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Game studios rarely decide on a major production commitment from a pitch alone. They reduce uncertainty in stages: refine the vision, build prototypes or proofs of concept, explore a playable draft, examine market and delivery questions, gather structured player evidence, and use a production-like vertical slice as a possible readiness gate.
Those activities answer different questions. A prototype asks whether an idea can work in play; a playtest asks how intended players respond; a market discussion asks whether the opportunity and business risk are acceptable; and a vertical slice asks whether the team understands how to build the game at production quality. The sources below describe useful approaches, not one universal formula or a guaranteed predictor of success.
What studios are trying to prove before production
“Is this a good idea?” is too broad to be a useful production decision. Teams break it into testable questions:
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11- Creative question: Can the proposed mechanics, theme, and player promise become a coherent experience?
- Player question: Do representative players understand the experience, enjoy it, and reveal problems the team did not see?
- Commercial question: Is there credible market potential, and can the project survive development surprises?
- Delivery question: Can this team build, staff, support, and ship the intended game with an acceptable plan?
- Readiness question: Has the team demonstrated both what the game is and how it will be made?
Studios gather evidence in sequence because each answer requires a different artifact and evaluator. A cheap experiment can expose a flawed premise before a large team is hired, while a polished build can reveal production problems that a paper design or rough prototype cannot.
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There is no published success rate or industry-wide threshold that determines when a concept is “safe.” The process is better understood as staged risk reduction: each checkpoint should make a specific uncertainty smaller or reveal that the project should change, pause, or stop.
Stage 1: Explore and refine the vision
Preconception is an iterative learning loop
Ubisoft describes preconception as an intentionally iterative period before the concept is mature. Its official description says, “The Preconception phase allows teams to remain in an iterative development spiral, to take risks, try and fail, test and refine their vision until it is mature enough to move into the Conception phase.” Read the description in its company context at Ubisoft’s Creative Process.
In practical terms, a team can cycle through sketches, design discussions, small experiments, and discarded approaches instead of treating the first pitch as fixed. The purpose is not to produce a launch-ready build. It is to discover what the game is trying to deliver and which assumptions need evidence.
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What teams examine at this point
- The player promise: what the player repeatedly does and why that activity should be compelling.
- The central fantasy, tone, or subject matter and whether the proposed mechanics support it.
- Risks that could invalidate the idea, such as a mechanic that is difficult to communicate or a subject that requires unfamiliar research.
- Which questions can be answered with a small experiment rather than a full feature implementation.
Preconception should therefore be judged by learning value, not by visual polish. A failed experiment is useful when it prevents the team from carrying a weak assumption into a more expensive stage.
Stage 2: Build a concept and make the idea tangible
Conception combines creative definition with investigation
In Ubisoft’s account, a core team defines and solidifies the vision during conception. Teams may create prototypes and proofs of concept, conduct research, and immerse themselves in the subject. These activities turn an abstract proposal into something the team can inspect and debate.
A prototype is an instrument for answering a narrow design question. It may isolate movement, combat, progression, interaction, or another central behavior. A proof of concept similarly demonstrates that a technically or creatively uncertain idea is feasible enough to investigate further. Neither label implies a complete game, and neither is automatically a vertical slice.
Prototypes and proofs of concept
- Question answered: Does a specific idea work when represented in play?
- Typical evaluator: Primarily the development team and its decision-makers.
- Evidence produced: Observations about feel, feasibility, clarity, and the assumptions that remain unresolved.
- Production likeness: Usually limited to the tested question; a comparable cost or duration is not stated in the cited sources.
Research and subject immersion serve a different purpose. They can help the team understand the world, audience, or domain it is representing, reducing the chance that the design rests on a misunderstanding. Ubisoft presents these activities as part of its own process, not as a mandatory sequence for every studio.
The concept kickoff adds market and shipping questions
Ubisoft says its concept kickoff considers both the game’s market potential and plans for shipping the final product. Its wording is: “Alongside showing off a fun, innovative and well-developed game concept, the focus is also on understanding the market potential for the game and planning for the shipping of the final product.” This means a concept review can ask not only whether the game is enjoyable, but also whether the opportunity and delivery plan merit further investment.
Market potential is not the same as a forecasted sales number. The cited material does not provide a universal demand model, a required audience size, or a pass/fail percentage. It establishes that market and shipping considerations belong in the discussion described by Ubisoft.
