I'm wondering if people would like to give their opinions on why my game isn't being play tested more.  I realize I'm not alone in this, but I'd like to know which, if any, of the generally given reason apply to my game....

1. Is the box art or description boring?  If so, does anyone have ideas on what could I change to make it more interesting?
2. Is the game concept uninteresting?
3. Do I have more dues to pay?
4. Need better marketing?  (or any marketing at all :)
5. Is the game perfect as is so no play testing is required?
6. Other reasons?

My intent isn't to come across as whining or dissatisfied, because I'm neither.  I'm genuinely interested in reasons people have chosen not to play test my game much so I can make corrections where possible.

When I do playtests I usually go by two measures.  First, do I recognise the creator's name from their contributions in the forums?  If not, does the game look like something I'd want to play?  At any rate, here are some suggestions I'd make for your game that might help:

1. Your description makes your game sound extremely generic.  Is it?  If not, you need to use your description to describe to potential players/playtesters what specifically about your game makes it worth their time.
2. The screenshots make the game look quite generic.  It looks like either a run-of-the-mill twin-stick shooter or something based off the Spacewar sample.  Is it either of those two things?  If so, people likely just figure that the game isn't going to offer them anything they haven't seen a bunch of times already.  If not, then again, you need to highlight what about your game is unique and engaging.
3. I think your box art is just fine the way it is.

The biggest thing to remember is that there are a lot of games in playtest or review most of the time, and there are unfortunately a pretty limited number of people actually playing them.  If you want people to test your game, you need to give them a reason.  If you had never heard of your game before, and if you had no idea what it was about, what could its creators say that would make you want to play it?  It would be nice if everyone's game got equal playtest attention, and if everyone who submitted games here did a few playtests a week then they all would get good attention, but right now the pool of testers is extremely limited so you need to do something that catches their attention.

I'm not sure. How's that? :)

Really I'm not. I could state a bunch of guesses, but I've been proven wrong with other games. I really haven't figured out the ebb and flow of who playtests and why they do.

I will say that if people know who you are and what game you have, you will have no trouble at all at getting playtest feedback. So upping your community presence does help. However, that's not the only way to get playtests because I've seen games get a ton of feedback in playtest and speed through review and I have no idea who the developers are.

You've playtested/reviewed Aimeroids, Meteor Swarm, Bust A Wall, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Kissy Poo (that's my game!), Lander Mania and Fishing Girl and have received 3 bit of playtest feedback yourself.  That's almost a 50% return rate which I would say is pretty standard. So maybe doing more playtest yourself would get you more. Not sure, I've seen it work but there's no guarantee. And the most active playtesters don't even have games in the system right now..but I could be wrong about that, that's just my observation.

You've got a YouTube video. That always helps me decide to look at a game. Bad screenshots are definitely a turn off, but yours seem fine. But to be honest, I didn't even know you HAD a game in playtest.

And when I do playtest it works like this. I look at the games that are expiring first and whichever ones are by my friends or people I know and like. I hit those first. Then come games that catch my eye or games by people I've seen make good games before (I reviewed the one by the Miner Dig Deep guys for that reason just the other weekend).  Then comes people I see active in the forums, I recognize their names and say, hey, this guy is a team player, they deserve something for that. If a game doesn't look interesting, it's last on my list and I might not ever get around to it.

Also, while I do sometimes playtest games on a weekday, I have more time to playtest on a weekend. So I kind of factor how long something has been in playtest by how many weekends have gone by. If multiple weekends have gone by with no feedback, then maybe something is going on. But if it' midweek or was posted at the end of a weekend, I'd say give it time.

So in the end I'm back to where I started. I'm really not sure why games do or do not get playtested. Just like I'm not sure where developers go after their games get passed through review. We should have a plethora of playtesters and reviewers with this many games on the service. Yet we don't.

But if you're looking through my list, it looks like community presence is my number one determiner for playtest. If I see you around a lot, I'll make the connection during playtest. The only thing I remembered you from was how you have no time because you have a real job ;)

George Clingerman:

If I see you around a lot, I'll make the connection during playtest. The only thing I remembered you from was how you have no time because you have a real job ;)

Better than not being remembered at all I suppose.  I did win the coveted Nick Gravelyn Post of the Day Award™ a couple days back though.  That's gotta count for something :-D

Thanks for your comments.  I expect that "paying my dues" is going to rank pretty high on the list.

The Shape of Games to Come:

When I do playtests I usually go by two measures.  First, do I recognise the creator's name from their contributions in the forums?  If not, does the game look like something I'd want to play?  At any rate, here are some suggestions I'd make for your game that might help:

1. Your description makes your game sound extremely generic.  Is it?  If not, you need to use your description to describe to potential players/playtesters what specifically about your game makes it worth their time.
2. The screenshots make the game look quite generic.  It looks like either a run-of-the-mill twin-stick shooter or something based off the Spacewar sample.  Is it either of those two things?  If so, people likely just figure that the game isn't going to offer them anything they haven't seen a bunch of times already.  If not, then again, you need to highlight what about your game is unique and engaging.
3. I think your box art is just fine the way it is.

Thanks for your suggestions.  Sounds like I need to spend some more time working on the marketing end of things.

I've been trying to playtest titles that don't seem to be getting a whole lot of playtests, mainly since I feel I might have more to offer when there is little feedback.  I usually do 4 or 5 at a time, but somehow Guardian slipped through.  Your game does look interesting and I liked the videos I saw, I just somehow skipped past it.

Think DBP put paid to a degree of play testing. I know I was buried in trying to get my game finished any time I had.

That said, I've personally been dissappointed with play test responses. I think that aside from a forum post, there is no tangible benefit to play testing. If you like finding holes in other peoples software ... great! Trouble is, I know how much work I put in to my games and sometimes find it hard to criticise anything beyond "your game crashes at such and such...". Especially if the opening post has not listed the sorts of things to test. I also review the posts to see if people have already tested. if they have and there is a healthy number of bugs, I tend not to play test. 
 
When it comes to selecting games for playtest / review. My time is precious and I tend to read the game description and video to be "sold" on the game. This invariably means I won't touch games that originated on printed media. So, I guess if the game is creative, looks good and (for testing) is a little pointed about what to test, I'll give it a go!

I feel some sort of incentive is needed. That is, if you put the effort in to play testing, it would be good to get some help in return. A sort of debt (I playtested your game, now you need to playtest or peer review mine). I think if there was some risk / reward scheme to play test and review you would get far more play tests and avoid lengthy peer reviews. Games would get through the whole process a lot quicker and not clog up the lists.