Player motivation: a practical game design guide

Prepared for the AIGAMEDEV community. Research compiled on 27 October 2026 with AI assistance.

Player motivation describes the experience someone seeks from a game: mastery, rivalry, expression, a convincing world, a satisfying task, or another reason to keep playing. Use it to decide what a prototype should deliver and who should test it. The twelve motivation names used here come from Quantic Foundry’s public model 2.

This guide is for solo developers, small teams and people learning to make games with AI assistance. Its design suggestions are starting points for testing with real players.

How can player motivation guide your design?

What deserves development time? Pick two main motivations and one supporting motivation as a starting constraint. A proposed feature should strengthen that promise or solve an observed problem. This is a production heuristic, not a validated formula.

How much complexity should you introduce? Preserve the decisions that make the game interesting. Test the presentation, learning sequence and recovery from mistakes before concluding that the underlying mechanic is wrong.

Who should you test with? Recruit by recent games, desired experiences and actual play circumstances. Age, gender and platform can help describe the sample; they do not tell you what every individual wants.

What should the trailer show? Show the satisfying action and its consequence. A list of systems tells a potential player less than a clear example of the experience those systems create.

On this page

Independent synthesis prepared with AI assistance. This is not Quantic Foundry’s paid report, an authorised edition, or a new survey. Published data, design interpretation and proposed tests are identified separately. No respondent records or missing trend values have been invented.

What the evidence can support

A large sample can reveal useful patterns without representing every person who plays games. The research question and the recruitment method still matter.

Reading the findings correctly

Repeated samples are not necessarily the same people. The public strategy article compares monthly respondents. It should not be read as tracking every individual becoming less strategic over their lifetime.

Percentiles are ranks. Moving from the 50th to the 33rd percentile is a 17 percentile-point change. It is not a 34% reduction in intelligence, a 34% fall in demand, or a percentage of players who buy strategy games.

Good intentions do not remove selection effects. QF recruits people seeking their own profile, without financial incentives 1. That may support engagement with the survey, but it does not itself establish population representativeness or eliminate careless responses.

In this guide, “published finding” refers to a source claim. “Design implication” is an interpretation. “Test” is a proposal to check that interpretation in a specific game.

The clearest public long term shift

Published finding. QF analysed 1.57 million responses from June 2015 to April 2024, excluding China. Its reported average Strategy score moved from the baseline 50th percentile to the 33rd. The article reports similar declines across male and female respondents and US versus non-US respondents 3.

Percentile against the June 2015 baseline. Published endpoints only; no intermediate values reconstructed. Source 3.

This finding concerns appetite for planning and complex decisions. It does not directly measure intelligence, willingness to master precise controls, strategy-game revenue or the size of a particular niche. The source does not establish a cause 3.

Design implication

Treat mental effort as a budget to allocate deliberately. A player might enjoy planning a party combination but dislike remembering unexplained icons, hunting through menus or discovering a hidden rule after losing. Those are different problems.

For a tactical or party RPG, test one meaningful decision at a time: which enemy to interrupt, which ally to protect, or when to spend a scarce ability. Reveal deeper interactions once players can explain the basic cause and effect. Preserve advanced options for the audience that enjoys them.

A useful comparison test

Keep the encounter rules identical. In version A, use the current information display. In version B, make the impending enemy action and the consequence of the selected action explicit. Counterbalance which version players see first.

Record decision time, requests for explanation, misread outcomes and whether players can explain a successful choice. Then ask which version they would choose to continue playing. If understanding improves without reducing interest, improve the interface before removing depth.

What remains unknown: this public endpoint does not establish the 2026 Strategy value, the path of the other 11 motivations or the revenue opportunity for a new project. It cannot supply a twelve-line trend chart.

Recent signals worth acting on

Relaxation is a substantial reason for playing

Reported reasons for play in Power of Play 2025 8. Separate responses, not mutually exclusive market segments. Percentages use the survey denominator.

Design implication: a calm game can still contain thoughtful decisions. Test interruption handling, saving, clear goals and whether failure feels manageable. Do not equate relaxation with an absence of depth.

There is spending beyond the biggest games

Published finding. Newzoo reports that PC games outside the top 20 increased their share of revenue in its Western markets from 48% in 2022 to 56% in 2025. The corresponding 2025 shares were 38% on PlayStation and 35% on Xbox 9.

Design implication: a distinct smaller game is worth testing, but these totals include established catalogue games and major productions. “Outside the top 20” is not the same as “indie”, and this is not an estimate of an individual studio’s chance of success.

