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dunover

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Hello! Finally good ol' dunover has turned blue on the forum, and that's not just the language! The long awaited inception of the Player Focus Group is here and I shall be administering the day-to-day running of it alongside Neil and Bryan. The PFG is a commercial venture leveraged off the back of Casinomeister's stellar reputation and the combined knowledge of its membership. This is the first service of this type as far as we know and we believe the concept has great potential for both developers and players.

Many members here often bemoan the lack of quality in new slot releases and are repeatedly observing aspects players don't like in many of them. There seems sometimes to be a disconnect between developers and the market and both of those entities want the same thing - decent and playable games!

To that end, what better idea than to link the combined experience of seasoned players here and those having other areas of expertise in game analysis and development along with marketing and to then provide that to developers in one tiered service?

Well, it's happening now finally and this is where my role requires some (paid) assistance. While Bryan and Neil mainly perform the customer liaison and marketing role, I shall be assigning testers from various demographics and will be analysing the game in question myself and providing the final customer report and video annotation of said Excel report. A summary of the testers' findings and opinions is a vital part of this report as obviously we all focus on different aspects and have varied preferences which the developer needs to be aware of. More heads a better job makes!

I will shortly be contacting a number of respected members who have previously demonstrated a good understanding of new slots and like myself have posted polite, intelligent and objective opinions regarding them. :oops: Perhaps it's a good job my YT has gone! but trust me on this - every developer requires honesty, whether negative or otherwise as those of you whom have helped Simmo! with Afterlife Inferno will recall.

All I will require is the tester's age group and male/female (something I already know for most anyway) as I need a balanced group of respondents. Those I have chosen for any particular contract will have their forum name forwarded to Bryan because as holder of the Data Protection on CM only he can obtain necessary details for your payment via Paypal or Bank Transfer only. I will select a pool of suitable persons and usually only some (rather than all) will be used on any particular contract, depending on the requirements of the customer. Payments will be settled by Bryan once final invoicing is complete and paid.

Your work will take 2-3 hours maximum, most of which will be playing a demo and the rest filling in a crib sheet on either notepad or Excel I have designed and sent you at the beginning. Once that's returned to me, you're done. It goes without saying that your role will be absolutely confidential and in some cases the admin will have to sign a No Disclosure Agreement. This is why I shall be choosing very carefully!

Sorry for the long post, but I need to be pretty expansive here to hopefully forestall any questions I anticipated.

Further down the line I believe both ourselves as players and the developers will see the benefits of this project! Thanks! :thumbsup:
 
Well, you can always ask Simmo whether he was happy with my feedback (and Bryan regarding all else - he's privvy to information not everyone is) and I think I've been here long enough I don't need to sell myself, so if inclined, sign me up - I'm easy to reach; I'm in the forum about 16 hours a day :thumbsup:
 
Well, you can always ask Simmo whether he was happy with my feedback (and Bryan regarding all else - he's privvy to information not everyone is) and I think I've been here long enough I don't need to sell myself, so if inclined, sign me up - I'm easy to reach; I'm in the forum about 16 hours a day :thumbsup:


Thanks - I already have a list of people in mind and your name did crop up quite quickly. I will aim to get invites out over the weekend. Obviously persons associated with a developer already are precluded for obvious reasons, so that's at least one very useful chap off the list! I wouldn't have taken this task on if I wasn't 100% confident that this forum has the people I envisaged a need for and whom can make a significant meaningful contribution. :)
 
Should be a good endeavour - developers truly listening to players rather than stock responses of 'we'll pass it along up the food chain'.
I imagine you'll bundle a valuable crew who'll benefit the whole.
 
Good luck with this, hopefully it leads to some better/decent games being made :)

Can I ask, and I understand if you can't answer, but will you take into account people's playing style when you are picking people to test games, or have I read it wrong and everyone involved will be testing every game? Only asking as obviously different people like different types of games, personally I think I like very similar games to you, certainly going from your videos. High variance like the 'Book of xx' games, Bonanza, Magic Mirror, other Merkur games and I really dislike Starburst type games when you can start with £10, play for 5 hours at 10p a spin, and have £10.10 left at the end. I'm sure others feel the same way and the exact opposite whereby they are quite happy to do exactly what I don't like doing :).
 
Well I will aim for a balance - the female/male ratio would replicate the casino players in general, then at least one from each age group 18-30, 31-40, 41-old fart for example. Alas I fall in the latter category.
 
