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Video Game Quality Assurance & Testing Process- Part-3

By January 20, 2021January 1st, 2024No Comments

Do you own a game studio with over 10 members or are you an indie game developer? What video game quality assurance process do you follow? Do you know what are the major factors that can help any video game development company engage with the customers and boost the overall ROI?

It’s always best to avoid getting cursed for certain glitches and save yourself from those embarrassing and publicly exposed negative player reviews in the App Stores. To achieve this, you need to take the Quality Assurance process seriously for your video game. Video game QA experts perform systematic activities and documentation to ensure the delivery of high-quality game products. In this blog, we will see how video game developers and studios can get help from an external QA agency for professional game testing services.

BENEFITS OF QA IN COMPANIES:

Video game testing ensures easy and consistent usage of games by the players. QA makes sure the game is running smoothly on different platforms under different circumstances and assures a hassle-free gaming experience. 

  1. QA Saves Money in overall Game Lifecycle: Incorporating the QA testing process at the beginning assures bug identification and detection along with bug fixing. This is a cost-effective method. Without professional QA services, there are more chances of game redundancy that could cost you more in the later stage.
  2. QA Establishes Player Retention: Following standards and monitoring QA processes can help to remove any scope of errors or mistakes. This helps to retain your players and engage all kinds of new gamers.
  3. QA Ensures Player Satisfaction: With testing at each phase and neglecting the scope of any redundancy, Quality Assurance helps to boost satisfaction of the end users.
  4. QA Promotes Higher Efficiency & Productivity:  The entire game development lifecycle can create a little chaos amongst the team due to a lot of workloads and set of tasks. Having a set of professional QA experts since the beginning of your development cycle will save your time as you can start your testing at an early stage. This will in turn increase your game efficiency and productivity of your game development team.

HOW TO INCORPORATE QA PROCESS IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?

Primarily you can incorporate the QA process using any of the following options:

  1. Building your in-house game QA team.
  2. Relying on gamer communities / beta testers.
  3. Hiring a freelancer.
  4. Hiring 3RD Party Game Testing Agency / QA Vendor / External QA Partner.

Having an in-house game QA team can be an option if you have enough office space, infrastructure, hardware devices, time, and money to fulfill the requirements and capacity of the overall setup of the game qa team. 

There are benefits of having an in-house team. Such as-

  1. Smooth discussion between QA team and Development Team. The game development cycle is a long process that requires a smooth connection between the QA team and the development team to work collaboratively on certain tasks. On many levels of the test cycle, there are chances of discussions and clarifications that directly impact the work process. Having them nearby can help resolve issues faster.
  2. Helps to evolve as a complete Team. During the development cycle, the QA team and testers come across people based in different domains like development, business analyst, and project managers. This helps in knowledge exchange between different domains creating a positive impact on a company’s growth.

But there are more challenges than benefits the game studios might face while creating an in house team. Such as-

  1. Finding a QA professional with the relevant skill, experience and knowledge can be difficult for companies. 
  2. There could be certain skills that the in-house team might not possess. Someone with experience of one genre and platform cannot necessarily be a perfect fit for another genre and platform. 
  3. The varied interests of the gamer inside the QA tester also affects the outcome. Convincing a PUBG or Fortnite player to play and even test some match-3-puzzle game can be tricky. Such resource arrangements can lead to interruptions in the game testing process. 
  4. Building a team from scratch can be time-consuming and complicated considering space, infrastructure, etc. 
  5. Game studios need to keep on regularly paying agreed salaries to the game QA testers even when there is no test-worthy build available for long periods due to any reason. And studios tend to lay off even the most experienced and effective resources because of the high running costs under such circumstances.

Using gamer communities and beta testers can be effective when it’s about scaling and reaching more players. The professionalism on the other hand is a big challenge in this case. You cannot expect the randomly joined players to report the issues with detailed description of the bug, proper video and highlighted image evidence and exact scenario(or the concrete steps to reproduce the bug) that they have faced. 

Similarly, certain freelancers can be good enough if you are only looking for a single resource with a single test device in hand for performing on your video game. Payment based on delivery milestones is a commonly offered feature on freelancing websites. But when it comes down to ramping up, you cannot judge the service of your next freelancer based on the performance of previously hired freelancers. And the limitations related to hardware infrastructure, security and wider compatibility coverage will always remain there when using freelancers.

Hiring a Third Party Game Testing Agency proves to be a smart decision for most of the game studios. Regardless of their sizes and budgets.

You have full control and have a team of professional experts who are going to take off the burden of managing resources, avoid hardware in infrastructure related investments, and most importantly save your time to focus purely on your core service of game development. With an affordable External QA Partner, you can avail maximum benefits with a minimum budget. Some of the benefits an experienced QA vendor can offer are including but not limited to-

  1. A blend of skilled and certified software testers along with experienced gaming professionals can be super effective to identify, analyze, and take the desired action as per your game development module.
  2. Hiring a dedicated external game QA team relieves you from the burden of doing the documentation process and other legal actions required. Being professional they quickly indulge themselves in your development process and perform outstanding testing checks to ensure customer satisfaction.
  3. Zero CAPEX and very low OPEX will be the outcome if your QA vendor is investing in the hardware and yet offering a very low rate of service.
  4. Game studios do not need to retain the employees on the Game QA Testing position if the external QA partner is effective enough. 
  5. If your selected game testing agency is offering full flexibility, you can even expect zero billing for days when there are no test builds available.

HOW GAMECLOUD CAN HELP YOU ENGAGE MORE CUSTOMERS FOR YOUR VIDEO GAMES?

Established in January 2011, GameCloud Technologies Private Limited provides value-added video Games Quality Assurance Services to meet your custom requirement. At GameCloud, you get access to a team of highly qualified and certified QA professionals who aim to deliver customized testing and QA services for your video games. Being specialists in Game Testing for over a decade, GameCloud Technologies offers end-to-end solutions for all your Game Testing & QA requirements. That too at super affordable rates. The services of GameCloud Technologies Pvt Ltd are trusted by a range of customers, right from oneman indies to to global top 20 gaming companies. While remaining dedicated to the games industry, the professional QA team of GameCloud Technologies has the experience and expertise with ability to work as per the ongoing changes in the market. Thus, providing better solutions.

CONCLUSION:

Outsourcing to an external video game QA testing team can systematically minimize your workload, save time and money. If you are hiring the right QA vendor, you can get an industry-specific workflow that has incorporated the latest trends in the video game making.