It occurs after all other tests, such as playtesting and QA testing, have been completed but before the game launch. During beta testing, a sample of real-life end users are chosen as beta testers to play a beta version of the game. Sometimes, beta testers come from a reliable testing company that specializes in beta testing.

Other times, game developers can ask for volunteers to join the beta testing program. Testing games requires a well-developed process because of the complexity of developing games. In order to test games efficiently, there are certain factors that a video game developer must keep in mind.

Testing games is an essential part of the process. Creating games is a complex process that requires thousands of lines of code. If, at the game launch, your product is still riddled with these issues, it can drastically affect your sales revenue, reputation and more.

Testing is also done to ensure that gamers have a great experience when interacting with games. Sometimes this means having a simple user interface and menus that offer easy access.

Developers will have the best results if they continually test games throughout development and if they utilize all the different forms of testing. This includes UX testing, playtesting, QA testing and beta testing. AI Detection Tools — Deep Dive Into Content at Scale.

Testing AI Detection Tools — Our Methodology. AI Detection Software — Useful Tool or Inaccurate Application? Gaming Content , IT. How do Games Get Tested Before The Launch? Posted on August 22, Playing video games should be fun, but bugs, glitches and issues can ruin the experience.

Table of Contents How Are Video Games Tested? What Is UX Testing? What Is Playtesting? What Is QA Testing? What Is Beta Testing? Essential Factors To Consider When Testing Games Conclusion. Testing games is a complex process that requires a good plan and efficient process.

Without proper testing, games can be released with bugs, issues, and glitches that frustrate players. A well designed and tested game can entertain players from different ages and across different genders.

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Contact our team to find out how we can help you scale your content to reach a global audience! For setting up automation scripts, testers utilize many tools and frameworks in the software testing process.

Unlike software testing, there are a wide number of areas in game testing, especially in the case of mobile game testing that require more focus. Some of these aspects are:.

Very often, specific frameworks are required for functional testing. Several elements of the game design and behavior need to be tested manually as automation is not the most suitable option.

Even if it is deployed, it needs substantial effort and test automation tools to generate the test scripts because game test use cases are usually beyond the simplicity of searching static elements on the screen.

Usually, it requires you to embed an agent into the test script for identifying objects and testing if specific actions are triggered within a game.

These factors add complexities to game testing as compared to software testing. In the fast-paced world of mobile game development, ensuring the flawless performance of your game is paramount.

Mobile game testing tools are pivotal in achieving this goal, empowering developers and testers with advanced capabilities to identify and rectify issues efficiently. By integrating these powerful tools into your testing process, you can elevate the quality of your game and provide players with a seamless gaming experience.

Mobile game testing tools offer diverse features, including real-device testing, automated testing, performance monitoring, and user experience analysis. Leveraging these tools, you can comprehensively assess your game's compatibility across different devices and operating systems, uncovering potential bugs and glitches that might have gone unnoticed.

Moreover, with the automation capabilities of these mobile game testing tools, you can conduct repetitive test scenarios, ensuring thoroughness while significantly reducing manual effort. The real-time monitoring features of mobile game testing tools enable you to closely monitor your game's performance under various conditions, such as heavy user traffic or network fluctuations.

With mobile game testing tools you can deliver a smoother gaming experience and increase player retention by identifying performance bottlenecks and optimizing resource utilization. Beyond technical aspects, mobile game testing tools also allow you to delve into the user experience.

Gathering valuable insights into how players interact with your game, you can fine-tune gameplay mechanics, address pain points, and enhance overall engagement. Embracing mobile game testing tools in your development lifecycle fosters team collaboration and streamlines the testing process.

Through seamless bug tracking and reporting, developers and testers can effectively communicate issues and work together to expedite resolutions. HeadSpin and its capabilities have percolated well into the gaming industry, allowing the companies to deliver flawless gaming applications for the gamers.

Prominent social gaming developers have leveraged the HeadSpin platform to solve key challenges, including:. As a solution to these challenges, HeadSpin is able to deploy dedicated Android, and iOS devices on HeadSpin hosted cloud across different locations in a short time frame.

Further, the HeadSpin platform is capable of identifying multiple factors that affect battery drain, which is a significant concern of game developers and testers. This helps improve the overall playtime for the users of lower-end devices. In addition to the HeadSpin platform, the company's add-on product, Create Your Own Lab CYOL , enables businesses that have their own devices to connect to the HeadSpin platform and run automated tests on products extensively.

As the popularity of gaming continues to increase, the focus on testing will increase too. Therefore, every gaming business today concentrates on deploying efficient testing methods and strategies to deliver the right gaming experiences for its customers.

It is necessary to carefully follow the game development life cycle at the beginning and consider the various types of testing to ensure building the game just as your customers would want it to be. Moreover, game testing is a repetitive process that must be executed to identify and eliminate newer defects and bugs with every new release of the game.

There are some crucial areas to focus on during testing a gaming application that directly impacts the performance compatibility and user rating. It is hence important to write the test cases based on these factors:.

