Game studios rarely approve a new intellectual property (IP) on enthusiasm alone. They reduce uncertainty in stages: define the intended audience and opportunity, write a specific thesis about what must be proved, build the smallest version that exposes the riskiest idea, test it with players who resemble the target audience, and then weigh the creative evidence against market, technology, staffing, and delivery questions. The result can be another prototype, a pivot, cancellation, or advancement into preproduction.
There is no single industry-wide greenlight formula. The stages, evidence, and decision rights differ by studio, genre, publisher, and funding model. The documented examples below show the recurring logic without pretending that one company’s pipeline is a universal standard.
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What studios are actually testing
A new IP is not tested as a complete game. At the earliest point, a team is testing a small set of assumptions that could make the project worth funding. Those assumptions may include:
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- Whether the core loop is enjoyable and understandable.
- Whether the distinctive innovation is valuable enough to justify the project.
- Whether the team can build the idea with available technology and skills.
- Whether the opportunity is large enough, differentiated enough, or strategically useful enough to ship.
Studios therefore ask a narrower question than “Is this a great game?” They ask, “What is the most dangerous unknown, and what is the cheapest credible way to learn about it?” A prototype is successful when it reduces a named uncertainty, even if the answer is to stop.
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1. Frame the audience, opportunity, and thesis
Start with sensemaking, not a feature list
Riot Games describes its incubation phase as “sensemaking”: learning about players, the genre, and the opportunity before narrowing an idea. The team is expected to understand whose problem or desire it is addressing and why the proposed game might matter. This work prevents a visually exciting concept from moving forward without a clear reason for existing. See Riot’s description of incubation.
The output is a concise thesis. John-David “historianX” Perry, Riot’s Head of Operations for R&D, says a thesis identifies exactly what the team is trying to prove or disprove, allowing milestones to be evaluated transparently. In practical terms, a thesis might state that a particular audience will return to a novel social interaction, or that a familiar genre loop becomes more compelling when one key rule is changed. It is narrower than a slogan and more testable than a broad creative vision.
Separate vision from the uncertainty that needs testing
A compelling world, character, or theme can motivate exploration, but Riot’s account warns that vision alone does not provide enough direction for efficient prototyping. The team must identify the innovation or uncertainty that matters most. If the project’s identity depends on an unusual combat rule, that rule deserves an early test; building lore, menus, and production-ready assets first would create activity without resolving the central risk.
Ubisoft describes a related sequence in its creative process. During preconception, teams test and refine their vision. During conception, they develop it through prototypes, proofs of concept, research, and immersion in the intended world. The labels differ from Riot’s, but the logic is similar: exploration becomes more disciplined as the team learns what the project must prove.
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2. Build the smallest representative prototype
Prototype the risky innovation, not the whole game
Riot says a prototype should represent the anticipated audience’s experience and demonstrate the game’s key risky innovations. It also uses a basic “game scaffold”: a stripped-down example of a genre’s standard interactions into which new ideas can be inserted. A scaffold lets designers compare the proposed rule with a familiar baseline and observe how the system behaves before committing to production-level content. The goal is to answer concrete questions, not to make every surface look finished. The approach is detailed in Riot’s prototype account.
Prototype fidelity should match the question
Different studios use different names for early builds. The following ladder combines the levels described in the cited studio accounts; it is a comparison of examples, not a mandatory sequence.
| Prototype level | What the team builds | What it can reveal |
|---|---|---|
| Simulated core loop | A simulation or other non-production representation of the central cycle of play. | Whether the proposed loop appears coherent enough to justify a functioning test. |
| Genre scaffold | A stripped-down set of familiar genre interactions with the new idea swapped in. | Whether the innovation changes the expected experience in a useful way. |
| White-box playable | A functioning build using temporary geometry and placeholder presentation. | How the innovation feels when players can actually control it and encounter its consequences. |
| First playable | A work-in-progress version of the core experience used during preproduction. | Whether the emerging game, tools, and processes can support further production. |
A separate studio account published by Game Developer describes first checking a simulated version of the core loop, then converting the proof of concept into a functioning, mostly white-boxed prototype. The team collected qualitative and quantitative playtest feedback and fed actionable findings into later builds. That is one company’s greenlight practice, not a universal requirement that every studio use the same fidelity levels.
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Keep temporary work temporary
Low-fidelity work is not a sign that the team lacks ambition. It is a way to avoid spending on art, narrative production, tools, and content before the design risk is understood. Placeholder assets are useful when they isolate timing, decision-making, readability, or system interactions. They become harmful only when a team mistakes a polished presentation for proof that the underlying idea works.
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3. Test with players who resemble the intended audience
Use internal and external playtests
Riot recommends frequent playtests, both internal and external, with external tests at important early milestones. Internal sessions expose obvious control, pacing, and comprehension problems quickly. External sessions are valuable because colleagues already understand the project’s vocabulary and may unconsciously fill in missing context. Players from the intended audience provide a harder test of whether the experience communicates without the team’s explanation.
Tom “Zileas” Cadwell, Riot’s Head of Research & Development, writes that strong ideas hold up when presented to different kinds of people and when tested with different types of players inside the target audience. The point is not to collect generic approval. It is to see whether the intended players understand the promise, choose the relevant actions, and continue engaging when the team is no longer guiding them.