Stage 3: Move from an idea to a first playable
What a first playable is for
Ubisoft places a first-playable build in preproduction, after the conception activities that include prototypes and proofs of concept. The first playable lets team members test and explore a work-in-progress draft of the core experience.
This milestone is broader than a one-question prototype but earlier and less complete than a production demonstration. The team can inspect whether the core loop works in context, whether systems interact as expected, and which parts of the design need another pass before production scales up.
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The terms describe different milestones in Ubisoft’s process:
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| Artifact | Primary question | Who evaluates it | Evidence or limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype | Can a particular idea work in play? | Usually the team | Focused evidence about a design or technical uncertainty; cost and scope are not stated. |
| Proof of concept | Can an uncertain approach be demonstrated well enough to pursue? | Usually the team and decision-makers | Feasibility evidence, not a complete game or production guarantee. |
| First playable | How does a draft of the core experience behave as a connected experience? | Team members and internal stakeholders | A preproduction exploration build; it is distinct from the later vertical-slice gate. |
| Vertical slice | Is the team ready to enter production with a credible way to make the game? | Internal decision-makers and, where applicable, external stakeholders | Production-readiness evidence; the cited Volition description does not set a universal quality bar or cost. |
Keeping these labels separate prevents a common mistake: treating any playable build as proof that the full production plan is ready.
Stage 4: Test commercial and operational risk
Greenlight questions are risk questions
Adam Saltsman’s 2016 GDC session, Deciding What to Make: A Greenlight Process for Commercial Indies, frames greenlighting around questions such as commercial risk, whether the idea can survive development surprises, and whether the budget can remain flexible. The session listing is available in the GDC Vault.
These questions do not constitute a quantified forecasting model. They give decision-makers a way to challenge optimistic assumptions before authorizing a larger commitment:
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- Commercial resilience: If the audience responds differently than expected, can the concept or positioning adapt?
- Development resilience: If a key feature takes longer, fails technically, or must be cut, does the game still have a viable identity?
- Budget flexibility: Is there room to handle surprises, or does one delay make the plan untenable?
- Scope coherence: Does the planned feature set support the central promise, or is the project accumulating disconnected ambitions?
A “yes” to these questions is not evidence that the game will sell. It indicates that the team has considered how the project could fail and whether it has options.
Stage 5: Use playtesting to gather player evidence
Why playtesting is different from internal review
Internal reviews are valuable for design and production decisions, but the development team already knows the intended rules and can unconsciously fill in missing information. Graham McAllister’s GDC Europe session, Implementing an In-House Playtesting Process, describes methods intended to reduce biased opinion and provide evidence for key design decisions in both AAA and indie development. See the GDC Vault session listing.
A playtest places a build in front of intended or representative players and observes what they do, understand, enjoy, or struggle with. The useful output is not simply “players liked it.” It can include recurring confusion, points where players stop engaging, mismatches between intended and actual behavior, and questions that warrant another design experiment.
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What a playtest can and cannot establish
- It can establish: evidence about the tested build and the tested players’ experience under the chosen conditions.
- It can support: decisions about usability, clarity, pacing, rules, and other design questions visible in the session.
- It cannot guarantee: broad market success, long-term retention, or a universal response from every audience.
- Its scope matters: a test of one game type does not automatically generalize to another.
A 2021 survey by Cristiano Politowski, Fabio Petrillo, and Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc reports that developers rely heavily on manual playtesting and testers’ expertise. The review searched the literature in 2019 and covers game testing broadly, not only early concept validation. It emphasizes that game types vary and that methods do not generalize uniformly. Read the survey at arXiv.
Stage 6: Use a vertical slice as a production-readiness gate
What the vertical slice tests
In the 2015 GDC session The Vertical Slice Challenge, Greg Donovan of Volition describes the vertical slice as a tool for deciding whether a team is ready to move from preproduction into production. The GDC Vault listing says the slice should serve internal and external goals and demonstrate that the team understands both the game it is making and how to make it.
This makes a vertical slice a readiness test rather than merely a showcase trailer. It should expose whether the intended quality, workflow, technology, staffing assumptions, and content-production approach can work together in a representative piece of the game. The cited session does not define one mandatory slice size, schedule, budget, or acceptance score.
Production questions a slice can surface
- Can the team achieve the target experience with the tools and processes it expects to use?
