Quality Assurance

Quality assurance (QA) is the area of game development responsible for making sure that the game has the best experience possible. They do this by trying to break the game so that when the game is released, the players don’t end up having any undesired experiences. They’ll try to find all the bugs to make sure that players enjoy the game.

One of the ways that developers can get great feedback is by having virgin testers come and play. These are people who have never played the game before and know little or nothing about it. Sometimes it’s easy for developers to understand how they want the game to be played but the game may not convey those ideas properly.

Here’s a list of quality assurance resources:

• Tom Sloper’s FAQ 5: Testers — The Unsung Heroes of Games explains what is game testing, it’s importance and how to get a job as a tester.
• Book Extract: Game QA & Testing – Ready, Set, Go! is about getting a job in QA.
• SeattleWeekly article – “Testing Video Games Can’t Possibly Be Harder Than an Afternoon With Xbox, Right?” Talks about what it’s like to be in the QA industry.

Know any quality assurance resoureces? Please send us a message!