AI use is not automatically a player benefit

Published finding. In QF’s optional October-December 2025 survey of 1,799 respondents, 85% expressed a below-neutral attitude towards generative AI in games. The sample leaned heavily towards core PC/console players. Creative uses attracted more negative reactions than dynamic difficulty adjustment 11.

Design implication: demonstrate enjoyable play, coherent art, believable characters and reliable behaviour. Test any player-facing AI feature against a simpler implementation. Explain what it actually does accurately; neither assume universal rejection nor assume that more generated content increases value.

These sources measure different things. They do not combine into a single index, and the survey percentages do not predict conversion rates.

Age and gender are starting clues

Use historical comparisons to form questions for recruitment and testing. Avoid presenting them as a current profile of every player in a demographic.

Age

Published finding, 2016. In QF’s sample of more than 239,000 gamers, interest in Competition was lower at older ages, with the steepest differences between 13 and 35 4. A separate primary-motivation analysis ranked Competition first for ages 13-25 and ninth for ages 36+ 5.

Interpretation: these are comparisons between age groups. They do not prove that the same person will follow the average curve as they age. Nor do they justify treating older players as less skilled.

Design test: compare a personal-best goal with a public leaderboard among players who enjoy your genre. Ask whether social comparison adds excitement or unwanted pressure. Record play circumstances, including session length and whether interruptions are common.

Gender

Published finding, 2016. QF’s analysis of primary motivations found Competition and Destruction most common among men, Completion and Fantasy among women, and Fantasy and Design among non-binary respondents 5. These were aggregate results in that sample, not rules about individuals.

Design test: recruit people of different genders who share the intended motivation. Test the actual mechanic and presentation. A player seeking mastery may reject a hostile social setting while still enjoying demanding gameplay.

A broader reference point

Video Games Europe’s 2025 edition, released on 26 August 2026, reports that 46% of players are women, 77% are adults and the average age is 34 across its 16 covered markets 10. This is useful context for recruitment; it should not be directly compared with QF’s younger, self-selected sample as if one had measured a change in the other.

Practical rule: describe the intended experience first. “Players who enjoy building attractive spaces and finishing visible projects” is a more testable audience brief than “women aged 30-45”. Demographic representation still matters when checking who your testing has missed.

Gamer type, platform and region

Casual, core and hardcore

Published finding, 2018. QF found the largest casual-versus-hardcore differences in Competition, Challenge and Excitement. Completion and Fantasy varied least across these self-identified gamer types 6.

Use: ask what the labels mean to the participant. Record the games they recently played, the difficulty they choose and the time they have. An experienced player seeking a quiet evening may want a different experience from the same person on another day.

Platform

These are design considerations, not measured motivation rankings. Multi-platform players overlap, so platform percentages should not be added as exclusive populations. A PC-heavy motivation sample cannot settle a mobile audience decision.

Region

Historical example, 2018. QF and Niko Partners reported higher Competition and Completion in their Chinese sample than their US comparison 7. Recruitment differed: a Chinese survey panel was compared with QF’s self-selected US respondents. Culture, language, platform mix and sampling are entangled.

Use: treat North America, Western Europe, LATAM and Southeast Asia as separate research contexts where relevant. Localise the pitch, recruit in the target language and test payment expectations, preferred platforms and social play directly. Do not transfer the China example to Southeast Asia or label either as one “Asian audience”.

The complete 2015-2026 regional and platform motivation curves advertised by the paid report are not reproduced here. Public evidence in this guide does not establish comparable trends for every requested cohort.

Evidence coverage across the model

The public record supports a useful design guide. It does not support drawing twelve complete 2015-2026 trend lines. This map shows the evidence used here, rather than assuming that an unreported result stayed flat.

Match the evidence to the decision

A historical audience comparison can suggest whom to recruit. A preference survey can help choose prototype variants. Neither establishes how many people will buy a new game at a particular price. Sales, reviews, wishlists, survey preferences and motivation scores are separate measures.

For a small team, the most useful next step is often a narrower question: will players who already enjoy this experience understand and value our version? That question can be investigated without pretending to recreate an entire market study.

Evidence labels: measured means reported by the cited source; interpretation means a proposed explanation or design implication; test means an original way to check it. An unmeasured cell should remain unmeasured.

A declining average can hide a stable niche

Published finding. QF’s public GDC 2025 slides show a larger Strategy decline in younger age groups. They also report that controlling for age, gender and gamer type does not remove the aggregate decline 12 (slides 15 and 24).

