Matching games to gamers with quality function deployment

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been used in various business domains as a means of matching products to customer requirements and desires. It has not so far been deployed in the video-games industry, no doubt partly because, at least on its own, it is not generally used to distinguish between different customer segments, segments which nevertheless characterize gamers and which are of considerable importance to games designers, developers and publishers. This paper presents a method of combining gamer segmentation and QFD methodology with the aim of matching games to gamer requirements and desires more reliably than at present. A discussion of a simplified but representative model of how the method can be applied forms the core of the paper.