How Xbox Research accomplished virtual playtesting with Parsec Number of testing participants per month: 150+.Number of playtests (of different games) running concurrently: 20+.Number of workstations running Parsec concurrently: 120.“We’re leading the game industry with our ability to do this level of remote testing at scale, and it’s all enabled by Parsec.” Using Parsec has taken us beyond where we ever thought we could go with playtesting and usability,” said Brian Walker, Principal Research Operations Lead for Xbox Research. Without the limits imposed by on-prem hardware, they’ve been able to conduct tests with up to 60 concurrent gamers on Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). And now that Parsec has enabled them to once again test with gamers around the world, Xbox Research can focus on scaling virtual game testing. Their reports looked as if those studies had been running in person as usual. Xbox Research didn’t see any evidence of reduced testing quality or quantity after using Parsec for remote playtesting for a year. The initial round of tests proved that Parsec’s seamless gameplay experience produced meaningful user research. “We wouldn’t have been able to continue remote playtesting at the same level of quality without it.”Īfter successfully leveraging Parsec to playtest Halo Infinite, Xbox Research deployed Parsec to start playtesting with the next Age of Empires release. “Parsec was a total lifesaver – it gave us a completely new way to test our games outside the confines of our physical labs to deliver the high-quality, local gameplay feel required for our research,” said Daniel Gunn, Director of User Research for Xbox Research. They tried many alternatives, but none were able to mimic local gameplay, which was essential to both delivering the greatest control and receiving the most accurate feedback. They needed a solution that had the high performance and high fidelity required to remotely demonstrate the truest gameplay experience. And because any decline in the diversity of participants can impact the quality of feedback, the team had to find a way to continue testing their games with distributed gamers. With the bulk of playtesting limited to locals both willing and able to come to their physical labs in Redmond, much of their geographically diverse testing group was excluded. Xbox Research’s mission is to “ enable the magic of gaming for every person on the planet,” and they have an unwavering commitment to making games more accessible. For a business that was always at the cutting edge of game research, this new reality delivered a big blow. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they were no longer able to bring gamers into the labs. Without that feedback, games don’t launch. To that end, let’s see how Xbox Research leveraged Parsec, Unity’s leading cloud-based remote desktop solution, to scale their virtual playtesting to people across the world by providing nearly zero-latency, high-fidelity connections to physical Xbox machines located in Redmond, WA.Įvery year, over 9,000 gamers are invited to come through Xbox Research’s playtest and usability labs located in Redmond, WA to play games and provide feedback on real-world gameplay, clarity, accessibility, and appeal. Development teams can even use the cloud to collaborate with instantaneous, real-time visual feedback, no matter if they sit on different floors or different countries.įundamentally, studios embrace cloud game development to automate tasks, drive efficiency, and leverage the rich diversity of global talent to deliver higher-quality, more innovative games. We’re experiencing a rapid proliferation of cloud-based 3D asset management, pulling assets out of on-prem content silos and making them available across teams, projects and organizations. We’re seeing core on-prem applications like Version Control Systems (VCS) and workflows like CI/CD move to the cloud to supercharge DevOps agility. Part of that commitment has meant enhancing your game development experience and working together to make it easier to build and distribute your games on Windows and Xbox platforms.Īs we work to fulfill this goal, we continue to witness a cloud revolution in game development. Last year, Unity announced a partnership with Microsoft Azure to bring our Create Solutions to the cloud and develop our cloud infrastructure to better meet the needs of this new global distribution. We now see games of all sizes delivered by talented teams distributed across the globe - and the reason for that is the cloud. Studios no longer feel restricted to having resources centralized in a single, physical space. That’s the reality regardless of industry, but it’s especially true when it comes to game development.
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