For respondents associated with a selected set of strategy games, the Strategy score instead remains broadly stable across the displayed 2015-2024 period, with those same controls 12 (slides 32-33). This is a selected audience, not every strategy player.

The design decision

A specialist game can preserve substantial depth while making its first decisions legible. Decide which audience the game serves before adjusting complexity. A general-audience puzzle and a detailed logistics simulation need different recruitment, tutorials and demonstrations of value.

An original two-audience test

Recruit one group that recently enjoyed comparable deep games and another that likes the theme but avoids complex systems. Give both the same core encounter. Record explanation requests, planning behaviour and desire to continue, keeping the two groups separate in the results.

Then test a clearer onboarding version with fresh participants. If specialists enjoy the depth but newcomers remain uninterested after understanding it, that may be a targeting decision. If both groups remain confused, investigate presentation and rules before deciding the niche does not exist.

This proposal is a formative comparison. A small test can expose different needs; it cannot estimate the relative population size of the two audiences.

Theme appeal depends on the audience

Published finding. An optional QF survey collected 13,296 responses between February 2022 and October 2023. Among shooter fans, 50% rated hard science fiction very or extremely appealing, compared with 64% for fantasy science fiction. Among strategy fans, 58% rated science fiction very or extremely appealing 13.

The last two rows use a narrower response category. They cannot be compared directly with the first two as if every row measured the same threshold. The source also reports age differences; its optional respondents are not a random sample of all buyers 13.

Original application for AI-assisted teams

Cheap concept generation makes theme exploration easier, but it can also produce attractive images that promise a different game. Hold the playable loop, information and production quality steady while testing theme treatments. Otherwise a preference for the better picture may be mistaken for a preference for its setting.

For example, show the same resource-routing puzzle as a grounded spacecraft repair job and as a fantastical machine garden. Ask what players expect to do, which version they would investigate and what each image implies about tone, combat and complexity. Then show a short clip of the real prototype.

Decision to record

Choose the treatment that communicates the intended play to relevant players and can be maintained consistently. Do not select a theme solely because an aggregate survey percentage is larger. Production scope, existing alternatives and the game’s distinctive interaction still need testing.

If AI-generated concepts are used, record the exact images and prompt versions so another community member can repeat the comparison. Describe them as concept art if they are not representative of the eventual game.

Camera choice is a gameplay decision

Published finding. QF’s optional February 2022-January 2023 survey included 9,585 respondents. Among shooter fans, 82% preferred first person; among MMO fans, 75% preferred third person. Among sandbox fans, 35% had no preference 14.

These rows describe different audiences and responses. They are not shares of one combined market. The source reports age and gender differences that vary by genre, and does not find that higher Fantasy motivation generally means preferring first person 14.

Original prototype comparison

If the core interaction can work in either perspective, test one small encounter with comparable controls, feedback and polish. Include a task that exposes the real trade-off: reading nearby hazards, judging movement, inspecting an avatar or locating another player. Record motion discomfort as well as success.

Ask what information was easy to obtain, what felt connected to the character and which camera they would use for a longer session. Do not explain that one choice is expected to be more immersive before collecting their account.

Where AI helps

Use coding assistance to build a switchable camera rig or instrumentation for missed targets and navigation errors. Review collision, occlusion, sensitivity and controller behaviour yourself. An imperfect rig can make a sound perspective choice appear unattractive.

For multiplayer, evaluate what each camera lets a player see. A viewpoint that exposes information around cover can alter the contest. That decision needs a consistent ruleset, not just a preference vote.

Scope limit: these findings compare first and third person within genre questions. They do not establish an optimal isometric angle, top-down view, field of view or camera distance for a particular project.

Avatar preferences are not identity rules

Published finding. QF’s optional March-December 2020 survey had 2,956 respondents. The share preferring a female player character differed by respondent gender 15:

The sample was 69% male, 27% female and 4% non-binary, with a median age of 24. These are stated character preferences, not a demographic census of people behind in-game avatars 15.

Original design implication

Do not assume that every player wants an avatar matching their own gender. Equally, a preference for a particular avatar does not reveal the player’s identity, sexuality or reason for choosing it. Ask what the choice enables in the game: identification, role-play, visual taste, voice, animation or something else.

For a small team, a fixed protagonist, a few authored alternatives and a modular creator are different production commitments. Decide whether expression through the avatar is central to the game’s promise before building a large customisation system.

A useful test

Show a small, coherent set of character options within the intended gameplay context. Keep animation quality, lighting and framing comparable. Ask players to choose, explain what informed the choice, and identify anything they feel unable to express. Allow an open response rather than forcing every explanation into a motivation label.