- Are the quality expectations understood consistently across disciplines?
- Does the proposed workflow reveal bottlenecks before the project expands?
- Can the team explain how the demonstrated work scales to the rest of the game?
Ubisoft separately describes preproduction as a stage for developing and evaluating tools and processes for upcoming production. That supports the idea of using preproduction to validate the way work will be done, while Volition’s account specifically frames the vertical slice as a possible gate into production.
How the methods fit together
The following comparison keeps the decision questions separate instead of treating every test as a popularity vote.
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preconception experiments | Which version of the vision is worth developing? | Core team | Learning from tests, failures, research, and refinements | Low; no comparable cost stated |
| Prototype or proof of concept | Can a specific creative or technical premise work? | Team and decision-makers | Focused feasibility and design observations | Limited to the question tested; cost not stated |
| First playable | Does a draft of the core experience work as a connected play experience? | Team members and stakeholders | Exploration of the work-in-progress core | Preproduction build; cost not stated |
| Market and greenlight review | Is the opportunity and risk acceptable to pursue? | Decision-makers | Judgment about market potential, shipping, commercial risk, surprises, and budget flexibility | Not a build-quality test; no universal model stated |
| Playtest | How do tested players experience the build? | Intended or representative players, interpreted by the team | Behavioral and experiential evidence for design decisions | Depends on the build; cost and protocol not stated |
| Vertical slice | Is the team ready to enter production, and does it know how to make the game? | Internal and possibly external stakeholders | Evidence about production quality, process, tools, and understanding | High relative to earlier experiments; no universal threshold stated |
A practical decision sequence for a studio
A studio can turn the staged approach into a repeatable decision record without pretending that every game needs identical tests.
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- Write the uncertainty down. State whether the immediate risk is creative, technical, player-facing, commercial, or operational. A test that does not target a named uncertainty is difficult to interpret.
- Choose the smallest useful experiment. Use an early prototype or proof of concept when one mechanic or technical assumption is uncertain. Keep the experiment narrow enough that failure produces a clear lesson.
- Refine the vision. Record what worked, what failed, and which assumptions changed during the iterative preconception and conception work.
- Assemble a first playable. Connect the core elements so the team can explore a draft of the experience in preproduction. Do not present this milestone as proof of production readiness.
- Review market and delivery risk. Discuss market potential, shipping plans, commercial exposure, development surprises, and budget flexibility. Treat the result as a decision judgment, not a sales guarantee.
- Run playtests for player-facing questions. Define what player behavior or feedback would change the design, then interpret observations in the context of the tested game type and participant group.
- Build a representative vertical slice when production readiness is the question. Test the intended quality and the tools, processes, and team understanding needed to produce more content.
- Make the commitment conditional on evidence. Proceed, revise, pause, or stop according to the unresolved risks. The cited sources do not prescribe a universal pass score, so the studio must document its own decision criteria.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Calling every playable build a vertical slice
A prototype, first playable, and vertical slice have different roles in Ubisoft’s and Volition’s descriptions. Labeling an early experiment a vertical slice can make a team believe it has tested production readiness when it has only tested an isolated idea.
Using player enthusiasm as a complete business case
Playtesting provides evidence for design decisions. It does not replace market, delivery, or budget analysis, and it cannot guarantee broad commercial performance.
Assuming one testing method transfers unchanged between genres
The 2021 survey warns that game-testing practices vary by game type. A method that reveals useful information for one experience may miss important risks in another.
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Ubisoft’s stages and Volition’s vertical-slice approach are attributed studio practices. They are useful reference models, not mandatory standards adopted by every developer.
Inventing precision the evidence does not provide
The cited material gives no universal abandonment rate, predictive accuracy, test budget, sample size, or success threshold. A responsible greenlight document should identify its own assumptions rather than attach unsupported numbers to them.
What this process can realistically tell you
Concept testing can reveal whether a team has a coherent vision, whether a central mechanic is feasible, how a draft plays, how tested players respond, and whether the team has a credible plan for production. It can also expose risks early enough to change scope or stop before the largest commitment.
It cannot turn uncertainty into certainty. Market conditions can change, production can encounter surprises after a successful slice, and a playtest only represents the build, participants, and conditions tested. The strongest decision is therefore not the one with the most polished demonstration; it is the one that matches each claim to the evidence collected for that claim.
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