The importance of playtesting

third party testing is also vital for ANY project either software OR hardware.

harpo

People read gamespot?!?

I thought every gamer that read gamenews avoided that place like the plague.

The article was interesting. Brad should read it. Actually, the entire Stardock gamesdepartment should read it. But I think Derek have made sure that things will be tested now

One quote stood out for me though:

"In terms of extracurricular activities, gaming has become as regular a pastime as playing outside (remember that?)," Arrington says. "As a result, players definitely have a higher game IQ than when we were playing Donkey Kong and Defender in arcades back in the day. As gamer IQs have increased, developers have increased the complexity of their games. Just compare the first Madden game to last year's version: while the game of football hasn't changed, the complexity in the execution has increased exponentially. The bottom line is that more intelligent gamers require more challenging games and vice versa."

"Gamer IQs have increased"??   Consolegames are more popular than ever and FPS is the dominating consolegenre and he says that gamer IQ has increased?!?"

"More intelligent gamers require more challenging games".

Got that right!   As a serious gamer I always play on the hardest difficulties in the genres I'm good at (campaigns atleast). In skirmish ATLEAST at the hardest noncheating difficulty but I'll go as high as I can.

Note the article states that player's "game IQ" has increased, not their IQ.

It says gamer IQ = IQ of the gamers, right?       That's how I read it atleast. If they mean something else then they should make it clear.

The earlier bit where they say "players definitely have a higher game IQ" is what makes it clear that they aren't talking about the IQ of gamers. I don't know why they made up a term when they could have just worded it differently, and then didn't bother to define that term (unless they did it earlier in the article), but it does seem clear to me they're talking about people's ability to figure out and play more complex games I suppose. Whether they're right or wrong about that I don't know.

EDIT: Actually, the bit you highlighted about how "gamer IQs have increased" is horribly confusing. They must mean their made up term of 'game IQ', but it does look like they mean the IQ of gamers. I think it's just a typo and/or bad writing.

I've run across the term (not very often) for years, used to mean... pretty much what you figured it meant, actually:-)  Or at least a comfort level with the conventions that gamers have come to expect in the various genres they play.

I don't know how you can make it any more clearer than having the definition of 'game IQ' in the sentence just before the one that gave you a headache. If you really can't get arond the additional 'r' in the quote and think the man means something completely different than what he just explicitly explained in the sentence before, I can't help but get the feeling that you are deliberaterly wanting to find errors in the article. If you misunderstood, then you need to understand that a slight typo doesn't mean they suddenly start talking about something completely different. That would make absoluetly no sense, now would it? Here's the quote once more, for clarification:

The very first line of his reply was "People read gamespot?!?"

Just sayin.

Not to be picky, but.. that is emphatically not a definition. He says, "due to X, Y has increased lately. As Y increases..". This does not tell us what Y (this 'game IQ') is; you can take a guess based on context, but I agree with the guy wishing they'd provide an actual definition if they're going to make up terms. Especially if they're going to pick a name that overlaps with another common term whose definition is well known, and then mistype the name the second time they use it. And since I've never heard the term before and Google gives me no helpful results for it, yes I'm going to call it made up.

Try this for comparison:

".. gaming has become as regular a pastime as playing outside ... As a result, the familiarity of players with common game mechanics, and their ability to figure out new ones - their 'game IQ' so to speak - is definitely higher than when we were playing Donkey Kong and Defender in arcades back in the day. As game IQs have increased.."

See, that's a definition. Of course, that's just my context-based guess, so it may not be the definition Arrington had in mind when he said that. Sorry to rant, but our language is full of perfectly good words with well understood meanings, I hate it when people needlessly make up new terms and don't even bother to tell us what exactly they're talking about. Then again, the article is quoting a game developer, it's possible that he did define his term and they just chose the quote poorly.

It's just a comment on how able people are playing games. You guys need really need to work on your interpretation skills and not demand everything to be phrased perfectly. It really is very self-explanatory here. Your comments just seem very silly and nitpicky to me.

I do admit that it could've been defined better. But really, there's was no need to. It's clear as day even as it is.

OR the articles can be written better!   I didn't knew what they meant but now I do.

As important as playtesting is listening to your playtesters.