Then observe the choice in play. Can the character still be recognised at the actual camera distance? Do outfits obscure team or combat information? Does the selection persist correctly through saves and cutscenes?

Where AI helps

AI can help explore a controlled set of visual variations or generate test cases for equipment combinations. Keep a shared style guide and review the resulting assets together. More options are useful only if they produce worthwhile differences and function reliably in the game.

Genre averages conceal title differences

Historical finding. QF’s 2017 analysis used favourite-game responses from more than 270,000 participants. Genre figures averaged the female share of selected titles’ audiences. They are not the percentage of all women who play that genre or estimates of current sales 16.

The title examples differ substantially from their category averages. The study used small, manually selected title sets for genre classification; its self-selected sample and 2017 publication date limit transfer to a new 2026 project 16.

Original application

Choose comparison games because they offer a similar experience, audience promise and commercial context. A genre tag alone is too broad. A relationship-heavy RPG and a systems-heavy dungeon crawler may share a store category while attracting people for quite different reasons.

Build a comparison sheet with five to eight relevant titles. Record the main interaction, tone, session structure, camera, progression, social requirements and what the trailer actually demonstrates. Keep commercial observations separate from your interpretation of why people like each game.

Review research with AI

AI can help organise a review sample into provisional themes. Retain the original review links and dates, define the sampling method and check each assigned theme against the text. Include mixed and negative cases. Remove duplicate evidence from repeated reposts or syndicated coverage.

A review saying “too much dialogue” does not prove the player has a low Story score. It could concern pacing, repetition, presentation or a mismatch with the promise. Record the complaint first; treat the motivational explanation as a hypothesis.

Reviewers are a selected subset of buyers, and owners are already a selected subset of potential players. Public reviews help identify questions and concrete problems; they do not supply population motivation scores.

Segment within the game you are making

Published example. QF analysed 6,471 respondents who named Civilization VI as a game they enjoyed. Five audience clusters show how people can value different experiences within the same title 17. The shorthand below is paraphrased; the test ideas are original.

These are clusters within this study, not permanent personality types or measured shares of the whole market. QF’s separate general-audience segmentation also warns that broad clusters can be too coarse for title-level decisions 18.

Original application for an indie project

Start with observed differences in what players try to do. A builder who protects a beautiful settlement and a solver who restarts to optimise output may need different feedback, even when both like your construction game. Look for repeated patterns before inventing names for them.

For each provisional audience, record the desired experience, a behaviour you observed, a feature it values and a feature that gets in the way. Let a participant fit more than one pattern. With a small formative sample, describe these as working audience hypotheses rather than statistically discovered segments.

What a useful report adds

QF’s public sample segment report illustrates a structure combining audience profiles, demographics and comparable games 19. Its placeholder material is not a dataset for estimating our community or market. We can use the research questions while collecting our own evidence.

Action: destruction and excitement

The six pairings and twelve motivation names come from QF’s public model 2. The prototype ideas, trade-offs and tests in this playbook are original recommendations. Named games are illustrative design references, not measured audience profiles.

Destruction

The appeal of breaking things and causing spectacular disruption.

Prototype: Build a compact interaction space where one action causes a readable chain reaction. Use sound, motion and persistent environmental change to show the result. Make the player’s contribution distinguishable from background effects.

Watch for: Effects that obscure targets or make every action feel identical. Give players control over camera shake and flashes. A larger particle count is not evidence of a more satisfying impact.

Test: Let the player repeat the action without a reward prompt. Ask what made the hit satisfying, then reduce visual noise and compare. Observe whether players still recognise what they caused.

Design reference: DOOM Eternal: a reference for forceful combat feedback.

Excitement

The appeal of speed, tension and unexpected events.

Prototype: Prototype a short sequence with a calm approach, rising danger, a decisive response and a recovery beat. Use a visible threat that invites a choice instead of relying entirely on sudden unavoidable surprises.

Watch for: Constant intensity with no contrast. If the player cannot read the threat, test clarity before increasing speed. A stressful camera or unreadable HUD can overwhelm the intended thrill.

Test: Ask players to identify the most tense moment. Check whether that moment coincides with a meaningful action and whether they want to replay it. Compare tension with frustration separately.

Design reference: Burnout 3: Takedown: a reference for pace, near misses and high-impact events.

Pairing choice: combine these when the promise is immediate spectacle. If the goal is gentle construction or thoughtful conversation, adding explosions and urgency can weaken the intended experience.

Social: competition and community

Competition

The appeal of testing yourself against other players.

