Game Testing - Overview

Overview

Quality assurance is a critical component in game development, though the video game industry does not have a standard methodology. Instead developers and publishers have their own methods. Small developers do not have QA staff, however large companies may employ QA teams full-time. High-profile commercial games are professionally and efficiently tested by publisher QA department.

Testing starts as soon as first code is written and increases as the game progresses towards completion. The main QA team will monitor the game from its first submission to the QA until as late as post-production. Early in the game development process the testing team is small and focuses on daily feedback for new code. As the game approaches alpha stage, more team members are employed and test plan is written. Sometimes features that are not bugs are reported as bugs and sometimes programming team fails to fix issues first time around. A good bug-reporting system may help the programmers work efficiently. As the projects enters beta stage, the testing team will have clear assignments for each day. Tester feedback may determine final decisions of exclusion or inclusion of final features. Introducing previously uninvolved testers with fresh perspective may help identify new bugs. At this point the lead tester communicates with the producer and department heads daily. If the developer has external publisher, then coordination with publisher's QA team starts. For console games, a build for console company QA team is sent. Beta testing may involve volunteers, for example, if the game is multiplayer.

Testers receive scheduled uniquely identifiable game builds from the developers. The game is play-tested and testers note any uncovered errors. These may range from bugs to art glitches to logic errors and level bugs. Testing requires creative gameplay to discover often subtle bugs. Some bugs are easy to document, but many require detailed description so a developer can replicate or find the bug. Testers implement concurrency control to avoid logging bugs multiple times. Many video game companies separate technical requirement testing from functionality testing altogether since a different testing skillset is required.

If a video game development enters crunch time before a deadline, the game-test team is required to test late-added features and content without delay. During this period staff from other departments may contribute to the testing—especially in multiplayer games.

Most companies rank bugs according to an estimate of their severity:

• A bugs are critical bugs that prevent the game from being shipped, for example, they may crash the game.
• B bugs are essential problems that require attention, however the game may still be playable. Multiple B bugs are equally severe to an A bug.
• C bugs are small and obscure problems, often in form of recommendation rather than bugs.