Today we have some surprisingly unusual move from Neowiz and Round 8 Studios, when it comes to their upcoming masocore action game, Lies of P.
On Steam, Neowiz and Round 8 shared the results of their focus group discussion about the game. They also uploaded a gamer interview, where they had various gamers and influencers talk about their experiences with and opinions of Lies of P.
We do know to some degree that the industry does research like this in the production of their games. With some regularity, you yourself may be asked to fill out a survey to help your favorite game company by giving them some free market research.
But this is the first time we will be reporting on the FGD research that a game company held on a video game they are still making. It’s a small window to the behind the scenes of the game, although it is also clear now that Neowiz saw the opportunity they had to use this for marketing. It does make you wonder why the big companies like Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, etc don’t share details like these, for that very purpose.
We’ll review the results of Lies of P’s FGD in brief here, but you can see their presentation on their Steam page.
Round 8 got 55 participants in their native South Korea for this FGC. They were split into three groups; influencers, gamers who like action games and soulslike games, and gamers who have completed soulslike games.
They have found that 91 % of respondents enjoyed the hit satisfaction, and 65 % of respondents enjoyed the game guide’s clarity. These are their highest and lowest player satisfaction scores.
Among these soulslike fans, 64 % found the boss difficulty appropriate, and 69 % found the overall difficulty more on the difficult but manageable side.
When surveyed about purchase intentions, Round 8 found that 81 % of respondents would buy Lies of P. However, they found that fans would pay an average of 60,000 Korean won for the game. That comes out to a little less than $ 47, which is not even as high as the $ 60 industry average that some companies want to raise.
Like I said, that Neowiz and Round 8 are so open about their findings is quite unusual. Perhaps it’s partly because of the unusual situation they find themselves in, as an untested studio that wants to prove themselves to a new set of fans. This move can only be taken in good faith, and it does make us expect them to take this feedback to improve the final game.
Lies of P will be released on September 19, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. You can watch the game interview below.
