It’s always a target for video game developers to win millions of players for their products. But how exactly the game developers can ensure to deliver bug-free and fully tested games to such a huge number of testers and early version players across the globe?
There are different methods for attracting players to your games for the detection of any flaws and unexpected situations under various environments and loads. Reaching out to your friends and family circle is the first step if you are a small studio or an indie developer with a tight budget. There are various other methods for a greater reach and results as listed below:
Crowdsourcing: One of the methods to grab more audience for feedback on your game is to target all kinds of users and not gamers alone. There are platforms offering groups of users who would install your games and apps for certain rewards or even experiences. Depending on which portal you select the crowd of users, you can expect mixed results.
Sending beta invitations to a limited number of testers: Your beta testers community can help you to know the scenarios and context of your game you might have missed. A Beta tester is someone who gets involved in your product at an early stage and provides valuable feedback so you can improve your gaming application and reduce the chances of redundancy. To make a game successful, it is important to make the game as per the player’s interest. Beta testers are usually the players who are interested in exploring a fresh game based on their interests.
Below are some ways in which you can invite Beta Testers-
- Online forums: Through various gaming forums you can directly target your niche audience. Being actively involved in the conversation can help you to gather the target players.
- Email list: Building an email list of gamers is another approach to reach the target audience.
- Advertise: You can also get applications from beta testers by running ads on your website as well as by doing relevant promotions on the web and social media sites.
- Videos: Upload an attractive video of your gameplay and try gathering visitors on Twitch and YouTube for the same. Reach out to the interested viewers with a web link containing beta testing invites.
It is important to be actively engaged with your beta testers community and provide them with an interface so they can easily provide their feedback.
AI / Bots / NPCs for general performance and load Testing: One of the major reasons for using computer-operated players is you can spawn the required number of players and even customize their actions to check the performance of your game server under various loads.
What are bots and NPCs? A bot can be termed as a computer-program imitating human-like behavior while controlling the virtual character/avatar in the game. Let’s call it an automated player. An NPC on the other hand is a non-player character with the primary role of interacting with the user, controlled by a computer having limited roles and areas to cover in the scene.
The testing of video games is best done with human brains and real-time users. But what if you want to test your game with 1 Million virtual players? You can use AI bots to mimic real players. And best results are produced when a team of professional game testers also participates simultaneously to reveal the flaws in that increased player load condition.
Freelancers:
Freelancers in video game testing can offer you the option of milestone-based payment methods, especially for intermittent assignments. It is always a good choice to pick up some experienced freelancers. But that may require an increase in the budget per head. Scaling can be difficult while using freelancers.
QA Vendor/ 3rd Party Game Testing Agency:
Hiring 3rd party QA vendors can help to minimize your workload. Many companies provide Beta Testing services and their beta testers can join hands temporarily with your group of testers. You can always select the vendors with a strong track record in this area. If selected correctly, a 3rd party game testing agency can produce professional results even in a shorter time frame. High-performance at strict delivery deadlines can be expected from QA vendors with a proven track record.
It is always important to know feedback, suggestions, and ratings from professional game testers who can play your game and let you know how you can improve the performance of your game and make you more confident in the launch.
Conclusion:
There are many ways in which you can reach out to a large group of targeted audience or your player base and ask their recommendations, feedback, and experiences they had while using your game. This can help you to figure out any bugs, bad interface, or any such critical issue, general expectations before the deployment of your game. Creating a community of online beta testers can help you to check the performance of your video game extensively. But it’s highly recommended to have a dedicated in-house or external QA team to professionally and systematically reveal problem areas before the end-users find them out.
