{"id":1436,"date":"2023-12-11T05:41:01","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T05:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamequality.org\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2024-06-03T08:54:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T08:54:09","slug":"understanding-the-future-of-game-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamequality.org\/blog\/understanding-the-future-of-game-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Future of Game Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
For those in games that work outside the realm of game quality, the likes of testing and QA can appear to be static disciplines. Perceptions that it all comes down to bug detection and purebred functionality testing persist, and perhaps understandably so. After all, the deep nuance of the craft only becomes truly apparent when you get hands on.
To those that have made game quality a career, meanwhile, it is clear that the specialty is undergoing a rapid evolution, as games themselves expand in size, complexity and breadth. Not that the forward journey is anything new; after all, game quality has always had to keep in step with the incessantly innovative medium it enables and champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of which begs a question. What does the future have in store for the broad game quality discipline?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
END-TO-END TESTING AS STANDARD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As games increase in complexity and live becomes the norm, many of those in the quality realm predict that we will see testing and assurance span considerably more of a given title\u2019s production cycle, in step with a simultaneous increase in what falls under the discipline\u2019s remit. THE RISE OF NEW-GEN TOOLS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Next up comes a darling of current trend prediction articles of every kind \u2013 namely artificial intelligence. Of course, forms of AI and automation have long supported human testers. But we are very likely to be stepping into a new era for game quality tools, where AI augments teams\u2019 abilities even more, as quality and development stalls become more integrated. QUALITY AND COMMUNITY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Time and again, it is the game\u2019s medium\u2019s now-established live nature that is highlighted as driving much of the change designing game quality\u2019s future. And it\u2019s not just about new content being added post release. Rather, the vast communities that inhabit live games offer a new entity for game quality professionals to monitor and serve. \u201cThere has been a lot of investment across the discipline in how we can make best use of these new kinds of data and analytics. That information doesn\u2019t just inform testing \u2013 it can also help us better understand and communicate our work \u2013 within QA and across studios. We will see more of this use of data to make our work and aims more tangible and clear. It can help us cut the noise and move away from a subjective approach and focus on facts. [\u2026] There\u2019s been this misconception about the role, and what gets asked of QA when. It\u2019s not about what we can\u2019t do, but communication about how we function in a studio, and the ways we can contribute across a game\u2019s production.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, then, the future of game quality is bright, although the effort continues to evangelise the remit, potential and contribution of the craft. With more recognition and understanding of what game quality is, so come yet more potential for impact and creativity. The onus for that communication inevitably falls to those of us in game quality. But that is one trend that is far from new, and something testers and QA professionals are more than used to facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Game Quality is an organisation and community that brings together game quality and testing professionals of every level, with a view to advocating for the value and potential of the discipline, while looking to advance the craft and its presence in game making and publishing. Our members come together for knowledge sharing, events, and collaborative initiatives that are helping shape and develop the work and impact of game testing. Want to be part of it? <\/em>Head to our website to find out more<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As game quality evolves, it is becoming one of the most diverse disciplines in game production. But what will define the craft\u2019s future?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
\u201cWe are, I believe, going to see better practice around the end-to-end quality approach, so that we can really be involved throughout a game\u2019s production, and prevent defects and see that less bugs are introduced,\u201d offers Pierre Jouen, Worldwide Quality Control Director at Ubisoft, and Qualicon Content Committee member. \u201cThat extends to live game support and community management and addressing the player experience. Testing can\u2019t stop when the gold master is duplicated anymore.
\u201cWe need to make sure that we make the player journey the best they can expect, and we can improve it constantly in a live game, and reward players with greater experience. That has to happen, so we need to \u2013 and will see \u2013 testing and quality become part of the end-to-end of what a game is. That is also highly applicable to new areas that are now important to game quality, such as accessibility testing and player safety.\u201d
Put another way, today and ongoing, the game quality discipline is increasing its scope, and has more significant and powerful contributions than ever to make across a release\u2019s life, from inception onwards.