Observe behavior, then ask why
A useful session combines observed behavior with player explanations. Designers can record where players hesitate, abandon an action, repeat a behavior, or discover an unintended strategy. Interviews and written feedback then help explain the cause. Qualitative comments can identify confusion or emotional reactions; quantitative measures can show how often a behavior occurs or whether a change improves a defined outcome.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minutePlaytesting is diagnostic rather than a one-time pass/fail ceremony. Riot notes that a test may show that an innovation is less valuable than expected, that the execution needs work, or that the approach itself is flawed. A positive test can still reveal new problems. Cadwell describes the resulting choices plainly: a team may try again with better execution, pursue another approach, or stop.
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Test the audience claim, not just accessibility to testers
“People liked it” is too broad to guide a gate. The team should specify which players were expected to care, what they were asked to do, and what behavior would count as evidence. Testing a competitive system with people who do not play that genre may reveal usability issues, but it cannot by itself establish demand among the intended audience. Conversely, a small group of enthusiasts may enjoy a difficult prototype while failing to represent the wider audience the business plan depends on.
4. Turn findings into an explicit decision
Write the question before the milestone
Before a test, the team should record the uncertainty, the build being tested, the audience, and the evidence that would change its decision. This makes a milestone more than a demonstration. It also prevents a team from redefining success after seeing an attractive but ambiguous result.
Map evidence to possible outcomes
| What the evidence shows | Likely decision | What changes next |
|---|---|---|
| The audience understands and values the risky innovation, while major problems look fixable. | Continue iterating toward a stronger prototype. | Target the weaknesses identified in playtests and retest the thesis. |
| The core idea has promise, but the current execution prevents players from experiencing it. | Rebuild or simplify the implementation. | Change controls, pacing, onboarding, or system rules before judging the innovation again. |
| The innovation adds complexity without enough player value. | Pivot to another approach. | Replace the risky rule while preserving any validated audience or opportunity insight. |
| The audience claim or commercial opportunity is not supported. | Cancel the concept. | Stop further production spending and document what was learned. |
| The concept is credible and the team understands the core experience well enough to plan production. | Advance into preproduction or a broader greenlight review. | Develop production tools, staffing, scope, and a more complete first playable. |
The important discipline is to treat a gate as a decision, not a reward for effort. A prototype that disproves the thesis can be one of the most valuable outcomes if it prevents a much larger commitment based on an untested assumption.
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Creative evidence is necessary but not sufficient
Ubisoft’s process places a kickoff meeting at the end of conception and uses it as a gateway to preproduction. Its pitch considers how the world, systems, gameplay, characters, and stories support one another, along with market potential and plans for shipping. In preproduction, teams develop and evaluate the tools and processes needed for production; a first playable lets them examine a work-in-progress version of the core experience. These stages are outlined in Ubisoft’s official process description.
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This broadens the question from “Is the loop fun?” to “Can this studio make and ship the game it is proposing?” A concept can test well with players and still require a technical approach the team cannot support, a scope that does not fit the schedule, or a market position that does not justify the investment.
Some studios place commercial tests later
The five-stage account published by Game Developer includes competitive-landscape research, target-customer definition, a core-loop proof of concept, playtesting, and eventually a soft launch with predefined commercial measures. Those commercial measures belong to a later stage than an early concept test. A soft launch can provide information about acquisition, retention, conversion, or other business outcomes, but it should not be confused with evidence gathered from a low-fidelity prototype.
Studios may also order these checks differently. Some investigate the market before building anything; others begin with a technical or creative experiment and assess the opportunity as the idea becomes clearer. The sources describe distinct practices rather than a single sequence that every team must copy.
A practical pre-production test plan
For a team evaluating a new IP, the process can be made concrete without pretending that every project needs the same budget or duration:
- Name the audience. Describe the players the concept is intended to serve and the relevant genre expectations.
- State the opportunity. Explain the unmet desire, design space, or strategic reason to make this game.
- Write one thesis. Phrase the riskiest assumption as something the team can prove or disprove.
- Choose the minimum credible build. Use a simulation, scaffold, white-box prototype, or other format that exposes the risk without unrelated polish.
- Define the test. Decide which players will participate, what behavior will be observed, and which findings would trigger a change.
- Run repeated sessions. Mix internal iteration with external tests at meaningful milestones rather than waiting for one final presentation.
- Record evidence and alternatives. Separate observed behavior, player explanations, and measured outcomes from team interpretation.
- Make the gate explicit. Continue, rebuild, pivot, cancel, or advance only after identifying which uncertainty the evidence resolved.
- Check delivery reality. Before committing to full production, examine tools, staffing, scope, market potential, and the plan for shipping.
What the available evidence can—and cannot—tell you
Riot reports that approximately 10% of its pitches make it into prototype. The figure is Riot’s own account, and the accessed page does not state a year; it is not an industry-wide success rate or a current benchmark for other studios.
A 2024 exploratory interview survey by Linåker, Bjarnason, and Fagerholm covered 10 indie game developers. The study, available at arXiv, discusses pre-release experimentation and notes constraints involving participant access, bias, and representativeness of target audiences. Ten interviews cannot establish a pass rate for the games industry, and indie teams operate under constraints that may differ from large publishers.
No cited source establishes a universal prototype duration, budget, staffing model, or cross-industry greenlight percentage. Those variables depend on the game’s genre, platform, technology, business model, and the studio’s resources. What transfers across the examples is the reasoning pattern: identify the uncertainty, build a representative test, involve the right players, learn from behavior, and make the next investment conditional on evidence.
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