Championing Diversity and Player-Centric Design: Shaping the Future of Live Service Games and Esports

Ahead of the Live Service Gaming Summit, we spoke to Payal Shah, Women in Games Ambassador & UX Researcher as she shares her expertise on fostering diversity and inclusion within the live service games and esports industries. She emphasizes the importance of understanding and engaging with a diverse player base through continuous feedback loops, inclusive game design, and supportive community environments.

As an ambassador for Women in Games, what initiatives or strategies do you believe are most effective in promoting diversity and inclusion within the live service games and esports industries? How can developers and companies actively shape a more inclusive future for these sectors

There is an internal and external lens to this question, and both are crucial to ensuring DEI&B success in the final game / product.

Externally, I think the most important thing to consider in live service games and eSports is to know your audience - all of your audience, and consider their needs and challenges, as well as desires, from the game play experience with their game. And truthfully, I think knowing your audience is most important to all of game development and design, not just to DEI &B.

So how do you get to know your audience?

• Listen to them, but also hear them

• Consider them when designing the game (…and throughout the entire game development process)

• Create safe spaces in game for them, and don’t tolerate bad behavior outside the game if you see something.

• Help guide and support environments for healthy game

• Celebrate the wins and kindness of other players and communities in the game

And internally, DEI&B starts at home. Make sure the environment within your studio is balanced, and is also a healthy and safe space for all individuals, and welcome diversity in the voices that come together to develop and launch a successful game. Connect to organizations like Women in Gaming to support a strong and growing community of some of the brightest minds in gaming today.

What are some of the most effective player-centric design strategies you've found for maintaining engagement in live service games, especially with a diverse and evolving player base? Can you share any examples of successful updates or events that have significantly boosted player retention through these strategies?

Maintaining engagement in live service games requires a strategic approach that prioritizes player-centric design. Here are some of the most effective strategies we’ve implemented:

1.  Make regular content updates and expansions, like player driven content, themed contests or seasonal events that foster anticipation, engagement, shared goals, curiosity and give players continued reasons to come back and play.
2. Give players the freedom of expression to personalize and customize the game, both in design and difficulty, in the way that is most appealing to them.
3. Create opportunities for social integration and make friendship a vested interest and reason to come back.
4. Make spaces for players to provide feedback directly to studios for ideation and iteration. 

Could you elaborate on the specific methodologies you use in player-centric design to gather and analyse demographic, psychographic, and behavioural data to identify key player segments? How do you ensure this data accurately reflects the diverse preferences and behaviours of your target audience?

Game User Research is an on-going, always-on, process that centers around four core areas: Collection, Understanding, Creation, and Prediction.

First, begin collecting facts and data in order to inspire meaningful and actionable insights. Data collection can happen in many ways and areas, and it’s great to consider traditional and non-traditional sources, including surveys, in-game actions, account login information, conversations on the internet and sales.

Once the data has been collected, it’s time to harness the understanding of what the data is telling you – seeking out the actionable insights. Data can quickly become overwhelming if there is no plan on what information, ideation or inspiration is needed. What is being solved for? For example, what are the business objectives or game development goals are in place? Are there challenges or issues within gameplay? What are demographics of my player base? How do they differ in terms of motivations and psychographics?

After the understanding and actionable insights have been identified and agreed upon, it’s time to create working and shared knowledge bases around the players to inspire player – centric decision making and development. Co-create frameworks, customer segmentations and player personas with a multi-discipline team to share ownership and buy-in for player knowledge.

Finally, in live-service gaming, there is always new content to be created. Get creative with the Data team and use the player understanding to predict the future, literally. Use player insights and frameworks to create short and long-term development roadmap, prioritizing updates and features that align with player expectations and improve overall satisfaction.

And then, do it all again. Player-Centric game development in the live service gaming industry must be happening always. Just as we see people change and trends driving new behaviors, players’ gaming interests and expectations also change with time.

In your experience with user research, what are the best practices for incorporating player feedback into game development from a player-centric perspective? How do you prioritize this feedback, and what are some tangible ways this has helped in cultivating a loyal and satisfied community?

There are many best practices that I know Game User Researchers employ, but here are a few that I feel are on the top of the list:

Be Always On: It’s important in Live Service gaming to keep Game User Research always going, in order to keep up with changes, challenges and conquests in real-time.

Develop Close Relationships: Game User Researchers should maintain a close relationship with the Game Director and Game Developers, as actionable insights don’t always follow a game development cycle, and those “A-Ha” insights may come up unexpectedly. Also understand the challenges and / or solutions that Game Developers are facing, in case you can help through player understanding.

Space for Storytelling: Share the stories of your game’s players with the game developers and the studio at large. You never know when or where design inspiration will hit, and it’s a best practice for all to be working off the same player knowledge base and understanding.

What discussions are you most looking forward to at the Live Service Gaming Summit?

I’m looking forward to meeting and talking to other Game User Researchers – we’re a small but mighty group and I’ve love to unite and join forces in the industry to share open-source knowledge. I’m also quite curious (professional hazard) to speak with Game Studios, Game Directors, UI/UX Designers and others that don’t have a Game User Researcher on staff to understand how they are incorporating player understanding into their game development process, including content ideation and post launch advocacy.