Good questions to put on a game demo survey

[Canini]

As I am finishing up the last touches of my game demo I have started working on a survey that hopefully the player will take a look at after they have finished the demo. I want it to be free from yes/no questions so that the individual players thought becomes apparent. I am thinking 3-4 questions so that the survey will not be too much of a hassle to fill out. The only question I have decided on so far is:

When did you stop playing the demo, and why?
Letting the player answer anything from "I stopped because the demo ended" to "I played for five minutes and stopped because I did not find it very enjoyable".

Do any of you guys have any suggestions for questions that will bring out informative answers from the player in order to improve on the game? Have any of you done anything like this before? If so, did you receive informative and honest responses?

 

[JustinK]

Hi there,

Maybe I am thinking to basic, but isn't it informative to just ask what they liked about the demo or did not like about the demo?
I have never done a survey about a video game, but about other topics. What I find very important is the sample size you pick. Is the player base of your demo large or small, do you have any fans, things like that? By using this information you can decide if the answers you get are useful.
Also, because you want open questions, you might need to use a big sample size. Otherwise you might get x different answers which won't get you any further, by using a big sample size you can find a pattern in the answers and use that to improve on the game.

Greetings,

JustinK

 

[l8rose]

I generally leave it up to the person looking at the demo to tell me various points but here are some questions I generally ask myself when I'm playing a demo if feedback is asked for:

Did you complete the demo? How long did you play for?

What did you like about the demo? What didn't you like?

What glitches (if any) did you encounter?

One thing you would like to change about the game?

Would you recommend the game based on the demo? If not, why?

 

[Dark Horseman]

An important broad question I would follow up yours with is:

- What could the game have done or included to maintain your interest?

So if they answered with a vague "not suck" or something excessive like "be an open-world rpg", you'd know whether their opinion is reasonable or out of your scope. If they come back with "I dislike random encounters", "this character could have been written better", or "artstyle is inconsistent", then you have some good feedback to consider.

I did do a survey for my first demo way back when, and I personally remember the largest criticism being people displeased at no touch-encounters and difficult regular enemies. I gave testers a cheat item if they got stuck for testing, and the majority just stuck to that since they couldn't be bothered with random encounters - even though they enjoyed the difficulty of boss fights.

 

[hiddenone]

I'd probably ask something like:

• What would you like to see improved before playing an updated demo?
• Were there any mechanics that you had trouble with? If so, what about them caused the trouble?

It should help people focus on things that either they disliked completely or things they liked but thought could use more work. Also, definitely ask if the player saw any bugs/glitches or spelling errors, since those slip through the cracks no matter how much you check.

 

[Kes]

A lot of these questions are, not surprisingly, looking at things like bugs, stuff people didn't like, want to see improved etc.

However, it is equally important to know what people enjoyed - and why they enjoyed them. If you don't get feedback on your strengths you are less likely to build on them. You could also end up very discouraged.

 

[Canini]

Thank you everybody for your great suggestions! I will mull it over a bit more and try to find questions that will give me positive and constructive feedback.

 

[ashikai]

I think you need to ask yourself what you want to know about the game. Otherwise, open ended questions like, "what did you find the most fun/difficult/easy?" work very well.

 

[starlight dream]

And maybe some questions regarding the future, such as would you be interested in playing an updated demo, or would you be interested in playing the full game based on this demo
And also what about the story or characters do you want to learn more of?