Gathering Essentials

This chapter covers end-to-end participants recruitment for games user research studies. The pragmatic strategies in participant recruitment for small studios are outlined. Starting from how to identify and screen participants based on familiarity with reference and competitor games, genre preferences, hardware ownership, and basic socio-demographic variables. This chapter provides guidance on recruitment methods, such as community outreach, mailing lists, and custom forms, and explores where to find participants (e.g. friends and family, community, recruitment agencies) and what incentives, whether monetary or non-monetary, might best motivate people to participate in a study. Special attention is given to avoiding mismatches in participant profiles and maintaining an up-to-date participant pool. This chapter also offers best practices for timing actions during recruitment, sending invites, and managing no-shows through over-recruitment and reminders. Lastly, it discusses the involvement of the team in research session observation while balancing it with participant comfort.