Aggregated Visualization of Playtesting Data

Playtesting is a key component in the game development process aimed at improving the quality of games through the collection of gameplay data and identification of design issues. Visualization techniques are currently being employed to help integrate quantitative and qualitative data. Despite that, two existing challenges are to determine the level of detail to be presented to developers based on their needs and to effectively communicate the collected data so that informed design changes can be reached. In this paper, we first propose an aggregated visualization technique that makes use of clustering, territory tessellation, and trajectory aggregation to simultaneously display mixed playtesting data. Secondly, to assess the usefulness of our technique we evaluate it through interviews with professional game developers and compare it to a non-aggregated visualization. The results of this study also provide an important contribution towards identifying areas of improvement in the portrayal of gameplay data.