FirstLook Engagement Analytics vs The Playtest

FirstLook Engagement Analytics combines in-game telemetry with out-of-game player signals in player profiles for game studios. Native Unreal and Unity SDKs support session tracking and custom events. Teams can segment players by playtime, retention cohort, source, country, custom attributes, and tags, then trigger automated email or Discord direct messages from events or rules. Dashboards cover players, Discord, Steam, visits, sessions, custom events, retention cohorts, and funnels. Listed inputs include Unreal or Unity telemetry, Discord activity, Steam playtime, and API custom events; identity syncing spans Steam, Discord, Epic, and console accounts. Teams can export segments as CSV or through an API, and API ingestion can stream warehouse events. Counter and duration events can feed filters, segments, triggers, quests, rewards, and Discord roles. The Forever Free plan costs nothing and includes 100k player profiles, up to 500 playtesters, and 1,000 emails per month. Analytics Core costs $149 a month, billed monthly per game, and includes 1M events. Engagement Pro costs $3,499 a month, billed monthly per game, and includes 10M events. FirstLook lists Community Support for Core and Slack Support for Pro.

The Playtest is a free playtesting tool focused on indie game studios. It helps teams create a project, define testing needs, set tester requirements, publish a playtest, gather guided survey feedback, and use responses for decisions. Recruitment can target platform, genre preference, region, and experience level. Studios can review applicants’ profiles, platforms, and experience before approval. Feedback forms can be designed, responses compared, patterns identified, and reports exported. CHAP, the built-in AI assistant, helps connect studios with testers, structure forms, and surface insights from playtest data. Testers browse open playtests by genre, platform, and region, then apply. Their profiles can show platforms, hardware, and testing history. The site says setup can take under five minutes. Testers do not receive direct build access unless a studio grants it. The service describes itself as a focused studio tool rather than a marketplace or social network. Studios can create an account and run their first playtest at no charge, with no credit card required.