Get your CVs sharpened and your interview suit on! Babel Media, a quality assessment outsourcing company for games developers, is rolling out a new gameplay testing service.
Babel says the service will offer developers advice in subjective areas such as “level balancing, game play analysis, user evaluation and focus testing.” Which, basically, means Babel will tell developers whether they reckon their game's any good and how it could be better.
Babel has piloted the scheme with four “major publishers.” SPOnG contacted Babel to find out who but Babel remained tight-lipped, only saying, “Two of them are major PS3 IP.”
Why, you might wonder, would a developer consider Babel's opinion to be any better than their own? “We’re able to give an independent and dispassionate opinion to publisher and developer alike at various stages of the process,” said Algy Williams, Managing Director. “Using an outside source is particularly helpful when team members may be too close to a project to be entirely objective.”
If nothing else, SPOnG wouldn't mind a job sitting back, playing games and telling folk how they could be better. You certainly wouldn't find that in SPOnG's Halo 3 beta preview...
Is the games industry moving towards pointless consultancy so that developers can abdicate responsibility, or is this a sensible move that could save developers a lot of strife? Answers in the Forum, please.
Babel says the service will offer developers advice in subjective areas such as “level balancing, game play analysis, user evaluation and focus testing.” Which, basically, means Babel will tell developers whether they reckon their game's any good and how it could be better.
Babel has piloted the scheme with four “major publishers.” SPOnG contacted Babel to find out who but Babel remained tight-lipped, only saying, “Two of them are major PS3 IP.”
Why, you might wonder, would a developer consider Babel's opinion to be any better than their own? “We’re able to give an independent and dispassionate opinion to publisher and developer alike at various stages of the process,” said Algy Williams, Managing Director. “Using an outside source is particularly helpful when team members may be too close to a project to be entirely objective.”
If nothing else, SPOnG wouldn't mind a job sitting back, playing games and telling folk how they could be better. You certainly wouldn't find that in SPOnG's Halo 3 beta preview...
Is the games industry moving towards pointless consultancy so that developers can abdicate responsibility, or is this a sensible move that could save developers a lot of strife? Answers in the Forum, please.
Companies:
Babel
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