Longitudinal studies
Improve long-term fun and engagement

Reduce churn and improve the player experience of your first 2-10 days of gameplay

Learn about our options for longitudinal studies

Forge of Empires

by InnoGames

Optimize your game‘s engagement over the long run

PlaytestCloud's longitudinal studies are playtests that run for multiple days, simulating the experience new players have after downloading your game from the App Store or Google Play Store. Our setups are flexible, affordable, and can accommodate any game and test structure.

Tailor-made for your game

Pick how often and how long players should play, and when should fill out surveys.

Capture everything

From screen recording, to players thinking out loud, to daily surveys - we capture the entire longitudinal player experience for you.

Self-service or guided

Configure your studies directly on our website, or let us walk you through the process.

Create an account to see all options for longitudinal studies

How it works:

Set up your study online or together with us
Confirm the setup and upload an iOS or Android build
Review daily intermediate results

Talk to our team

Trusted by 60% of the studios behind the App Store's top 100 games

We're powering playtesting for thousands of producers, user researchers, game designers and others passionate about player experience.

Watch the journey

Follow your players‘ journey from the first-time player experience to day 7 and beyond.

Lots of game play
You can have players play for many hours, experiencing lots of later-game content.
Measure fun and enjoyment
Watch players‘ daily progress and track key metrics like fun and understanding with our daily surveys.
Test the difficulty
Test whether your players‘ understanding of the game mechanics grows as fast as your difficulty curve.

Use-Cases

Pinpoint where and why players churn

Understand long-term play and motivation

Watch how players tackle later-game content

Why remote playtesting?

Remote playtesting has its own set of specific, unique advantages, creating new possibilities for you and your team.

Learn more

Bringing light to your metrics

Longitudinal studies help you understand root causes for unexpected metrics in soft-launch or production. We can design studies that explain your players‘ behavior.

Low day 7 retention?
We can design a study to find out why people churn, and how you can keep them excited for longer.
Levels too difficult?
We help you find out why some levels are too hard. Often this is caused by players not understanding core game mechanics.
Engagement woes?
We help you find out why players don‘t interact with features as much as you expected.

Videos, surveys, and reports

We make it easy to analyze even long playthroughs by providing you with detailed recordings and documents.

Screen, touch and audio recording
We record the players‘ screen contents, including all touches and their spoken thoughts.
Surveys
Get structured feedback through surveys. Read each individual player‘s answers and download Excel reports.
Reports
We provide automated PDF summaries, as well as custom tailored expert reports for your study

Your game, your test setup

Each study is individual, and our longitudinal setups are built with that in mind: Choose from our study templates, or let us set up a custom test for you.

Session structure
From multiple daily sessions to natural, self-guided play, we can support nearly any test structure.
Surveys when you want them
Set up different surveys for each day, short surveys after each session or even no surveys at all.
Managed by us
We make sure players stay on track for a speedy turnaround of your study. No worrying about reminders or supporting testers throughout the study — that‘s our job.

Fast setup and turnaround

The ideal delivery date? Yesterday. Our longitudinal studies are well structured and we'll turn them around swiftly.

Quick setup
We can kick off a custom longitudinal study in less than 24h. Our template setups can be ordered 24/7 via our website.
Daily updates
Save time and analyze your study day-by-day, even while it's still running. You can check the intermediate results at any time.
Quick turnaround
5-day studies are finished after at most 7 days, 7-day studies after 10 days.

Need an expert?

We have some of the world’s leading games user researchers ready to help you design and analyze your playtests. Interested? Reach out to our team below.

We have the players

All of our testers are gamers – and they’re spread all over the world, ready to play and accessible immediately. Pick the kind of players you want and we will show you how they play your game.

Every type of gamer, from casual to hardcore
Target by games, genres, and demographics
Players play at home on their own devices
Players are from the US, UK, and Canada
We do all the logistical and bureaucratic work, from payment to NDAs

Find out more

For all mobile platforms

With PlaytestCloud, you can playtest any game on any platform, be it Android or iOS – with all of our services available for both.

iOS
Test any game on iOS via TestFlight or the App Store. For extra security and features, an optional SDK is available.
Android
Test any Android game on Google Play or by uploading a build (APK or AAB). All features enabled automatically, no SDK required.
Built-in security
Players are always under an NDA. Additional technical security measures are also available. Learn more.

Get all the details

Players play your game at home on their own devices. PlayestCloud will capture their whole gameplay experience.

Understand your players
We record the players’ screen, their touches and what they have to say at all times.
Game-optimized technology
Our video recording technology is optimized for games and has minimal performance impact.
Think-aloud protocol
Understand what your testers are thinking by listening to what they say.

Find out more

Professional video analysis tools

The PlaytestCloud video player is 100% built for analyzing gameplay videos. It helps you analyze recordings efficiently and share insights with your team.

Video scanning

Fast-forward through the gameplay recording video and quickly get an overview

Data Export

Export your video & analysis as MP4, CSV or Excel