Prototype: Use one legible contest with clear scoring and a visible explanation of the result. Let players learn safely before ranking matters. Decide whether the intended contest is direct combat, racing, economic rivalry or a shared score challenge.

Watch for: A leaderboard added to an otherwise solitary game may change its emotional tone. Fair outcomes, waiting times and opponent matching can matter more than the amount of competitive content.

Test: Compare voluntary replay after a narrow loss and a heavy loss. Ask players what they would change next time. If the answer is “nothing could help”, investigate fairness and explanation.

Design reference: Rocket League: a reference for a clear competitive objective with room for skill.

Community

The appeal of interacting and achieving things with others.

Prototype: Create one situation where two players can help each other in different ways. Make assistance noticeable and provide useful communication without requiring voice chat. Test recovery when someone leaves or loses connection.

Watch for: More players do not automatically create connection. Waiting, unequal progress and one person doing all the work can undermine shared enjoyment. Avoid committing to multiplayer before testing the social interaction that justifies it.

Test: Observe whether people coordinate, acknowledge help and choose to continue together. Ask each player separately whether they felt useful. Include a group that does not already know one another.

Design reference: Deep Rock Galactic: a reference for complementary roles and shared mission goals.

Pairing choice: a team game can support both motivations, but social belonging does not require ranked PvP. A community around a single-player game is also different from a game that requires cooperation to progress.

Mastery: challenge and strategy

Challenge

The appeal of improving skill through demanding tasks.

Prototype: Make a small encounter that can be learned through repeated attempts. Keep input feedback consistent and the restart short. Let a player recognise a better attempt even before they succeed.

Watch for: Long runbacks, unclear damage or random outcomes that conceal learning. Decide which skill the encounter should test. Accessibility options and readable cues can help expose that skill more clearly.

Test: Record the types of mistakes across attempts. Ask what the player learned. Increasing accuracy or deliberate experimentation is more informative than counting deaths alone.

Design reference: Celeste: a reference for precise movement and repeated attempts.

Strategy

The appeal of planning decisions and anticipating consequences.

Prototype: Offer a few distinct choices whose consequences are understandable. Show enough information to support a plan. Introduce combinations gradually, then test an expert variant with more interacting variables.

Watch for: Menus and unexplained stats consuming more attention than the actual decision. Keep a distinction between useful uncertainty, which creates a choice, and missing information, which makes the outcome feel arbitrary.

Test: Ask players to describe their intended plan before acting and explain the result afterwards. Track whether they revise a plan for a reason or select options at random because they are lost.

Design reference: Into the Breach: a reference for compact tactical decisions with visible threats.

Pairing choice: difficulty and decision complexity are different. A fast timing challenge can involve little long-term planning. A slow, forgiving puzzle can invite deep thought. The public Strategy trend does not resolve which combination your audience wants.

Achievement: completion and power

Completion

The appeal of finishing objectives and collecting a defined set.

Prototype: Build a small project with visible steps, a clear end and a satisfying completed state. Let players see what remains without turning the entire screen into markers. Make completion change something they care about.

Watch for: A large checklist that adds repetition without a worthwhile result. Test whether an optional objective distracts from the main experience. Leave room for players who prefer to set their own goals.

Test: Offer an optional final task after the main goal is met. Observe whether players choose it and ask why. Separate satisfaction with finishing from anxiety about leaving a list incomplete.

Design reference: PowerWash Simulator: a reference for visible progress towards a clean finished result.

Power

The appeal of growing stronger through upgrades and progression.

Prototype: Give the player a recognisable limitation, then an upgrade that changes an action or opens a tactic. Let them revisit a familiar obstacle so the improvement is felt through play rather than only through a number.

Watch for: Enemies scaling so closely that progress feels meaningless. Also watch for upgrades that eliminate the very choices players enjoy. Separate character growth from the player learning to perform better.

Test: Ask players to demonstrate what the upgrade now lets them do. Compare their behaviour before and after it. If they notice only a bigger statistic, the upgrade may need a clearer gameplay consequence.

Design reference: Vampire Survivors: a reference for accumulating abilities and increasing combat output.

Pairing choice: completing a collection need not grant power, and becoming stronger need not require clearing every task. Choose deliberately whether these systems depend on one another.

Immersion: fantasy and story

Fantasy

The appeal of inhabiting another role or world.

Prototype: Choose a specific role, then support it with a small set of consistent actions. A travelling healer, fugitive or captain should be able to do something characteristic of that role before the game asks them to read extensive background lore.

