Lysto gives game studios access to a large and diverse pool of mobile playtesters, making it easier to recruit players who closely match their target audience.

• You can recruit playtesters from our 1M+ player panel, giving you access to verified mobile players across regions and experience levels.
  As part of Lysto's recruitment process, each playtester's gaming profile and experience are verified before they are recruited for a study.
• Playtesters can be filtered by age range, gender, region, gamer profile, genres played, and preferred feedback language.
  You can also add additional targeting requirements if your study needs more specific player criteria.
• Alternatively, you can bring your own mobile players from your own gaming communities, such as Discord groups, social channels, or live game audiences.

This approach allows studios to test mobile games with the right players, whether validating early concepts, testing builds, or running larger-scale mobile playtests.

If you'd like to learn how to set up and define your target audience for a playtest, check out our Help Center article.

Remote mobile playtests are conducted by having players test your game from their own Android or iOS devices while gameplay and feedback are collected remotely.

Using our Player Experience (Px) platform, you can share a mobile build through a secure download link, provide clear instructions or tasks, and capture gameplay, player think-aloud commentary, and survey responses during or after the session. Players can participate from anywhere, making it easier to reach a broader audience.

Our platform organizes all session data in one place for easy review and analysis, and allows you to share playtest insights and recordings with your global team.

That usually depends on what you'd like to learn.

For usability, onboarding, and first-time user experience testing, 5–10 players may be enough to identify major issues and friction points.

For behaviour validation, feature testing, or balancing, 10–20 players help surface consistent patterns across sessions.

Comparative studies or larger-scale player validation may require a higher number of players. The ideal player number should always align with the goals and complexity of the playtest.

If you need help determining the exact players you'd need, our Expert User Researchers can help determine the right number based on your playtest goals.

Lysto enables mobile game testing across a wide range of Android and iOS devices, screen sizes, and operating systems.

Using the Player Experience (Px) platform, you can define device and OS requirements as part of your targeting criteria, run remote playtests, and capture gameplay, feedback, and survey responses in a structured testing environment. Based on these requirements, Lysto recruits and verifies playtesters who own the specified devices, enabling teams to identify device-specific issues, performance variations, and OS-related inconsistencies early and with confidence.

Lysto follows a transparent, credit-based pricing model for mobile game playtesting.

Each single gameplay session per playtester is counted as one credit. A gameplay session refers to one playtester playing your mobile game once for the defined session duration.

Pricing may vary depending on whether the playtest includes a post-playtest survey and if any advanced player targeting requirements are added.

The cost per credit also depends on the package selected. For the most up-to-date pricing, available plans, and current offers, please contact your Games Partnership Manager or reach out to us directly at contact@lysto.io.

QA testing focuses on identifying technical issues such as bugs, crashes, performance problems, and device or OS compatibility errors. It is typically conducted by trained testers who follow predefined test cases to ensure the game functions as intended.

Mobile playtesting, on the other hand, focuses on understanding the player experience. It involves real players interacting with your game to evaluate and give feedback on usability, onboarding, controls, spacing, difficulty, and overall engagement. Playtesting helps teams understand the why behind player behaviour, not just whether the game works or not.

Both are essential and complementary. QA ensures the game is technically stable, while mobile playtesting helps ensure the game is intuitive, enjoyable, and aligned with player expectations.

Mobile playtesting can begin as early as Concept Testing, even before a fully playable build exists.

At this stage, playtests help validate core ideas, themes, onboarding flows, controls, and overall direction using early prototypes or visual concepts. Running playtests early allows teams to test assumptions, gather player sentiment, and make informed decisions before committing to full development.

Mobile playtesting can be conducted across development stages, helping ensure the game evolves in line with player expectations and reducing the risk of costly changes later.

Yes. Concept and prototype testing are commonly used in the early stages of mobile game development to validate ideas before building full gameplay systems.

These tests help studios understand player interest, expectations, and reactions to game concepts, mechanics, art direction, or early prototypes. By gathering feedback early, teams can refine direction, prioritize features, and reduce the risk of investing in ideas that may not resonate with players.

High-quality qualitative feedback starts with clear playtesting goals. Before running a playtest, define exactly what you want to learn––such as onboarding clarity, control responsiveness, difficulty perception, or overall engagement–– and translate these into focused research objectives.

When setting up a playtest on Lysto's Player Experience (Px) platform, you can provide clear instructions and step-by-step tasks for playtesters to follow, helping you collect insights aligned with your goals.

We also recommend adding a post-playtest survey to capture player thoughts immediately after gameplay, while the experience is still fresh.

If you need support in defining playtesting goals or structuring feedback collection, our Expert User Researcher team can help design the study and ensure you gather meaningful, actionable insights.

Soft launch playtests are used to validate data and test the game in a live-like environment before a wider release. With Lysto, studios can soft launch their games on platforms like Steam, gather structured feedback, and gauge how players experience the game in a live environment before making the game public.

For live ops updates, playtests focus on new content, balance changes, events, or feature updates. Our Player Experience (Px) Platform enables testing these changes with a targeted player group, allows teams to assess impact, catch unintended effects, and refine updates before rolling them out to the full player base.