User Experience and Scrum Teams in the Games Industry

Abstract: The way the Scrum development process is implemented in video games industry in relation to the communication among the team members and their definition of User eXperience (UX) was studied in this research. The aim of this study is to analyze the role of "communities of practice” among the team members and investigate better ways for improving UX and user involvement by analysing results from interviews with developers active in video games industry. The results from the interviews show that the game developing companies form strong “communities of practice” and the Scrum process helps in nourishing them. The video ames industry has its unique character; both in relation to how the Scrum development process is implemented and the way users are involved. Being aware of this uniqueness and valuing it could be a start for developing more suitable methods and defining novel ways of user involvement for developing games with better UX.