Watch for: Setting details that promise an experience the mechanics do not support. Build the smallest place that feels coherent. Consistent reactions and memorable routines may matter more than a large map.

Test: Ask what role the player felt they occupied and which action created that feeling. Look for voluntary behaviour that fits the role, rather than treating the amount of lore read as proof of immersion.

Design reference: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: a reference for inhabiting an explorable fantasy setting.

Story

The appeal of characters, relationships and unfolding events.

Prototype: Create one character with a clear desire, a small conflict and a consequence the player can observe. Let dialogue choices express a meaningful stance. Track the state needed for later interactions to remain consistent.

Watch for: Large amounts of dialogue without change, or supposedly important choices that receive no acknowledgement. Generated volume does not itself create character continuity or dramatic purpose.

Test: After a delay, ask what the character wanted and what the player expects next. Check whether they remember a relationship or decision, rather than only the broad plot premise.

Design reference: Disco Elysium: a reference for characterful dialogue and consequential role expression.

Pairing choice: a convincing world can have little scripted plot. A powerful story can take place in a small, visually simple space. Scope each promise separately before deciding that both need extensive content.

Creativity: design and discovery

Design

The appeal of expressing personal taste through customisation.

Prototype: Offer a small set of pieces that can create visibly different results. Make placement, preview, undo and editing easy. Let players revisit and show the result without requiring a large content catalogue.

Watch for: Many options that produce almost identical outcomes, or costly mistakes that discourage experimentation. Watch whether cosmetic choices collide with mechanical advantages and make self-expression feel penalised.

Test: Compare what different players make with the same kit. Ask what feels personal about their creation. Observe whether they return to refine it without a new reward being offered.

Design reference: The Sims 4: a reference for personalising people and spaces.

Discovery

The appeal of uncovering unknowns and experimenting with possibilities.

Prototype: Build a small area containing a clue, a question and a discoverable rule. Let information enable a new action or reinterpret an old location. Offer hints progressively so players can retain ownership of the discovery.

Watch for: Map size mistaken for discovery. An unexplained object is not automatically an interesting mystery. Avoid revealing the answer through a compulsory marker before curiosity has time to form.

Test: Ask players what they want to investigate next, without suggesting an answer. Track self-initiated experiments and whether a discovery changes their understanding. Distinguish productive curiosity from aimless searching.

Design reference: Outer Wilds: a reference for exploration driven by questions and acquired knowledge.

Pairing choice: creation and discovery can reinforce each other when experimenting produces surprising results. They can also conflict if every creative action requires obscure knowledge or if a guide reveals everything before the player can explore.

Three concepts to test

These are original concept hypotheses, not proven market gaps or sales forecasts. Each is deliberately small enough to test before committing to a full production.

A calm construction game

Lead with Design and Completion; support with Discovery. Give the player one place to improve, a compact piece set and a visible completed project. An optional interaction can reveal a new use for an existing piece.

First prototype: one location, one editing loop and one finishing moment. Test whether players make distinct creations, enjoy the completed result and return to adjust it. Avoid adding survival pressure, daily obligations or an economy until there is evidence they strengthen the intended experience.

A deliberate party RPG

Lead with Fantasy and Strategy; support with Story. Make party roles and the consequences of abilities readable. One encounter can reveal how the party works; a short conversation afterwards can make the outcome matter to a companion.

First prototype: one small location, a limited party, a clear enemy intention and one meaningful interaction between abilities. Test understanding and role attachment separately. A player who cannot read an attack cue is not yet evidence that the combat concept has failed.

A compact cooperative adventure

Lead with Community and Discovery; support with Excitement. Give players different useful perspectives on the same problem. A brief hazard can reward coordination without making one expert carry everyone.

First prototype: one shared goal, two complementary actions and a reliable way to recover from a mistake. Test whether both players feel necessary and whether they want another session together. Estimate networking and support costs before expanding the content.

Choosing among them

Use an audience brief, a playable interaction and actual recruitment access. The strongest next project is the one where you can repeatedly deliver the promised experience at a sustainable scope, then demonstrate that the intended players value it. A broad trend alone cannot make that decision.

A small research cycle you can run

Use the feedback guide to frame a specific question and the Playtest Crew guide to understand the community process. Start with a formative test of roughly 8-12 relevant players. That is a practical first batch for finding problems, not a representative survey or a statistically powered market experiment.

Questions that give you useful answers

“What were you trying to do?” “Which moment would you want more of?” “When did you feel confused or frustrated?” “What would you do next if I left you to it?” “What would make you choose this over the game you normally play?”

