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#MeetIronGalaxy – Liz Soehngen
Creating a great gameplay experience takes Science! User Researchers reach into the mind of players to discover where there’s room for improvement. Game developers can rely on players for feedback, but fully understanding what motivates a player is often more complicated than it seems. To lead the way down the path of the scientific method, Iron Galaxy has Liz Soehngen!
Iron Galaxy: Hi Liz. Who are you and what do you do here at Iron Galaxy?
Liz Soehngen: I’m IG’s User Research Specialist, which means I do a little of everything when it comes to answering questions about players. I’m what we call a “mixed methods” researcher – I do both qualitative work (where I talk to people) and quantitative work (where I look at numbers).
For example, I ran usability tests for one of our PC ports to make sure the new mouse and keyboard controls felt right. Another time, I spent about a month running statistics on a survey we put out to understand who played one of our games and what they liked about it. Those are very different studies! It’s all about what each project needs.
I also lead the neurodiversity and disabilities employee resource group, where we’re working to help IG employees get the accommodations they need to do their best work. In a similar vein, I’m on the Accessibility Team for DEIA; we’ve gotten training from Able Gamers to help our teams make games that more people can play.
IG: That’s a ton of responsibility. Thanks for what you do! What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
LS: The most challenging part of my job is finding the opportunities where I’ll be most effective. It’s still pretty new to have someone like me available, and although people here know I can help, they often don’t know what they need or how to ask for it.
Since I’m a large part of the research department right now, I have to be strategic about what requests I take – sometimes that even means saying no to work that comes my way, which is hard! But, for example, if I’m busy testing icons for a new mode in a game that’s already come out, I won’t be available to make sure that we have the right audience identified for the new game that’s just starting development. That second project has a lot more impact on work down the line, so it’s the one that I’d focus on.
In the future I want to train some people to be “deputy researchers” – they’d know how to run one or two simple kinds of tests and could help guide folks to do it on their own. I’d still make time to help review questions or look at the results if they’re confusing, but not everything needs the full Liz treatment.
IG: Your work is invaluable in helping us to understand the player. What’s one skill you learned growing up that you use the most in your role?
LS: In middle school, I got to take Speech at the high school level because I was bored with my regular English classes. I was always comfortable in front of a crowd, but that’s where I first learned about preparing an argument and trying to tailor a talk to your audience. One thing about being a researcher is it’s not enough to be good at learning things – you have to be able to convey that information to other people too. I’ve lost count of the number of presentations I’ve given over the years, and it all started with being the know-it-all 8th grader in Mrs. Rosenbaum’s first period class.
IG: How is your specific job unique when comparing it to other roles at our company?
LS: As I mentioned before, there’s only one of me at Iron Galaxy, so I’m a bit of a unicorn. I don’t really belong to a specific department or team, although I’ve been taken in by the Comms team and get to sit in on both Prod and Design department meetings (thanks, folks).
IG: That does make your job quite special! If you could give someone who wanted to follow in your career footsteps one piece of advice, what would it be?
LS: Learn how to guide groups of people to work together and accomplish things, especially when nobody’s done anything quite like it before. This was a skill set I got to learn from community organizing with my activism group. It really makes all the difference when you can take a step back and ask yourself “What are our goals, exactly? Why are they important to us, and what resources do we have to achieve them?” Defining success is essential for achieving it. Defining it for yourself is the only way to make it meaningful.
IG: What is your favorite perk associated with your job?
LS: I bounce around between projects and get to see a lot of work here from multiple perspectives. From senior leadership, all the way down to the folks in the trenches since my job depends on knowing context so I can understand details. I get to parachute in at different points of development and hear about things coming down the pipeline well in advance. It’s pretty neat.
IG: That must be an interesting way to connect with your co-workers. Since you get to see each team’s work through their lenses, how collaborative are you with different teams across Iron Galaxy?
LS: Extremely. I don’t actually make anything myself, so for any of my work to matter, it has to be helping someone else do their job better. I’m like a support class in an RPG that gives buffs to the tanks and DPS.
IG: The essential teammate that helps the group cross the finish line. What is the best impact you’ve ever seen a video game have on someone’s life?
