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Experienced Games User Researcher

• Salary: Annual
• Format: Full-time, permanent
• Location: Brighton UK or Montreal Canada, starting remotely
• Reports to: People Manager

Player Research is the premier partner for games user research.

Hundreds of game development studios rely on our insights into usability, UX, appeal and play.

From our Brighton and Montreal studios we design and conduct award-winning UX research for video games: usability testing, expert reviews, engagement diaries, training courses… and so much more. Our clients are passionate developers seeking to understand their players to deliver affective and engaging gaming experiences.

We’re looking for experienced games user researchers to join our teams. You’ll find our broad range of clients, stakeholders and research questions to be invigorating. And you’ll find our work environment to be collegiate, adaptable, and inviting.

We’re seeking experienced games user researchers to join our studios in the UK and Canada

All our researchers are generalists. Their full-time job is the execution of varied user research studies that improve commercial video games. With increasing experience comes responsibilities for mentorship of peers, project ownership, research strategy consulting with clients, methodology design, and personal specialisation.

Our staff are a healthy mix of expert practitioners and academics, of ambitious career-starters and seasoned professionals. Experienced games user researchers—like you—bring unique perspectives and learnings to help us grow, and offer even richer insight to our client studios. In return, Player Research provides a stable and vibrant workplace to conduct the most fulfilling work of your career.

Who do we work with? Game developers, publishers, platform owners, incubators, universities… As an external research studio we collaborate far and wide. You’ll benefit from the long-term relationships we’ve forged with our key partners, while also having opportunities to develop fresh relationships with studios taking their first steps in player-centric development.

Around one third of our projects are commissioned by games user research teams inside studios or publishers

Our projects come in all shapes and sizes from usability testing to anti-toxicity research; game console UI to toys-to-life; AAA full-playthroughs to rapid expert evaluations for indies. Our consultant researchers are brought to the heart of design decision-making in projects of all types, be that spanning years of development or as one-off research engagements.

Although we collaborate with studios big and small, it’s noted that we choose not to contribute to real money gambling, nor adult entertainment games.

Every month we welcome new clients; each places their trust in Player Research to guide their creative and commercial vision

We are exceptionally proud of our decade-long reputation for authenticity, transparency and rigour. And we’d love to make you a part of it.

Whether you have one year or ten years of experience under your belt, we think you’ll find professional and personal fulfilment in joining our team.

Core Responsibilities

As an experienced Games User Researcher you’ll work with a wide-range of studios to design and execute research. From one-off studies to development-spanning campaigns of research, you’ll deliver world-leading games user research as part of our team.

The day-to-day involves:

• Designing, scoping, managing and executing qualitative user research in collaboration with our wide array of partner studios
• Working alongside our Operations and Client Relations teams as a consultant. You’ll advise our partner studios on research approaches that will deliver them actionable and affordable insights
• Capitalising on every research project to share your knowledge with your peers, and try new things
• Applying your prior experience and unique research interests to diversify the insight we offer to our partner studios
• Capturing your knowledge in training materials, articles, talks, and mentoring your colleagues
• Applying yourself to the continuous improvement of yourself through training, writing, and evaluating video game UX
• Using your initiative to improve our processes for the benefit of colleagues and clients
• You’ll have two managers: a regional People Manager and a global Head of Research Craft, ensuring your professional and technical growth respectively

And depending on your research experience and personal goals, you should also be:

• Owning the development of new approaches and offerings
  
  
• Owning key client relations to be the trusted point-of-contact for advice and consultancy
• Speaking, writing and educating the world on the importance of games user research
• Compiling long-form research strategies to answer our partner studio’s strategic needs
• Writing and conducting training sessions, both internal-facing and client-facing

Experience Requirements

We are pleased to offer visa sponsorship to support international applicants for this role. Please identify on your application whether or not you have an existing right to work.

Requirements for our Montreal Applicants

For those with an existing legal right to work in Canada: One or more years experience in user research.

Or, for those without an existing right to work in Canada: Three or more years industry research experience (further information on immigration to Canada).

Requirements for our Brighton Applicants

For those with an existing legal right to work in the UK: One or more years experience in user research.

Or, for those without an existing right to work in the UK: Two or more years industry research experience plus professional-level spoken and written English (further information on immigration to the UK).

If you meet the foundational criteria for both locations, please outline your preference in your application.

Location and Starting

• For immediate start, but we’re willing to wait for the right candidate
• The candidate can be located in Brighton (UK) or Montreal (Canada), post-pandemic
• Our offices and playtest labs in both regions are presently closed to in-person research and will remain so until post-vaccine
• Permanent remote working is regrettably not feasible: empirical studies in our secure playtesting facilities are central to the operations of our research. We’ll resume them post-vaccine, when it’s safe to do so
• Flexible working from home is feasible for several of our research methodologies and portions of empirical studies too

Salary, Benefits and Perks

• Competitive salaries, in line with regional games user research roles
• Generous annual leave allowance
• Life insurance
• Pension plan
• Income protection plan
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
• Optional subsidised private medical cover
• State-of-the-art research labs in Brighton and Montreal
• Relocation support for yourself and family
• Region-specific perks and benefits
• Friendly, inclusive teams with a range of interests and activities to join

In addition to base salary we include a modest personal/company performance-based annual bonus, and a host of perks specific to each region.

Brighton and Montreal are each beautiful cities, with vibrant game development communities, and afford a great standard of living.

To Apply

Montreal: Please submit your CV and covering letter outlining your career goals to montrealhiring@playerresearch.com

Brighton: Please submit your CV and covering letter outlining your career goals to brightonhiring@playerresearch.com

If you meet the foundational criteria for both locations, you’re welcome to apply to both positions. Please highlight on both your application emails that you’ve applied to the other also.

We’ll arrange a short ‘get to know you’ meeting as a first step.

The closing date for this role is Monday 24th May 2021. We will confirm receipt of your application, but most applicant communication will occur after the closing date.

Stand out and be passionate. Good luck.

Benefits

• Competitive salaries, in line with regional games user research roles
• Generous annual leave allowance
• Life insurance
• Pension plan
• Income protection plan
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
• Optional subsidised private medical cover
• State-of-the-art research labs in Brighton and Montreal