Agree the decision before seeing the results

For an example 10-person prototype test, you might require 8 players to perform and explain the intended interaction without help, then investigate whether the target experience appears in their unprompted accounts. These are proposed local gates, not industry benchmarks. Record counts and exceptions; a small result such as 6 of 10 is not a reliable estimate of population demand.

For commercial validation, use the Steam indie game marketing guide to separately test discovery, store-page interest and actual purchasing behaviour when available. Enjoyment, stated intention, wishlisting and payment answer different questions.

The audience brief and decision sheet

Complete this before approving a large feature. Keep it to one page per concept or major revision. The priorities below are working choices, not psychometric scores.

Optional preference exercise

Ask participants to choose up to three experiences they want more of and one they would rather avoid: spectacle, excitement, rivalry, cooperation, skill improvement, planning, finishing goals, growing stronger, inhabiting a world, following characters, customisation, or discovery. Allow “something else” and ask for an example from a recent game.

Use the answer to start a conversation and compare it with observed behaviour. This exercise is not QF’s questionnaire, does not produce valid percentile scores and should not be labelled a validated motivation test.

When paid research would add value: consider it if a concrete decision depends on the missing cohort curves. Establish which comparison would change that decision. For early prototypes, direct evidence from relevant players may answer a narrower question more usefully.

Use AI to strengthen the player experience

These are original workflow suggestions. AI assistance can reduce the effort of producing a prototype; the player test still determines whether the result is worth keeping. Start with the experience, then choose the tool.

A prompt worth reusing

“Our target player enjoys [experience]. In this prototype they should [observable action]. Propose three implementation options within [constraints]. For each, explain the expected player benefit, what could fail, and one observable test. Separate published evidence from your suggestions; do not invent player responses or survey results.”

For code, also provide the engine version, existing interfaces and acceptance criteria. Inspect generated changes and run the build. For art or dialogue, supply a style reference and constraints before generating variants. Keep the result that supports the experience, not the one with the longest feature list.

Separate AI assistance from an AI feature

Tools used by the developer

Coding help, test scaffolding and organising research notes can be useful even when AI is not part of the player-facing concept. Judge the workflow by working output, review effort and maintainability. Keep source links with research notes; check factual summaries against the original material.

An AI-generated persona can help brainstorm questions. It is not a participant. A simulated interview, predicted review or invented survey row cannot establish enjoyment, willingness to pay or the size of an audience. Keep these exercises outside the evidence dataset.

Features experienced by the player

A generated conversation, adaptive event or creation tool needs a concrete benefit. Compare it with a simpler implementation using the same player task. Track coherence, response time, repeatability, failures and the cost per session alongside enjoyment. Test what happens when a service is unavailable.

For example, compare an authored companion scene with a constrained generated variant. Ask what the character wanted, what changed and whether the conversation was worth continuing. A longer conversation is not automatically a better one. A system that changes rules unpredictably can also undermine mastery.

Communicate the actual implementation

The negative attitudes in QF’s optional 2025 survey 11 are a reason to test the intended audience’s expectations. They do not prove that every AI-assisted project will be rejected. Record whether feedback concerns quality, consistency, creative provenance or the idea of AI use itself; these suggest different decisions.

Steam’s Content Survey guidance distinguishes pre-generated content that ships to players from live-generated content. It focuses on player-consumed content rather than general development efficiency; live generation requires a description of guardrails 20. Check the current guidance and the platform rules guide when preparing a submission.

A decision gate for a small team

Keep the feature when it produces an observed benefit worth its review burden, operating cost and failure modes. Simplify it when an authored or procedural version delivers the same experience more reliably. This is a project decision, not a claim that one technology suits every motivation.

Build a useful community evidence base

AIGD can make this guide more valuable by sharing inspectable project results. Use the same reporting fields across tests, while keeping results tied to the game, build and recruitment method that produced them.

Separate developer feedback from audience feedback

Other developers can identify production and implementation problems. They are not automatically the intended players, and an AI-focused community is not a neutral sample for measuring attitudes towards AI. Recruit some participants outside AIGD who already play comparable games. Record the channels separately.

Share counts and context

Write “6 of 10 recruited players completed the first encounter without help”, then describe the recruitment and task. Do not turn that into “60% of gamers understand the game”. Avoid pooling unlike games or changed questionnaires into a trend line. Retesting familiar players can measure learning rather than improved onboarding.

Keep the wiki maintainable

For each new claim, record its source, dates, sample, measure and limit. Keep recommendations distinct and share de-identified results. A future community survey can describe current members; it cannot reconstruct a missing decade. Synthetic respondents cannot supply missing observations.