LS: I don’t know about someone else, but I got really into Dragon Age Inquisition in 2010, right around the time I graduated college and left the warm bosom of my close-knit liberal arts school. I missed that sense of community and found a group of people online who were also fans of Bioware games. I’m still friends with some of those people to this day.
IG: How did User Research lead you to the games industry?
LS: I never thought I’d work in video games – as someone with a background in anti-harassment work, I’d only ever heard bad things about the industry. My last job was a contract gig (most user research jobs are) and they told me ahead of time that they weren’t going to be able to keep me. I saw a listing for this role and it was exactly what I’d spent the last 18 months doing at my last company; helping build a user experience research department from scratch. I’m a gamer and the stuff on the website sounded reassuring, so I put in my application and went back to what I was doing. I still had a few months left and planned to job search more once I finished my contract, but I never needed to. By the time I left I was already hired here.
Best job search ever.
IG: We’re all very lucky you hit that apply button. What were some learnings you were proud to discover while studying Rumbleverse and its player base?
LS: I think for me the biggest surprise I uncovered was that there’s a difference between being competitive and being what I (affectionately) call “sweaty” – that is, being interested in practicing to get good at a game. Although they often overlap, not all sweaty players are competitive, and not all competitive players are sweaty! This was in the literature I was basing my work off of, but the authors of those studies didn’t go into the implications. For Rumbleverse, it turned out to be really important.
The data showed we had two audiences – both said they liked beating other players, but only one of them enjoyed pulling off combos that take timing and practice. We were just starting to figure out how we might make the non-sweats happy when we got the announcement the game was cancelled, but I’m never going to think about “hardcore” gamers the same way again.
IG: Why is implementing User Research early in a project beneficial to a game’s development?
LS: As I've already mentioned, it’s important to understand your audience and define your goals for success early on, because decision-making is easier when you have a better idea of what your audience wants and needs. Doing that early sets you on the right path and gives you the best chance of being able to adapt your designs in time for it to make a difference.
Something doesn’t have to be finished to get useful feedback! This is something that actually got pointed out to me recently about my own work. I know how uncomfortable it can be to show someone else your messy works in progress. The sooner you catch something, the easier it is to fix. Changing a page layout at the wireframe stage is so much cheaper (in terms of time and labor) than it is after art has taken a pass at it and devs have built it into the game! The trick is figuring out when you have enough built out to get a valid test, and it’s often earlier than you’d think.
IG: That’s an interesting insight on the development process. Where did you grow up in the “life development process?”
LS: I grew up in the Littleton/Centennial area, which are suburbs south of Denver, Colorado. It’s a beautiful area. You can see the Rocky Mountains stretching along the entire western horizon, and the weather is sunny most of the year. My parents really hoped I would enjoy at least one of the outdoor activities they introduced me to – skiing, biking, hiking, camping, etc. – but I’m more of a city girl, and at the time Denver was kind of a sleepy Podunk town. It’s wild when I come back to visit these days; although the town I grew up in hasn’t changed much. The city itself has become this huge deal. My brother who still lives there says that people are surprised when he tells people he was born there. “Almost nobody’s actually from Denver anymore.”
IG: Aside from playing video games, what is your favorite hobby?
LS: I like making things, especially from reused materials. I’m particularly proud of these little baskets I make out of plastic shopping bags and scraps of old t-shirts – there’s one on my desk at work. I also like mending or altering clothes to extend their lives or make them suit me better. Growing up, my mom took me secondhand shopping all the time, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of finding stuff that people are getting rid of and giving it a new life.
If you’re local to Chicago, there’s an amazing place called The Wasteshed that sells second hand arts and crafts supplies. It’s a great place to find inspiring, unexpected materials, or pick up something new that you’d like to try out before you spend a lot of money on it. They offer discounts for teachers and educators, and it’s also a great way to thoughtfully rehome supplies instead of throwing them out.
IG: What is something you feel everyone must do once in their life?
LS: I think everyone should work in food service and/or an “unskilled” service job, because I’d hope it would give folks a bit more empathy. I remember reading once “A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person,” and yeah, I’d say that’s true.
IG: What is something you have always wanted to create?
LS: I want to be able to sew a dress or other big-ticket wardrobe item that will exactly serve the purpose I’ve designed it for. I can do simple fixes. I’ve made a pair of PJ bottoms once, but really being able to make something substantial of decent quality is a dream of mine.