Unreal Engine —This is one of the most popular and extensively used engines, owned by Epic Games. It is a game development multi-platform engine designed for businesses of all scales to help use real-time technology for transforming ideas into engaging visual content.

Unity — This is an easy-to-use game engine that caters to multiple platforms with regard to the interactive 3D gaming experience. Amazon Lumberyard —Lumberyard is Amazon's comprehensive offering, which is a 3D game engine designed to build games and fan communities.

This engine offers VR preview mode, visual scripting tools, and Twitch integration. Godot — This is free and open-source through the MIT license that requires no royalties, no subscription fees, and no hidden fees. This engine is very efficient for making both 2D and 3D games.

Music and sound effects play a vital role in the overall experience of a game. These help project the likings and feelings of the users and build a specific atmosphere to enhance the overall aspects throughout the playthrough. As a result, the audio effects should essentially be monitored and tested for audio glitches, inconsistencies in sound effects, and other bugs that can negatively impact the user experience.

The Kleenex test is a one-off testing option in which a pair of players is given the task of testing a game so that developers can observe their initial reaction to the gameplay. Such testers play the game only once. On the other hand, focus group testing is an open discussion with a sampling of players in the demographic section you wish to reach to understand their experience after playing the game.

Explore HeadSpin's use case and solutions at MWC Barcelona, Booth 3M11, Hall 3, from Feb Book a meeting. HeadSpin Platform Audio-Visual Platform Regression Intelligence Create Your Own Lab. Log in Connect Now. Login Start Free Trial. Solutions Integrations Community Resources Company Request Demo.

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Leadership Team. Press Resources. A Complete Guide to Game Testing - Its Types and Processes. Aaron Bultman Aaron Bultman. What is mobile game testing and why is it crucial? Importance of mobile game testing Video games today are highly interactive with complex gaming mediums and coupled with several users consuming games over multiple platforms, which make these more susceptible to vulnerability, unexpected errors, and glitches.

The primary importance of mobile game testing includes: Quality assessment — Every game developer wishes to deliver the best user experience to customers.

Hiring a qualified game tester is one of the easiest ways to achieve this. A tester will identify the loopholes efficiently and identify the probable defects. Video game ranking — Mobile game testing can directly affect the ranking of a video game. When a new game is to be launched, testing profoundly affects how customers view it.

Again, when testers are employed, they generally consider a detailed list of the parameters prior to giving the final verdict.

Identify improvement areas — Most video games are subject to frequent upgrades during their time in the market. Most are also thought of becoming series and launching sequels. Mobile game testing allows developers to identify the areas that must be improved to give the games a long life in the market.

Check out: Why is Usability Crucial for a Good Gaming Experience? What are some of the bugs that drive mobile game testing? Some of the most common game bugs include: Interface bugs: These occur as game graphics are misinterpreted where the game elements are at the incorrect place, and the space allotted for the text doesn't fit appropriately.

Technical bugs: These refer to the situations when the game doesn't work desirably due to unstable internet or network connections. Localization bugs: The errors found in the untranslated strings or texts constitute localization bugs. Performance bugs: Instances like slow performances and the game's frames per second FPS decreasing remarkably on high-end segment devices during a character attack animation are some of the performance bugs.

Compatibility bugs: These refer to issues that occur when the games don't function appropriately in different devices or OS despite being built to support all. There have been rhythm games, fighting games, visual novels, and so on. However, I am excited for the potential of Persona 5 Tactica, which is adapting the Persona 5 troupe to an old-school, turn-based tactical RPG.

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With support for solo and cooperative play, Skull and Bones should offer a solid alternative to Sea of Thieves when it launches on February 20, RELATED : Ubisoft reflects on the long road to releasing Skull and Bones.

Pacific Drive is being pitched as a survival game for players who aren't super in tune with the survival game genre. Played from a first-person perspective, you'll be tasked with exploring the Olympic Exclusion Zone — an area of the Pacific Northwest that has been ravaged by strange and deadly anomalies.

But you won't be exploring it all on foot, but rather from the driver's seat of an old station wagon. Between runs, you'll need to conduct vehicle diagnostics from a base of operations, upgrading and repairing your car to ensure it's ready for longer and more perilous drives.

RELATED: Pacific Drive hands-on preview. Developed by former BioWare veterans, Nightingale is a new open-world survival crafting game that will leave you and your friends free to explore the mysterious Fae Realms — a sprawling fantasy land connected by a series of malfunctioning portals.

Whether you want to become a Realmwalker, heading off on adventures to seek fame and fortune, or a settler, crafting massive bases of operations while farming exotic resources, is your decision to make.

Nightingale is set to enter Early Access on February 20, with developer Inflexion Games planning to evolve and expand the experience over time in tandem with community feedback.

RELATED: How ex-BioWare devs hope to conquer the survival genre. After a year spent in Early Access, developer Endnight Games is finally ready to unleash Sons of the Forest.