Good luck with this, hopefully it leads to some better/decent games being made :)

Can I ask, and I understand if you can't answer, but will you take into account people's playing style when you are picking people to test games, or have I read it wrong and everyone involved will be testing every game? Only asking as obviously different people like different types of games, personally I think I like very similar games to you, certainly going from your videos. High variance like the 'Book of xx' games, Bonanza, Magic Mirror, other Merkur games and I really dislike Starburst type games when you can start with £10, play for 5 hours at 10p a spin, and have £10.10 left at the end. I'm sure others feel the same way and the exact opposite whereby they are quite happy to do exactly what I don't like doing :).

You've hit the nail on the head, at least partly! Yes, I am aware that when a new customer/game is taken on I will need to take care to invite at least some members that have demonstrated they have favoured that type of math model or theme previously, because as you infer if it was a LV game or low-potential one then players like you and me would give a skewed collective opinion. There are aspects we'd all no doubt be singing from the same hymn sheet about, maybe themes or graphics but as for the features and gameplay those are far more subjective so in order to produce fair and good quality feedback I'd need to tailor the testers accordingly. That said, I could make the mistake of choosing testers that ALL like a type of game which would be equally prone to inaccuracy in the conclusions. So we'd have a cross-section wherever possible.

The idea is that I have a list of say 15-20 contributors and each time (depending on service requirements of the customer) I would need say between 5 and 10. So a tester may find they work on two consecutive demos then miss one or two out.
 
Congrats on 'the Blue' and of course huge props for this amazing project! I've been 'lobbying' for this for quite some time now, and have always hoped a group like this would be created - one that i would love to be part of, naturally! - so i was delighted when Simmo started up that Afterlife Focus Group, hoping it would be the start of something exciting. And it seems you guys haven't been sitting on your hands since!

But aside from me wanting to be part of this: i think it's a huge step forward, forming a bridge of sorts, which will lead to a more interactive and deepened relation, between Software providers, and their playerbase..

I can foresee great things... :D
The advantages such a group, once established, could provide, are quite a few..:thumbsup:
 
I would be happy to contribute as myself am mainly a slot player. One thing I qualify for sure is "the old fart club" :) (not sure if I fit on your list but will wait and see :p)
 
Me and @Simmo! had several PM chats about this and the inferno game, I haven't been here as long as many members but have worked in the industry all my life in one way or another, as some are aware of I have made several basic slot sims using real slot math on the reels of fun site and am sure I could make a great contribution, so feel free to consider me, ( Male 48 ) and currently have loads of free time to give a slot a good beta test thrashing! You do have to understand tho that there is no perfect slot math model to suit everyone but this will be a great way to get all the basics in place ready for the the med and high variance games to work better.
 
Me and @Simmo! You do have to understand tho that there is no perfect slot math model to suit everyone but this will be a great way to get all the basics in place ready for the the med and high variance games to work better.
As I understand these focus groups, the maths element is mostly irrelevant (but for feedback for future games and in only the most rudimentary way), as by the time it reaches the focus group, those are the least likely tweaks to be made, as opposed to general appeal, graphics, music, smooth running/bugs, likeability etc.
I could be wrong of course :)
 
As I understand these focus groups, the maths element is mostly irrelevant (but for feedback for future games and in only the most rudimentary way), as by the time it reaches the focus group, those are the least likely tweaks to be made, as opposed to general appeal, graphics, music, smooth running/bugs, likeability etc.
I could be wrong of course :)

But they will know as soon as they test it with slotplayers whether it’s a bust or not.
I think tweaks will turn into major changes for some games.
 
I have the necessary time, and fall into the "old fart" catagory. While I love Bonanza, I do play a lot of lower variance games because I can play at higher bet sizes, or last longer. I even like 3 real slots, especially some of the newer ones with bonus games.

I also have desktop (a couple of browsers), as well as an iPad, an android tablet, and an android phone. There are definitely games that play better on one platform than another.
 
Sounds a great idea.

Only one concern tho. And no disrespect to Simmo or others involved.

But the one time this was tried does not seem to have turned out to be the greatest of successes. By that i mean there has been no mention of Afterlife Inferno since the thread at it's release. For a slot with such potential not a screenshot or mention of it since.

So need to ask how many of the people that put their input in actually play it. It just does not seem to have been a great success. I know tho its all trial and error to get what everyone wants.

Yeah i know i sound negative but at least i give criticism where i think its due and that can't be bad:D
 

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