FAQ by Studios that playtest in the cloud

Sekg (Sensing Emotions and Knowledge Group) is a tech startup based in lovely Barcelona. A team of great people with different backgrounds (engineering, marketing, sales, Game UX design and game development) working together to help videogame companies and publishers create amazing experiences that players enjoy. Read more about our company.

Antidote is a UX (User Experience) and analytics platform that aims to help game studios implement game testing in their development processes. We accompany developers from the very first prototype until the game is published and beyond. We work together to create great player experiences and help you reach new heights of success.

We have developed an online, cloud-based platform to help developers directly handle their playtesting projects from their offices or homes. Creating an account on the platform is easy as pie; simply use this link to sign up and choose the plan that better suits your company.

Antidote supports games for PC, Mac and Android. Additional platforms (e.g ios, console, cloud streaming, etc) are also a possibility. We recommend discussing your use case with us beforehand.

We have two models available in order to better adapt to your budget and needs: 

• Pay as you go: create playtests targeting our community of players
• Subscription: use Antidote as a tool, playtesting your games with your own community of players.

Discover more here: https://antidote.gg/your-playtesting-solution/

Easy as pie. Register to Antidote and start playtesting your game.

Of course! Ask for the demo account via email or our online chat. You can also schedule a meeting with one of our representatives to walk you through the entirety of the Antidote platform and clear any other questions you might have.

Antidote provides several ways to do this. During the creation of your playtest, you can select to distribute your game via Antidote, use another launcher (such as Steam or Epic) or use your own distribution system by setting a download link. If you require game keys to be distributed to the testers, Antidote automatically manages their assignation and helps you supervise its usage.

Antidote has several mechanisms in place to make sure your game is securely distributed. By default, and without any additional integration from your side, the game is sent to players over secure channels, only allowed to players that are assigned to your playtest and removed from the player’s system when the playtest is finished. In addition to that, you can integrate the Antidote SDK to add DRM-like measures to prevent execution from outside our platform.

There are 2 main options: players from Antidote or players from your beta testing community. During the creation process of your playtest, you will be able to specify your player target (gender, age, gamer profile, games played, etc); if you choose Antidote Players, the platform will automatically select the group of testers that best match the requirements you are looking for. Otherwise, you can select who to invite from your community: only matching players, a few or even all of them.

Absolutely! In addition to playtesting with Antidote players, you can also invite your own community of players. To do this, just follow these simple steps.

Most of the players are based in Europe or North-America (USA & Canada), but there are plenty more from many other regions. Testers are usually invited to play from their homes but in certain cases, such as in advanced configurations or complex scenarios, players can also be invited to our game lab in Barcelona.

Inviting your own community of players is available with an Antidote subscription. To invite them just follow these steps:

1. Log in as a company
2. Generate an invitation code:
   Go to Players > Generate invitation code > Show Invite link

3. Share the invitation code with your players directly or via your social networks; as they join your community, they will appear in your Players list.
4. Whenever you are ready, create your playtest and on the Project Details tab select the option “Players from my list”.
5. Publish the playtest and select the players from your list that will have access to it. These players will receive a notification, and will be able to playtest your game while the project is open.
6. Player sessions will appear in your project as they finish.
7. Happy testing!

Players are rewarded with Antidote Coins, a virtual currency they can exchange for game related items (games, steam credit, Amazon cards, etc.) in our Antidote Store. When your playtests target players from the Antidote Player Base, a standard reward is included. You can modify the reward to match your needs. The same occurs when you target players from your own community. To know more about why we decided to reward players with Antidote Coins, please read Why are player rewards assigned in Antidote Coins instead of cash?.

One of our missions is to provide you with a safe environment where you can iteratively test players’ experience and improve your game. To achieve that, one of the things we found necessary is to match you with real players, people you would find in the real world, and who are eager to share their thoughts on how they experience your game. We believe that by offering Antidote Coins, which are only exchangeable for game related items, we can avoid professionalization and biases.

On average, a full playtesting project is completed between 24 and 48 hours after you launch it. You will be able to review individual player sessions as they arrive, without having to wait until the end of the playtest.

Please note that timings may vary depending on the type of playtest or requested.

Of course! We highly recommend playtesting various levels in order to better understand the highs and the lows of the build or even the game itself.

Since each project is unique, you can create your own surveys with specific questions in order to aim at the true needs of your game. A range of standard questions have also been elaborated by our UX experts and are available during project creation.

You can create surveys with many types of questions. These include opinion scales, open questions, yes/no, single and multiple choice but also sections to help you organize your questions. Antidote displays players’ answers in a beautiful way, so you can get fast insights even at a glance.

The number of questions is unlimited. However, we would recommend to not go further than 20-30 questions per project. More questions than that and we start seeing decreases in the response rate and quality of responses.

To help you fully understand how players experience your game, Antidote provides you with several tools that are configurable at the moment you define your project: gameplay recording, think aloud comments (embedded in gameplay), hardware specifications, video conference with players, face recording, survey answers report and even general intents. During the playtest, this information is automatically collected by Antidote (subject to prior acceptance by the player) thus making it really simple for the player to start playtesting your game right away. 

Advanced playtesting options are also available, so feel free to ask our team for more options.

In addition to standard playtesting, Antidote can also connect to biometric systems to record heart rate, skin conductance or eye tracking. This can help discover more about players’ experience by, for example, determining levels of stress or impactful moments. Biometric playtests are performed at our Antidote Lab or directly by the testers from home, where they can connect their own hardware to Antidote before playing. If you would like more information about how it works and what kind of wearables we support, contact us.

This is part of our extra services. Let us know what you have in mind to see how we can help! Contact us here.

Each player accepts a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when joining Antidote. In addition to that, before each playtest, players are reminded about the confidentiality agreement. Additionally, you can also set your own NDA and players will need to accept it before playtesting your game.

Of course! Antidote also helps you test video game concepts, GDD, designs, trailers, cinematics… you name it! 

If you are also developing a mobile or desktop app companion that is not a game or a side project your studio is working on, you can also use Antidote to help you with that. In such cases, we are always looking to extend our depth of services and would be happy to collaborate with you on your project. Contact us for more.

Sure! Please refer to Can we test other things besides a game?

Antidote offers a full range of services for videogame companies and publishers. If you don’t find what you are looking for in our website, please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your needs and find the solution that suits you best.