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing testing and QA getting involved earlier, and this shift from detecting problems to preventing them, and that happens by being close to a game\u2019s design, development and production from the very start,\u201d says Ben Wibberley, Vice President of Games Operations, Jagex, and Qualicon Content Committee Co-Chair, and a discipline veteran of some 28 years. \u201cThat\u2019s critical to the future of game quality, and where it\u2019s going as a practice and craft. And then game quality still has this role once the game is live, where you have to listen and test not just how it looks and functions, but how the community is, and more abstract concepts like fun.\u201d
This movement, in truth, is simply a reflection of game quality\u2019s increasingly broad remit. Today game quality informs game design, enables the embracing of accessibility, tracks sentiment in the communities of live games, refines fun finding, and much more besides. What \u2018quality\u2019 now means to players has become an increasingly rich feast; a trend worthy of far greater recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at this intersection where content is being generated at this tremendous rate, and much of it almost automatically\u201d Wibberley proposes. \u201cThe speed at which all this gaming content is created has reached the point where we can\u2019t just throw bodies at it. We can\u2019t possibly hope that\u2019s going to solve the issue. I\u2019ve spoken to people in game QA on major triple-A titles who\u2019ve seen more player hours put into the game in its first minute live than their testers have put in across the entire production cycle. That really puts this issue in perspective\u201d
More intelligent, efficient tools, then, must surely be essential in paving the way to game quality reaching its new potential.
\u201cOf course, automation has been part of game quality for a long time,\u201d Wibberley confirms \u201cBut that has to increase. It\u2019s not going to be generative AI replacing human testers, because we\u2019ll always need humans to work on testing and QA for games for humans. But we will see, I\u2019m sure, this new era of AI augment the work of human testers, and take on some of the automated tasks. That lets humans find the fun and the quality, and do more with their craft, bringing more prevention and creativity, and allowing more time for these new areas of the game quality remit. AI will take on more of the data and numbers generated by millions of players, which will be increasingly essential in this live era.\u201d
And Wibberley certainly isn\u2019t alone in that perspective.
\u201cI\u2019ve been really interested to hear how different teams are leveraging tooling and automation to expand their capabilities for testing, especially those who are using live telemetry to help validate coverage of certain player paths to supplement their overall testing coverage,\u201d enthuses Esmeralda Perez, Director of Quality on VALORANT at Riot Games, and Qualicon Content Committee member. \u201cI look forward to seeing more teams share what innovations they reach as they invest in these tools. I don\u2019t think we share enough, that\u2019s why I think Game Quality is such an important platform to help us share our learnings with each other. But if you\u2019re asking me what I really dream about, it is how we could possibly leverage advances in AI models to help QA test coverage. I think this is a big area of opportunity for us to learn how to leverage it as another item in our quality tool box.
\u201cWith the increasing complexity of games today, we have to see better tools and technologies in the future,\u201d Jouen adds. \u201cTechnology that supports QA has to be seen as a partner and not a threat. It can be something that will help us address that complexity. As part of that, we need to see \u2013 and will see, I think \u2013 more communication between tech and production teams [within game studios]. That communication can help production and tech not only make better tools for themselves, but also ones that support game quality. They don\u2019t even need to be separate tools. I think we will increasingly see more studio technologies that will have roles in development and production and also game quality, even as part of a singular process.\u201d
That\u2019s something Perez also sees as critical to the evolution of what game quality and testing can be; and how it can evolve.
\u201cI\u2019ve been excited to see more organisations embracing embedded QA models to integrate their quality organisations closer with the teams. I\u2019ve also been super interested to hear \u2013 especially in Qualicon presentations \u2013 how teams, especially in games as a service titles, are finding ways to optimise their testing coverage by really leaning into risk based testing coverage, which is important in fast moving ever growing titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re now seeing game quality evolve into something that you can think of as a bridge between your game and your players,\u201d posits Wibberley. \u201cIf your QA and testing teams have a link with your players, and really listen, they\u2019re going to see those players talking about what\u2019s working for them. And that\u2019s what these communities offer; their conversations and interactions can inform testers looking to improve player experience. So we are not just talking about reporting bugs that emerge in a live context, but demonstrating how a live game functions through their interaction as a community. That almost highlights that this older attitude or approach of brute force testing just won\u2019t work going forward. You can\u2019t just throw 300 people at a live game for three months before public launch, because now it\u2019s about what the game will become.\u201d
For Jouen, that very opportunity also affords those in the game quality community an opportunity to communicate their work to other teams, from design staff to senior management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n