When it comes to game development, the final step before releasing a title is to test it. This process is called “QA” testing (which stands for Quality Assurance) and is one of the most crucial steps in the gaming industry as a whole.
No matter how big or small the scope of your game is, you will have to QA test your game unless you want to risk having your studio’s reputation tarnished for years to come. You see, there is a reason why even AAA game development companies spend a sizable portion of its budget in quality assurance tasks… and even then it sometimes isn’t enough – just look at Cyberpunk 2077’s launch issues.
In this post, we will explain to you why it’s important to QA test your games, how game testing works, and we’ll list you some of the best game testing platforms around.
Why is game testing important?
The main reason to invest into game testing is to ensure the final product is going to live up to the expectations of developers and players. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though.
The most obvious aspect of game testing is bug catching, which allows developers to fix them as soon as possible. When it comes to games, it’s important for them to be a smooth experience, so making controls that feel responsive (with the correct reaction), quests that are completable and in-game interactions work properly is a must.
No one would love to find oneself in a “soft lock state”, right?
Another aspect that QA testers tinker with is performance testing. Sometimes, visual effects and graphics are so over the top that, while beautiful, they harm the game’s performance, which in turn creates dissatisfaction among gamers.
When it comes to multiplayer experiences, it’s important to test the limits of your game and servers to know precisely how many players it can support at the same time. This also generates valuable insight to network engineers, who might be able to optimize the client-server connection even further to allow more players to join the fray.
They also test for stability – game crashes are not a fun experience… especially when they happen frequently – and whether the game is fun or not (qualitative feedback), giving game designers insights on how to improve their game.
On the topic of qualitative feedback, game testers will also pay attention to the balancing, the narrative, the worldbuilding and the flow of the game, sometimes including suggestions on how to fix them or make those aspects even better.
How does game testing work?
In short, part of the game testing is playing like the average player would to gather feedback on game balance, mechanics, performance and so on, but most of the time QA testers, who often know a bit of the ins and outs of the game, will try to break it in whatever way they can.
Yes, you read that right!
While the average player would, for example, go through the campaign on their difficulty of choice and then stop playing, a QA tester might take on the challenge of doing side quests to ensure they’re working as intended while also trying to beat the game on multiple difficulties.
Game testers are often asked to experiment with multiple characters and/or upgrade combinations to test the game’s balance. They also attempt to violate the rules of the game as much as possible by not following the instructions given by the game and by attempting… very creative things.
How so?
– Testers might try to go “out of bounds” or climb somewhere that players shouldn’t be able to access;
– They might attempt to enter an area that is only unlocked after meeting certain requirements;
– They might try to find loopholes and shortcuts that break the game’s natural progression;
– They might press multiple buttons/keys at the same time in an attempt to make the game behave in odd ways.
Whenever testers find something odd, they will write invaluable logs in which they talk developers/designers through the steps required to reproduce said behaviour in detail.
Best game testing platforms
1. Game Tester
Game Tester is a game testing company with 300,000+ game testers available from all around the world. It allows you as a developer to create tests in around half an hour before submitting them and seeing results come in. One of its main selling points is their huge amount of game testers, which allows you to target your key demographic and get feedback from them.
Game Tester provides 12+ different types of tests that span from concept (originality, first impressions) and demographic profiling (to confirm your target audience) to difficulty (time limits, checkpoints), gameplay (UI/UX, game mechanics, playability) and multiplayer tests (game balance, latency/servers) while giving you the power to fully customize your test however you want.
2. Testbytes
Testbytes is an Indian testing platform that offers a wide variety of testing services. When it comes to game testing, you are sure to find qualified QA professionals for whatever kind of game you have as they’re able to test PC, mobile, console, online and extended reality (XR) games alike.
3. QAwerk
Based in Ukraine, QAwerk also works with a wide variety of testing services, one of which is specific for games. As usual, they too provide testing for a number of gaming platforms. Available kinds of test are functional, compatibility, compliance, performance and compatibility.
4. QA Madness
QA Madness is a testing team located in Lithuania and they have extensive experience in software testing. Despite not having game testing as its main focus, they’re qualified enough to provide you the QA services every game needs.
They have been in the QA industry for over a decade, and they possess the largest number of reviews when it comes to testing games – and the majority is positive.
5. BugRaptors
BugRaptors is yet another Indian testing studio that offers high quality services for relatively low prices. They offer something unique compared to other platforms: audio and video testing. It goes without saying that they are also able to work with more traditional types of game testing.
In addition to those services, they can work with AR and VR games/softwares, help you find localization errors, and they have numerous iOS and Android devices available for testing.
We can develop and test your game for you!
After going through this post, you should be able to see that game testing services are everywhere on the market and their importance in the game development pipeline.
However, if all you want is to have a high quality game in your hands, then look no further and work with qualified professionals in the industry!
We are Main Leaf, a game development studio that has been in the market for over 10 years. With more than 70 professionals, we have hundreds of years of collective experience, and we’re ready to take on the challenge to build your upcoming game.
We’ll cover the entire game development process for you – from early design and mockups to post-production and publishing in the leading game stores around the world.
If you’re interested in working with us, request a game quote right now! We will get in touch with you within 24 hours!
What is Game Testing?
Game testing is an important part of game development that involves quality control and assurance. It is a process where the software, game mechanics, and user experience are tested by a tester or a team of testers to make sure that the game is bug-free.
A game tester, also known as a QA (Quality Assurance) tester, works closely with the game development company to find and document every issue they can find in the game while running through various test cases. Automation is also used in some parts of game testing to speed up the process and help identify any issues faster.
The goal of the testing process is to make sure that all features work correctly, levels are balanced properly, there are no major bugs in the code and it meets all the requirements set out by the developers. Game Testing teams also ensure that all elements of the games meet industry standards for quality before being released to players.
Ultimately, it’s up to them to make sure that gamers have an enjoyable experience when playing their games.
