It’s easy to forget how much work goes into making a video game, particularly the AAA kind. We tend to associate games with one or two visionaries – the Miyamotos, the Levines, the Kojimas – while overlooking the dozens, sometimes hundreds, of men and women who strive daily to implement their vision.
In this multi-part feature, we shine a light on the forgotten, the overlooked – the unsung heroes. Drawing on the expertise of over a dozen experienced developers, we get an insider’s overview of five vital but seldom celebrated roles in game development. We find out what makes these roles so important, what it’s like to work in one, and what it takes, skills and knowledge-wise, to obtain one.
The first piece looked at sound designers, and today we’re chatting with QA testers.
The role of quality assurance (QA) in game development is largely self-explanatory: to ensure that games meet a certain standard of quality by eliminating defects. The QA tester’s role is to find the million and one ways video games can break, identifying and cataloguing a multitude of bugs and glitches that will (hopefully) be fixed before the game goes gold.
There are technical testers who cover security and performance, narrative testers who handle things like text, story, and localization, and general testers who cover the game from top to bottom... - Jermaine Davis
“Most modern titles require a few different types of testers,” explains Jermaine Davis, an ex-tester with over a decade of experience. “There are technical testers who cover security and performance, narrative testers who handle things like text, story, and localization, and general testers who cover the game from top to bottom making sure all the parts work well together and make sense.”
Davis tells us that there are two major kinds of QA testing: positive and negative. Positive testing ensures that everything works the way that it’s supposed to: doors open, buttons light up, guns fire, that sort of thing. Negative testing assesses the game’s ability to handle invalid or unexpected behaviour – like pressing all the buttons at once, or trying to walk through supposedly solid objects.
The kind and amount of testing required varies dramatically between titles and over the course of development. Games in the alpha stage require little in the way of QA simply because there’s not a lot there to test. It’s when beta rolls around that things start to ramp up, with designers, programmers, and producers actively deciding what parts of the game they want to keep and polish, necessitating in-depth testing. When development enters the final stretch, testers – like their colleagues – enter crunch mode, often working sixteen hour days, seven days a week.
Imagine testing an open world game with the ambition of something like Phantom Pain.
Not surprisingly, the popular perception that QA testers get to chill out and play games all day (reflected in movies like Grandma’s Boy) is grossly misleading. “There are times during development where you will actually play portions of the game from the perspective of an ‘end user’ in order to gauge if a section feels fun or is fair, but those are few and far between,” says Davis. Instead, most of your time as a tester will be spent playing the same sections of game over and over and over again, scouring every virtual nook and cranny for defects big and small.
It’s hard, tedious work. Imagine having to play the same level, read the same dialogue, listen to the same cheesy upbeat music – imagine banging your head against a solid wall for hours, days, weeks at a time, hoping to make a crack. For some testers, it’s enough to make them stop enjoying video games altogether – a phenomenon Davis refers to as “tester’s syndrome”.
“We naturally find ourselves critically analyzing any game we play,” he says. “We do stuff like jump into a pit or climb a tree when there is no ostensible logic or benefit to doing so. We identify and exploit patterns in systems just to see if they break. We end up playing video games like lunatics out of pure habit.”
But a tester’s life isn’t all bad. Like most people who do gruelling, underappreciated work as part of a team, QA testers develop a grim rapport that help sustain morale over long hours. “The people you see every day are the ones that keep you sane,” says former QA tester Felix Wai. “They’re doing exactly what you’re doing and everyone’s who’s there understands what you’re going through.”
QA testers tend to see games in a completely different way to the rest of us.
There are no formal requirements for becoming a QA tester, but there are a few mental and emotional qualities that distinguish the stayers from the burn-outs. Patience is key – bugs and glitches take time to find and time to fix, so it can sometimes be days, weeks, or even months before a tester sees the tangible results of their hard work.
“QA testers often have to work with team members of all levels and disciplines, so communication skills are also super important,” says Liza Shulyayeva. “Being able to pick concepts quickly is also very helpful. You will have a better time if you understand the basic concepts that different disciplines work with.”
Shulyayeva, an ex-tester and current employee of Swedish developer DICE, explains that there are two kinds of QA jobs: embedded QA (in-house with a developer) and external QA (at a “QA house” that does contract work for other devs). For the many who see QA as a stepping stone to a career in game development, embedded QA offers countless opportunities to mingle with and learn from seasoned developers. “I’ve never worked in a larger QA specific studio, but [embedded] QA was never really boring,” Shulyayeva says. “There are lots of opportunities to learn from and contribute to different disciplines.”
Most of my closest friends who moved on to do great things in the gaming industry are people I started out with on the QA floor many years ago. - Jermaine Davis
For those who have the discipline and tenacity to stick it out, QA testing is a proven path to gainful employment in other areas of game development. “Most of my closest friends who moved on to do great things in the gaming industry are people I started out with on the QA floor many years ago,” says Davis.
There is an understanding among developers: if a person can enter the crucible that is QA and emerge unbroken, they are ready to handle anything else game development can throw at them. “It’s sort of like an exclusive club,” says Davis. “When you interview or work with a person who has worked QA they understand you that much more and know that you are dedicated, passionate about gaming, and willing to work your way up from the bottom.
“I very much believe QA is the best possible entry point into the gaming industry.”
Thanks to Jermaine Davis, Liza Shulyayeva, and Felix Wai for their invaluable assistance. Keep an eye on IGN for part three of Unsung Heroes: tools programmers, and be sure to check out part one: sound designers.
Dan Staines is a freelance writer and academic with an unhealthy fascination with moral dilemmas and Deus Ex. You can read more of his stuff and listen to his terrible music at danstaines.com, and tweet at him @drstiz.
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