Getting feedback on your game is one of the most important parts of development. But how you collect that feedback matters just as much as what it tells you.
In the early days of building a game, it’s common for studios to lean on friends, family, internal teams, or even their most loyal fans to test new builds (we were there too!). And it makes sense: those people are close, willing, and often just as excited about the game as you are. But that kind of feedback comes with limitations: it’s often biased, narrow in scope, and removed from how your real players will actually experience the game.
As games reach broader audiences and genres become more saturated, getting authentic, diverse, and high-quality feedback is essential. And that’s where outsourcing your playtesting becomes not only helpful, but necessary.
Here’s why forward-thinking studios are moving beyond in-house testing—and what you stand to gain when you do.
Friends, family, colleagues… they’re easy to reach, willing to help, and might even know your game genre. But that’s exactly the problem. They’re not neutral. They want to be supportive. And even when they try to be objective, their feedback is often influenced by their relationship with you (or your team).
You can’t collect unbiased data from people who want you to succeed.
Your community might be vocal, loyal, and full of opinions. But fans already know your style, your mechanics, and what to expect. They’re not giving you a first-time player experience, they’re giving you fandom-colored feedback.
Their feedback is valuable and important, but it's not the full picture and doesn't reflect your broader market of everyday people (let’s face it, regular players aren’t on Reddit or Discord all day long to follow news on upcoming games the way game developers and hardcore players might be).
You need both perspectives to build better games.
If someone’s trying your game for the first time while screen-sharing on Discord with a developer watching, that’s not natural behavior. They know you’re there. They play differently.
And if you're only collecting survey responses—without any video of the gameplay itself—you’re missing a big part of the picture. You don’t know how long they played, what they struggled with, or what their feedback is actually based on.
External playtests create conditions that are closer to the real world: no developer oversight, no performance pressure, and no artificial context.
You might think you know your audience, but do you know how a 35-year-old mom of two in Chicago, who casually plays mobile games between grocery shopping and school runs, responds to your onboarding flow? Or how a 16-year-old first-time player in Brighton that just got a brand new PC for their birthday deals with your UI?
If your playtesting pool is limited to people around you (geographically or socially), you’re designing in a vacuum. Outsourcing gives you access to fresh eyes from across markets—casual players, niche players, and people who’ve never heard of your studio.
If you’re just starting out, you may not have a player base to draw from yet. And even if you do, recruiting, scheduling, incentivizing, and following up with playtesters eats into your production time.
Outsourcing means freeing up your team to focus on building a great game, while a trusted partner handles the logistics.
Your first playtests can be a bit clueless and messy, not super structured or organized; and it’s totally fine.
But at some point, you’ll need something more advanced: several sessions over multiple days, surveys after each play, or specific instructions like “Start at 2pm when the servers go live,” “Focus only on this side quest,” or “Try all three playable characters at least once.”
This kind of testing takes time, commitment, and patience. To get the data you actually need—and turn it into useful insights—you need serious players from your actual target audience.
Friends, family, or your fanbase? They likely won’t stick through broken builds, graybox levels, placeholder dialogue, or long testing sessions with detailed feedback requirements. They’re not here for the grind.
This is why we pay our players. It's standard practice in any research field (Academia, Medical studies, etc.), and it's not any different in games user research.
Outsourcing isn’t about giving up ownership. It means fewer polite lies, fewer “maybe it’s just me,” and more “oh wow, we didn’t see that coming.”
Because at the end of the day, your game isn’t just for your inner circle—it’s for everyone else.
And they’ve got a lot to say!