Net Promoter Score

Have you ever found yourself at a crowded convention or struggling to engage playtesters with short attention spans? I know I’ve been in situations where having a survey would have been helpful (check out the FFWWDD questionnaire for a good one!), but it just wasn’t practical. Maybe you’re in a bustling event with eager players lining up to try your game, or perhaps you’re conducting an impromptu test without a survey on hand.

In cases like these, when you only have time for one or two quick questions, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be a lifesaver. This system requires you to ask just one simple question:

In a scale of 0-10 (with 10 being the most likely), How likely would you be to recommend this game?

Based on their answers, respondents are categorized into three groups:

• Promoters — respondents who answered 9 or 10.
• Passives — those who answered 7 or 8.
• Detractors — anyone who answered 6 or less.

Once you’ve collected the responses, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The result is a single number that summarizes player sentiment.

Here’s a handy image to remember it all:

The NPS system is particularly useful for games, where word-of-mouth plays a significant role in attracting new players. Here are a few interesting points about this tool:

• The scale starts at 0 (not 1) to ensure clarity — after all, zero is never a good thing!
• The promoter score is always represented as a whole number (from -100 to 100), not a percentage.
• According to the creator of the tool [1], you can interpret your score as follows:

Score	Result framework
> 0	Good
> 20	Favorable
> 50	Excellent
> 80	World Class

For context, the average American company reportedly has an NPS of less than 10. [2]

If you have time to ask a second question, consider making it an open-ended one, such as: “What influenced your score?” This can provide valuable insights into players’ reasoning.

While NPS might not provide the depth of a full survey or pinpoint exact areas for improvement, it’s an excellent option when you’re short on time. The next time you need quick feedback, give NPS a try—you might be surprised by how much you learn!

The NPS was created by Frederick F. Reichheld in a 2003 article titled “The One Number You Need To Grow” for the Harvard Business Review magazine. You can find the complete article here.

Simplicity is one of the strengths of this tool; in order to apply it:

1. Ask players the main question “In a scale of 0-10 (with 10 being the most likely), How likely would you be to recommend this game?“
2. Record their answers
3. Find the percentages for Promoters, Passives and Detractors
4. Substract Detractors from Promoters (i.e. Promoter % – Detractor % ) to get the final score (expressed as a whole number).

Let’s imagine you are releasing a demo of your new arcade game, Pong Voyage, an 80’s retro inspired adventure game based on Pong.

You can open a pop-up right before they close the game to ask questions, but you know this audience won’t stick around for a long survey. This is a perfect opportunity to use the NPS and ask them your single question before they log out.

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