We've been impressed by everything we have played of this survival horror simulator so far, with the experience offering a fantastic blend of crafting, building, and story across a cannibal-infested hellscape.

Endnight says that it has been using player feedback to help shape its ongoing refinements, with the studio pushing for a larger arsenal of weapons, a stronger crafting and building system, and a raft of quality-of-life improvements. RELATED: Sons of the Forest Early Access review.

The biggest PS5 exclusive of is just around the corner, with Square Enix positioning Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as an essential RPG for new and returning players alike. It may be the second installment in a planned trilogy, but the developer is pitching this sprawling adventure as something of a standalone experience — an opportunity to join Cloud and the Avalanche crew as they attempt to see off a catastrophe that could swallow the world.

With smart refinements to the tactical-action combat system, a host of new characters joining the fray, and mysterious twists to an iconic story planned, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is going to be unmissable.

RELATED: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth hands-on preview. Follow our easy sign-up process, to get access to the Game Tester Platform.

Get notified about upcoming games to test and any other promotions and collaborations. Be the first to play unreleased and unannounced titles and with your feedback, help them become great games that can be enjoyed for years to come.

Also, earn XP and GTGold each time you provide feedback to boost your account and unlock additional rewards. With Game Tester, your voice has a direct impact on the future development of video games and other virtual experiences we help test. You will become an integral part of that future and help shape the direction of how future games are released.

Are you tired and disappointed by the amount of unfinished, untested and bug-ridden games that are released every year? Or games that would have been so much better if only the developer had listened to critical feedback earlier on?

You will earn experience every time you complete a test, provide your feedback, unlock achievements or for completing your profile. Sometimes we award extra XP for extremely helpful and detailed feedback that a developer has found very useful.

XP can also be deducted for tests that are accepted but not completed. Simply put, the more experience you have - the more tests you will be invited to. Developers want experienced testers with completed profiles and we use your XP score to rank each of our testers.

Don't worry if you've just joined and wondering how to start earning XP. Artificial intelligence AI is also starting to play a role in automated playtesting. This addition will make the testing process even more accurate and will also be able to provide the same level of insights that a human agent can in much less time and with fewer resources.

QA is the abbreviation that refers to quality assurance. This is probably one of the more intense testing processes that a game goes through. During QA testing, the testers take a more technical walk-through of the game. A QA tester focuses on finding glitches, testing how the gameplay functions, and evaluating the balance within the game.

This process entails a very in-depth exploration of the game. Trying things that most players might not do just to see what happens. When it comes to QA testing, a specific way of thinking is required. A process is also involved to ensure that all the different elements of the games are thoroughly tried.

During this process, testers make sure that all the features that must be included in the game are there and that they work. This includes testing the core elements of the game, such as player inventory, health stats, and other important factors.

This process also ensures there are no issues when starting the game, connecting to servers, downloading updates, and more. Functionality testing occurs towards the end of the process once all of the features have been included and most basic issues have been resolved.

Clean room testing is used to test the game under real-world circumstances. During this process, the testers will create different hardware setups that are most frequently used by the target audience. Testers then evaluate how the game performs on these different setups to ensure they work on a range of hardware.

This means that if a game is available on cross-platform, the testers will need to check how it performs on PC, console, and mobile. Combinatorial testing involves the simultaneous testing of all the possible paths and states in a game and seeing how they affect each other.

Sometimes certain combinations in games can have an unexpected outcome, and this testing is used to discover and ensure those issues are fixed. This process can help to identify branching storylines and issues with advance gameplay elements such as quests or puzzles. This testing process can also be used to discover any issues with interactions, such as quests interacting with each other, players interacting with NPCs or even players interacting with their inventory.

Testing games is a systematic process, and testers are required to follow specific procedures while testing for different issues. During the tree testing process, the functional requirements of the testing are split into different equivalent sets, which are called trees.

During testing the test gamers need to know how different aspects interact with one another to reach a specific goal. An example of this is testing how the level of the player affects what quests become available or how wearing certain pieces of armor together impacts your stats.

Beta testing is the final phase of testing , where the near-finished product is evaluated. It occurs after all other tests, such as playtesting and QA testing, have been completed but before the game launch.

During beta testing, a sample of real-life end users are chosen as beta testers to play a beta version of the game. Sometimes, beta testers come from a reliable testing company that specializes in beta testing. Other times, game developers can ask for volunteers to join the beta testing program.

Testing games requires a well-developed process because of the complexity of developing games. In order to test games efficiently, there are certain factors that a video game developer must keep in mind. Testing games is an essential part of the process.

Creating games is a complex process that requires thousands of lines of code. If, at the game launch, your product is still riddled with these issues, it can drastically affect your sales revenue, reputation and more.

Testing is also done to ensure that gamers have a great experience when interacting with games. Sometimes this means having a simple user interface and menus that offer easy access. Developers will have the best results if they continually test games throughout development and if they utilize all the different forms of testing.

This includes UX testing, playtesting, QA testing and beta testing.