Source notes and method

The numbered citations link directly to the original sources. Publication and fieldwork dates matter: an older comparison is not a new measurement of the 2026 audience. Full source titles are listed at the end of the article.

• 1 Quantic Foundry. 2026; accessed 27 October 2026. Source for the paid report scope and disclosed sample. The purchased report itself was not accessed.
• 2 Quantic Foundry. September 2026 file; pages 3 and 6-8. Public taxonomy underlying the playbook. Prototype recommendations and game interpretations in this guide are independent.
• 3 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 21 May 2024; data June 2015-April 2024. Source for the Strategy endpoints and reported subgroup comparisons. No intermediate data points were reconstructed.
• 4 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 11 August 2016. Historical age comparisons from more than 239,000 respondents; not an individual ageing study.
• 5 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 15 December 2016. Historical ranking comparisons by gender and age; primary motivation means the highest ranked score for an individual.
• 6 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 1 August 2018. Historical comparisons by self-described gamer type.
• 7 Quantic Foundry and Niko Partners. 27 November 2018. Different recruitment methods and sample compositions limit a simple cultural interpretation.
• 8 ESA and international partners; AudienceNet. 2025 report. 24,216 respondents aged 16+ across 21 countries. Reasons for playing are distinct from QF motivation scales.
• 9 Tianyi Gu, Newzoo. 14 April 2026; comparisons through 2025. Platform revenue shares cited here refer to the article’s Western-market scope; not worldwide indie revenue.
• 10 Video Games Europe and EGDF. Released 26 August 2026. Coverage expanded to 16 countries and ages 6-75. Release announcement linked below confirms the publication timing.
• 11 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 18 December 2025; data October-December 2025. Optional survey with 1,799 respondents. Attitudes are not observed purchasing outcomes.
• 12 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. March 2025; slides 15, 24, 29 and 32-33. Public slides support the Strategy cohort discussion. Selected strategy fans are not a representative sample of all gamers.
• 13 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 7 November 2023; survey February 2022-October 2023. 13,296 optional respondents. Distinguish extremely appealing from the combined very/extremely category.
• 14 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 27 January 2023; survey February 2022-January 2023. 9,585 optional respondents. Preferences were asked within genre contexts.
• 15 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 5 August 2021; survey March-December 2020. 2,956 optional respondents. The table uses respondent gender as its denominator.
• 16 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 19 January 2017. Historical favourite-game audience analysis. Genre estimates average selected titles; they are not market shares.
• 17 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 3 September 2020. 6,471 respondents who named Civilization VI among games they enjoyed. The prototype tests here are independent suggestions.
• 18 Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry. 17 August 2020. General segmentation of roughly 500,000 respondents. The article discusses limits of applying broad clusters to a specific title.
• 19 Quantic Foundry. Public example PDF, May 2017 file. Illustrates a report structure. Placeholder names, sample counts and segment graphics are not used as observed market statistics.
• 20 Valve, Steamworks Documentation. Current documentation checked 27 October 2026. Platform guidance can change. Consult the live document for submission requirements.

How the recommendations were produced

This is an AI-assisted synthesis of public primary sources. Its design guidance and proposed tests are independent recommendations, not findings from a new survey. Named playbook games illustrate mechanics; measured audience comparisons appear separately with their sources.

No paid-report pages, private respondent records or synthetic participants were used. Numerical tables contain explicitly published values. Missing annual and cohort measurements remain unreported.

Sources

• Quantic Foundry: The Evolution of Play product description
• Quantic Foundry: Gamer Motivation Model reference sheets V3
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Gamers Have Become Less Interested in Strategic Thinking and Planning
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: 5 Things We Learned About the Appeal of Competition
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Primary Gaming Motivations
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: What Men and Women Consider Hardcore Gaming Are Not the Same
• Quantic Foundry and Niko Partners: Chinese and US gamer motivation comparisons
• ESA and international partners; AudienceNet: Power of Play 2025
• Tianyi Gu, Newzoo: Playtime and revenue beyond the Top 20
• Video Games Europe and EGDF: All About Video Games European Key Facts 2025
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Gamers and generative AI attitudes
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: GDC 2025 presentation
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: The appeal of science fiction
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: First and third person perspective preferences
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Character gender preferences
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Female gamers by genre
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Civilization VI player segments
• Nick Yee, Quantic Foundry: Player segments based on gaming motivations
• Quantic Foundry: Example player segment analysis report
• Valve, Steamworks Documentation: Content Survey: Generative Artificial Intelligence Content