How Xbox Research accomplished worldwide virtual playtesting with Parsec

It was essential that the solution they chose had high performance, high fidelity and could be used to show the best gameplay at a distance. Many alternatives were tried, but none could mimic local gameplay. This was crucial for both the delivery of the greatest feedback and the control.

“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. “We wouldn’t have been able to continue remote playtesting at the same level of quality without it.”

Solution:

Parsec has been successfully used to test playback. Halo InfiniteXbox Research deploys Parsec in order to begin playtesting for the next. Age of Empires release. The initial round of tests proved that Parsec’s seamless gameplay experience produced meaningful user research.

Xbox Research didn’t see any evidence of reduced testing quality or quantity after using Parsec for remote playtesting for a year. The reports were as though the studies had taken place in person. Now that Parsec allows them to test again with players around the globe, Xbox Research is able to focus on scaling up virtual game testing. 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).

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. “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.” 

Numbers:

• Xbox Research has been around since 2000
• Parsec can be run on 120 workstations at the same time.
• Playtests running simultaneously: More than 20
• The number of participants in each month’s testing: 150+

Parsec is a virtual testing tool that Xbox Research used to simulate playtests.

Scaling up to meet demandTime, space and number are all fixed limits for in-person testing on dedicated hardware. Budgets and space limitations can make it difficult to accommodate many players in a test area at one time. Xbox Research is able to access gamers from anywhere in the world, allowing them to run multiple tests consecutively at low cost. Xbox Research created VMs using Microsoft Azure and Parsec Teams Enterprise to meet their demand and maintain control of their testing.

Game without Limits For remote playtesting to provide statistically viable feedback, gameplay needs to feel the same in a gamer’s living room anywhere around the world as it would in the Redmond lab. Xbox’s rigorous research methodology requires a predictable and consistent gameplay experience across geographic divides with near-zero lag and latency – which Parsec delivered with flying colors. Xbox Research is able to connect to multiple markets, and players of different abilities with Parsec’s Teams Enterprise. The user experience will be virtually the same.

Securing connectionsThe safety of intellectual property is the primary concern for game developers. The success and reputation billion-dollar brands are at risk from leaks and piracy. Xbox Research can control what guests and internal staff members on the Xbox system are able to access. Parsec connections can also be peer-topeer or end-toend encrypted so that game studios are able to run their content safely.

”Playtesting is such a complicated beast, given the interactive content and the hardware requirements,” said Walker. “Parsec made remote playtesting efficient, reliable, and more secure.”

Parsec integration with Microsoft to move forward

Xbox Research’s success is real-world proof of Parsec’s value for real-time 3D applications. Microsoft Studios’ developer ecosystem, in partnership with Microsoft Azure, has continued to expand the adoption of Parsec Teams Enterprise. Azure Marketplace allows creative teams to deploy VMs with Parsec preconfigured in just five minutes.

Parsec is going to allow us to scale in scenarios we’ve never been able to before,” said Walker.  Parsec lets us create Azure virtual machine laboratories anywhere. This is our future.”

Want to test your games anywhere you are?Parsec is free to try.