Last week we staged our webinar together with our partner Qualitest. Carl and Shmulik gave us insights on the changes, challenges, and resulting opportunities in the gaming and gambling industry.

First of all, let’s start with some facts around the gaming and gambling industry. The following figures were collected by Qualitest in a study they conducted in 2017. 

Are you looking for a German version of this article? Then go to our German translation of the post. 

Facts around the gaming and gambling industry

82.4% have experienced at least one of the following: 

• app crashes
• latency
• screen freeze
• user interface error

62.4% say that bugs or glitches make them concerned about the app quality. 

The software quality world is changing, in the gaming and gambling industry as well. A few years ago it was enough to test functionality, security, and performance, but in the last couple of years, user experience and artificial intelligence have become more and more important. If companies ignore this trend, they’ll be irrelevant in the near future. 

But what are the key challenges when companies specifically want to start improving the user experience of their games and platforms? Which key challenges do they experience and how can they solve them? 

Challenges while working with the gaming & gambling industry

First, Carl from Testbirds introduced the audience to the key challenges we explored while working for customers in the gaming and gambling industry. 

Target Group

One of the most important things (not only) for the gaming and gambling sector is to find your target audience. Although most companies have a group of beta testers available to test their games, the data you get from such tests can often be unreliable due to bias.
Additionally, it can also be hard to find users who use your competitor’s products. However, they can really support you in understanding their needs and finding out what they might prefer about a competitors’ offer. With insights like these, it’s possible to understand how to outmaneuver your competitors and ultimately provide a better offer for your customers. 

Data-Driven

Another challenge is to get significant data you can base your decisions on.
Let’s say you use Google Analytics. The problem is that you can see what users are doing, but you can only guess what the reasons for their behavior might be. This means that you might think you understand the why behind your users’ behaviour, but in reality, it’s only conclusions you’ve drawn from your (mostly biased) perspective. 

Without really understanding the user’s behavior, development teams have to take a shot in the dark and see if changes lead to the desired result or not. That’s why a combination of quantitative and qualitative data best supports the development of a great product. 

End-to-End Testing

Last but not least, and probably most important, is getting testers to test the entire gaming experience – from signing up to paying with their preferred payment method. Only by testing the full end-to-end experience, will you get a complete overview of the user flow, its problems, and invaluable information about the moment players decide to leave.

When you’re testing with beta communities, it’s quite difficult to set specific test cases for the testers and to let them test every step you’re interested in as their willingness to complete every step might be low.
That’s why it’s so important to find testers that can test the entire end-to-end experience in an unbiased manner. 

Now that we know that testing the entire player experience is essential, let me show you how to get started. 

Testing the Attraction of Players

Every funnel starts with attracting and converting users – or in this case, players.
You need to find out how to attract new players and once they’re on your platform, you also want them to stay and actually buy your product.
As gaming & gambling is highly competitive and so many companies have similar offers, it might be easy to find out what your competitors are doing, but you still don’t know exactly what users like or dislike about their platform and offers. 

There are many aspects that need to be taken into consideration: design, accessibility of information, how easily understandable the information is, and generally how easy the platform is to use. A competitor analysis can help you answer those exact questions (and more). You can mix existing users with new users and your competitors’ users and let them test two or more platforms to understand what they like and don’t like, as well as why.
After running a test like this, you’ll have enough qualitative data to be able to tell your development team exactly which changes are needed. 

Watch the full recording of our webinar to get hands-on examples and find out how Testbirds and Qualitest support customers in the gaming and gambling industry by providing insights from real use cases. 

If you want more information on our crowdtesting services or want to find out what the best testing approach is for your digital product and use case, leave us a message. We’re happy to develop the right testing strategy with you. 

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When Simone is not working on superb texts for Testbirds, she and her horse live it up on the tournament areas in Bavaria.

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