IG: What is one genre of games that you think is underrated?
LS: Cozy games. I used to feel like I wasn’t a “real” gamer because I wasn’t interested in optimizing my combat strategy or beating other players – I wanted to be left alone to do my own thing, which is often pretty boring. But it turns out a lot of people like spending time in safe spaces where they can accomplish something and feel a sense of control, and the success of games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley demonstrates that.
IG: Who is your favorite author? Or what’s your favorite book or series?
LS: Brandon Sanderson has written a lot of great books (and I mean A LOT – the man is prolific), but The Stormlight Archives is probably my favorite. He explores the role of religion on collective memory, the need for social connection when dealing with mental illness, the perseverance of class distinctions despite cultural upheaval, and concepts like redemption, wrongdoing, and personal growth. Plus, there are lots of cool fight scenes and plot twists and awesome characters.
IG: What game have you spent the most time playing?
LS: Either Stardew Valley or Fallout 4, although Oxygen Not Included is giving them a run for their money. What can I say? I like growing little self-sustaining settlements that take care of people, and occasionally romancing the locals or fighting monsters.
IG: There appear to be some parallels between your interests in books and video games. Now onto your taste in cinema. What movie have you seen the most times?
LS: This is probably going to sound strange, given I’m not exactly its core demographic, but I think I must have watched Fight Club about a dozen times. A lot of people seem to think that Tyler Durden is meant to be the hero, which is a real shame because I think more than ever, we need stories that examine how and why men – especially young men – get drawn in by charismatic but destructive leaders.
I think what’s tricky is that the movie is so sympathetic to the main character’s perspective that it’s easy to miss how Tyler’s narcissism hurts them, because Jack doesn’t see it either until it’s almost too late. Plus, Tyler is so confident and cool and makes a lot of valid points. That makes it hard to spot, too.
IG: You may not be interested in combat strategies; however you do seem drawn in by the intricacies of fights and how they impact their surroundings. What’s one superpower that you would like to have?
LS: You know Shadowcat, from X-Men? I want to be able to pass through stuff, especially if I can also travel vertically or side to side without having to walk or climb. I like how it allows for a lot of secondary powers, like limited “flight” and being invulnerable. And if I ever want to nope out of a situation, I can just walk backwards until I disappear like Homer Simpson in that gif with the bushes.
IG: We’re laughing out loud. Good choice. You get one wish. You can’t wish for more wishes. What do you wish for?
LS: Powdered hen’s teeth. (Sorry, that’s a Dealing with Dragons reference for those of you who also spent your youth devouring your local library’s fantasy section.)
IG: We’ll leave that one for folks to Google. Given a time machine, which historical period would you like to experience first-hand?
LS: There’s evidence that people who lived healthier, more egalitarian lifestyles with more free time before the introduction of agriculture. I’d like to go back in time to see what those cultures were like, since little, if anything, of them survives today. How did they resolve conflicts? How did they talk to one another, and what relationships did they form? What did they tell stories about? What’s been lost to us because it didn’t survive “modern” life?
IG: Intriguing. What fictional universe would you choose over our own? What if there was no coming back?
LS: This is highly dependent on where I wound up in said universe, but the Imperial Radch (aka Ancillary Justice) series by Ann Leckie has so many fascinating cultures to explore and the “civilized” parts of it don’t have gender, so although colonialism, nepotism, and other human ills are still alive and well, at least it has that going for it.
IG: Which historical figure would you want to show the modern world? What do you think they’d say?
LS: Ada Lovelace was the first person to propose that “computers” could manipulate more than just numbers – that they could manipulate anything that could be represented by symbols. I’d love to show her a smartphone, or Spotify, or ChatGPT. Or, you know, the entire video game industry. I hope she’d be delighted.
Shout out to you, Liz! You are the first representative of the User Research team to pop out on the blog. Your effort in the space and attention to detail help make our games better for players. Your participation and engagement with our DEIA efforts also make our studios better for our teammates. While gaining the chance to learn about your past, it’s clear that your passion is people. Thanks for servicing the games industry at large with your expertise in UR!
We’ve recently opened a Lead Animation Artist and a Game Producer role here at Iron Galaxy. If either of those openings fancy your interest, please consider applying. To check out all of our career opportunities, visit our Careers tab above or click here.
