TESTER’S DIGEST

ISSUE #57 - May 6, 2018

Manual testing of video games is not your dream job. In this issue we look at the manual QA, and next time we’ll take on test automation for games.

Topic: Video Game Manual Testing

Testers express their frustration at the tedium, pointlessness of working on game that never gets released, filing bugs that never get addressed, grueling schedule, low compensation, and lack of both respect and career growth. A pretty emotional post:

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2415-the-ridiculous-tedious-world-video-game-testing.html

More confirmation of the same points here… and apparently, there was a TV reality show, The Tester, about QA’ing Sony PlayStation.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/502132/12-secrets-video-game-testers

This post adds reflection on the organizational setup and QA process at game companies, with good insights into tester’s job being not so much finding bugs as reproducing them, explanation of triage process, and compliance testing.

https://kotaku.com/quality-assured-what-it-s-really-like-to-play-games-fo-1720053842

On usability testing of video games and how bias can creep into the findings:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ux-walkthrough-anatomy-usability-test-video-games-part-1-om-tandon/

What a developer should look out for when “playtesting” their game: loopholes, gameplay problems, dead ends.

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/three-devastating-problems-to-look-out-for-while-game-testing/

More ideas on how to do exploratory testing of a game, and bugs to look out for:

https://www.testbytes.net/blog/bugs-in-game-testing/

Testing at Nitro Nation from the perspective of the manual QA organization (in the next issue, I will quote the sister post from their devs):

http://nitronation.com/devblog-squashing-bugs

Off-Topic

Let’s invert the testing vector… On the use of video games as intelligence tests for AI:

http://togelius.blogspot.com/2016/07/which-games-are-useful-for-testing.html

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