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[Column] General: Q&A with QA

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
in News & Features Discussion

QA, Quality Assurance, is one of the most overlooked aspects of game development yet, without them, our games would be so much worse for wear. In her latest column, Genese Davis takes chats with QA types to learn more about their work. Check it out and then head to the comments to talk it over.

Quality Assurance is a critical component to game development. Testing starts as soon as the first code is written and increases as the game progresses toward completion. I’ve had the honor of meeting passionate quality analysts committed to producing great games. MMORPGs have unique demands that keep analysts on their toes. Many of my friends often ask how a person might start a career in gaming, specifically in MMO testing. So I sat down with a group of my closest connections for a Q&A about QA.

Read more of Genese Davis's Q&A with QA.

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Comments

  • RocknissRockniss Member Posts: 1,034
    I thought the new QA was "ahhh just do an alpha launch and see what the sheep complain about, they are going to complain if we higher a team for qa or not anyhow"
  • Whiskey_SamWhiskey_Sam Member UncommonPosts: 323
    I've done QA in different industries for over a decade, and I'm not sure it's always beneficial to know more about the code/development process side.  That tends to influence you to look for things in a specific way, and it results in you thinking like a tester instead of an end-user.  You need both kinds of people on a testing team because if your sole approach is to test things as they are designed to work, you will invariably find out at launch that a user did something no one thought of because it wasn't designed to work that way.  That's how game-breaking bugs get missed.  QA teams also need to listen to their beta testers.  I've lost count of the games I've tested where issues were pointed out in beta, nothing was done about them, and they blew up into major problems once it was live.

    ___________________________
    Have flask; will travel.

  • logan400klogan400k Member UncommonPosts: 68
    I really feel like there is a dissonance, not necessarily the fault of those in QA, between what they say they do, their intention, and the product that comes out the other end.

    Just My 2 Lunars

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