Price testing games | Kinds

The gaming industry is one of the largest components of the entertainment industry, along with cinema. Games are becoming more extensive, more realistic, causing genuine interest of mankind in the study of the virtual world.

What is a game? What are they?

Games are released on many platforms, filling PCs, consoles, mobile devices, and also divided into many genres, which allows everyone to find a game to their liking.

Do we often think about what the game is filled with? We are sure that not many will be interested in the internal processes of the game, and for those who are still interested, we recommend reading this article.

Creating a game is a long and laborious process, consisting of a wide variety of stages, including both technical and creative aspects. That is why, for the most part, games are created not by individuals, but by entire development teams.

The steps for creating a game are as follows:

• Design, which includes the definition with the idea and genre of the game, the choice of program code and the game engine.
• Creativity or "visual", the development of everything that we see and hear when entering the game: objects, characters, animations, AI, object placement, backgrounds, special effects, menu and panel design, sound selection, story development.
• Publishing, release of the first version of the game, fixing bugs and errors, localization, testing of the game.

And it is about testing that we will talk about today. Many players may have participated in so-called OBTs, perhaps even CBTs, which perhaps gives them an understanding of the importance of testing games. Any player will agree that it is much more pleasant to enter a game in which there are no bugs, and you can enjoy the plot and the game as a whole without paying attention to such "troubles".

Who does the testing?

The job of a game tester seems pretty fabulous, especially for "true" gamers, because it's so cool to play and get paid for it.

Is this work as beautiful as you imagine it to be? We will analyze this issue in detail in the next article.

Most often, testing is performed by a team of people. it is very important not to stretch this process, but you need to look at a lot of things.

Their responsibilities include:

• Completing all levels of the game (sometimes more than once)
• Finding flaws in the game system
• Testing the game at certain times
• Checking developers for fixes of previously found bugs
• Find "bugs" that users can exploit

Types of game testing

Functionality Testing - Identification of "bugs", at this stage there is no need for good technical knowledge, just care is enough to find deviations from the required functionality, and understand what conditions are necessary for their manifestation.

Everything that is discovered at this stage is transferred to the developers.

Hardware Compliance Testing (Compliance testing). One of the necessary conditions for the successful completion of a license is compliance with the list of technical requirements. Example: Sony for game consoles (Sony publishes a Technical Requirements Checklist - TRC), Microsoft (Microsoft publishes Technical Certification Requirements - TCR). Even if there are minor deviations from the requirements, a license may be denied. Then the program is returned for revision and thus loses time, which leads to loss of money. In addition, the licensing process in most cases is paid. Therefore, it is very important to check the game against the declared hardware parameters.

Load testing (Crash testing). Creation of test situations that require a large computational load. This makes it much easier to notice and improve existing potentially unreliable sections of code.

Localization testing. Like some other types of entertainment products, games are often localized into different languages. It happens that even a correctly translated phrase can cut the ear or give rise to unpleasant associations, in order to avoid problems, after localization it is necessary to test the game directly by the inhabitants of the target country.

Alpha and Beta testing

Alpha version - testing of the so-called "early" version. In most cases, volunteers directly from the users themselves act as testers.

Beta version:

• Closed beta version (CBT) - when the game is tested by a limited number of users.
• Open beta version (OBT) - the game is put on the market for public use;

And if the project has received a good rating from users, the game moves to the release and post-release stages, that is, when the game is already ready.