing insight to our development teams to make the best possible games for you, the players!
Playtesting was the talk of the town
We shared a record amount of articles on our news page, but our development teams were also sharing your impact more than ever before! Check out some of the best articles below:
Not only that, but we also showed up in our local communities, connecting with you at universities and local events. Who knows where we’ll pop up next?!
Playtests for everyone
2023 was a huge year for Electronic Arts and Playtesting. We supported games from EA SPORTS FC™ 24 and STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor™ to Dead Space™, Wild Hearts™, and many many more!
We had a huge variety of Playtests to get involved in! While 138 of our 266 Playtests were for sports and shooter games, the other 128 were split across simulation, action-adventure, racing, horror, RPG, and other game genres!
We also offered a wide range of Playtest types. You took part in 66 Group Playtests, 89 1-on-1s, 13 Community Playtests, as well as a mixture of Survey Only, Focus Groups, and other types of Playtests!
We know our Playtesting Community is super diverse and we’re always trying to ensure that we get as big a range of players as possible involved in our Playtests. There really is a Playtest for everyone!
Learn more about the different types of Playtests we offer here
Playtesting world tour
One major change this year was that we moved Playtests across our 6 Player Experience Labs more than ever before. We know that our games have fans from all over the world, so we really mixed up the types of games that were being Playtested at our different locations. This meant we were able to get more of you involved and help share everyone’s feedback.
As part of this, we also took you with us and showcased our Player Experience Labs here on the news page. Check out some of the awesome behind-the-scenes pictures below:
You might notice we haven’t featured our Montreal lab just yet. Let’s just say we have something special in the works for that…stay tuned!
We put the spotlight on our Playtesters
Now let’s talk about our incredible Playtesters for a bit! We strive for Playtesting to be as inclusive of a community as possible and this year we focused heavily on showing how our Playtesters come from all walks of life and represent all types of gamers. We shared Part 1 and Part 2 of our Meet Our Playtesters series. We heard from 6 of our Playtesters about everything from what their favorite games of all time are, to their advice on why you should become a Playtester.
Here’s some of their most memorable moments from Playtests that they shared with us:
“I remember one all-day Playtest where we had lunch together, and weren't allowed to talk about what we were Playtesting, so we ended up just talking about the games we were all passionate about. Connecting with like-minded people and hearing about the moments that spoke to them, especially when they also mean so much to you, makes you feel proud to be part of this community.” - James P.
“I was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in a week-long Playtest for an action/adventure game at the Redwood City office. I had an idea of what game I might be Playtesting, but finding out was really exciting. Whenever I play the game or see footage from it, I always think that I played a very small part in the creation of something special.” - Kayla B.
“A couple of years ago I was chosen to do a Playtest for Madden and I was given a behind-the-scenes tour of the Orlando office by the developers. They took us to a conference room where they had all the helmets and we saw all the trophies, including the Lombardi Trophy. They also did a quick interview with me after that which was super fun! Getting to experience that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!” - Rafael R.
“I remember one all-day Playtest where we had lunch together, and weren't allowed to talk about what we were Playtesting, so we ended up just talking about the games we were all passionate about. Connecting with like-minded people and hearing about the moments that spoke to them, especially when they also mean so much to you, makes you feel proud to be part of this community.” - James P.
“I was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in a week-long Playtest for an action/adventure game at the Redwood City office. I had an idea of what game I might be Playtesting, but finding out was really exciting. Whenever I play the game or see footage from it, I always think that I played a very small part in the creation of something special.” - Kayla B.
“A couple of years ago I was chosen to do a Playtest for Madden and I was given a behind-the-scenes tour of the Orlando office by the developers. They took us to a conference room where they had all the helmets and we saw all the trophies, including the Lombardi Trophy. They also did a quick interview with me after that which was super fun! Getting to experience that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!” - Rafael R.
Welcoming 2024
While it’s always good to reflect, let’s shift focus on how we plan to make 2024 the best year for our Playtesters!
As the community grows, we appreciate that there’s more competition than ever to get selected for a Playtest. To help with this, we’ll be improving the way we engage with our Playtesters outside of the main Playtest experience - helping you share your voice as much as possible.
We’ll also be improving the experience for our on-site Playtests, with better facilities/amenities, awesome merch., and much more.
Finally, we’ll be looking at making our reward offering as good as it can be, making sure you feel that your time and feedback are well-rewarded.
And that’s a wrap! Huge thanks to all of our Playtesters who help us to Inspire the Future of Play every day. 2024 is looking like it’s going to be one of the best yet - see you there!
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- The Electronic Arts Playtesting Team
