At Melior Games, we’ve seen some brilliant ideas become blockbusters. And others, unfortunately, stall before they even get past the concept stage. The difference often comes down to validating your game idea. Before you invest your budget, time, and team into a new game, you need to answer one important question: Is your idea worth developing?
In this article, we’ll tell you why validating your ideas is important, how to do it effectively, and what tools and strategies successful studios use to reduce risk and increase market relevance.
🔍 Why is it important to test your game ideas
Game development is exciting, but it is also expensive. Testing your ideas is worth it to:
- Prevent wasting resources on features that no one needs
- Identify early flaws in game mechanics or appeal
- Help secure investor or publisher interest
- Give your development team a clear direction
- Set realistic expectations for monetization
In other words, testing serves as a guarantee of your game’s success.
🧠 Step 1: Refine your game concept
Before testing anything, your idea should be clearly defined. At Melior Games, we ask clients to outline:
- Genre and core loop – What will players do repeatedly?
- Target audience – Who is the game for? (Age, platform, interests)
- Monetization model – Free? Ads? Premium?
- Unique selling proposition (USP) – What makes it stand out?
Here’s one sentence that helps:
“This is a roguelike cooking game for mobile devices where each level teaches a real-world recipe.“
📊 Step 2: Conduct market research
After you have a clear notion, study the market and competition.
- Analyze the best games in your genre
- What do they have in common?
- Are there gaps or oversaturated areas?
- Check market trends
- Use tools like Sensor Tower, AppMagic, or Google Trends
- Review user reviews of similar games
- What do players like or complain about?
🎯 Advice: It’s always a positive sign if you discover two or three comparable games that are selling well. It demonstrates consumer demand.
🗣️ Step 3: Test your idea with real people
Don’t rely on intuition. Get early feedback from your target audience.
- Concept Testing:
Share your idea with your target audience using:- Surveys (via Typeform or Google Forms)
- Reddit/GameDev forums
- Focus groups
- Landing page testing
Create a simple landing page with:- Game description
- Concept art or mockup
- A “Subscribe for updates” button
Track the number of people who click or sign up. High interest = green light.
🎮 Step 4: Create a prototype or a vertical slice
Now it’s time to move from theory to experience.
- Make a basic mechanics prototype using as few resources as possible.
- Conduct a soft launch or closed test on websites such as itch.io, Google Play (beta), or TestFlight
- Use analytics tools (like Unity Analytics or Firebase). They help you track:
- Retention rates
- Session duration
- Bounce points
💡 Tip from Melior Games: You can tell whether your core loop is active after just three minutes. If players return even once, you’ve found something new.
💬 Step 5: Iterate based on feedback
Players’ words and actions should not be disregarded. Integrate qualitative input (such as reviews or survey results) with quantitative statistics (such as retention).
Look for:
- Confusion about controls or gameplay
- Boredom or lack of complexity
- Features they love or wish they had
- Resistance to monetization
Make changes, test again. Great games aren’t born—they’re made through iteration.
✅ Final Validation Checklist
Make sure you can confirm the following before proceeding with full development:
- Clear game concept with the target audience
- Market demand and competitor research completed
- Positive feedback from early testers
- Players comprehend and appreciate the core cycle, according to data.
- The monetization model aligns with player behavior
If you’ve achieved all five points, it’s time to build with confidence!
🎯 Need help validating your game idea?
Helping customers turn their ideas into hits is our specialty at Melior Games. Our staff contributes experience and industry knowledge to every project, from market research and prototyping to full development.
📩 Contact us today to start validating your game idea.
