Q.
Are you optimistic about the future of QA?
Steph McStea (Double Eleven): I am! There has definitely been a shift in recent years where folks are starting to appreciate their QA teams more. Quite often I’ll see a Twitter thread from someone in another dev role praising QA, and calling for us to be valued more by peers. Lots of those who felt QA didn’t belong are part of the ‘Old Guard’ of the video games industry so to speak. With so many folks joining with a fresh mindset I feel this is really helping how QA is viewed. We’re even being included in more award ceremonies, and interviewed during award shows now, which is a huge leap compared to a few years ago.
Erik Hittenhausen (Testronic): I am always optimistic! Developers and publishers are more aware than ever that they can’t release games that do not live up to the expectations of their community. The power of social media means that word spreads very quickly if a new release is viewed as sub-par – and the gaming community can be very unforgiving! Competition for the time and money of gamers is possibly fiercer than it’s ever been – particularly when the cost-of-living is rising around the world – so publishers and developers are more mindful than ever that their new releases need to be optimal.
Neil Soane (Quantic Lab): Quality will always be king. I play some games now and wonder ‘how did this ever pass format checks, etc?’ The concept of ‘buyer beware’ quality control is a weak argument and I feel that at some point the consumer will start to push back. Releasing effectively pre-beta games on consoles and other platforms is, I hope, a short-term trend. QA teams will always try to push back against releases that just are not ready.
Adam Rush (Keywords Studios): Absolutely! As games continue to grow in scope and additional advancements are made in technology - such as AI, engine development, machine learning and more - there will be a continued demand for QA professionals to ensure the quality that players expect.
Tarek Nijmeh (PTW): I have been fortunate to witness the evolution of QA from what it was 25 years ago to what it is now. We’ve gone from writing bugs on paper to having automation tests and identifying them for us. Just thinking about the future of QA, we can expect AI-driven testing and servers using machine learning to identify and test edge cases that no one thought of before. Additionally, as games continue to improve, gamers are also evolving and becoming more demanding, leading to a shift in software development practices. Studios are starting to invest more in QA talent and automation tools to meet these expectations. I am eager to see how QA will continue to evolve and adapt to these changes.
Povilas Svetova (Nordcurrent): Software quality assurance is not going anywhere and will always remain a part of software development. Bad software QA is ultimately detrimental and costly to the final product, so the importance of QA in video games and other software fields will remain the same and probably even grow. But new technology integration in testing changes the work principles of QA specialists, meaning their work changes from universal to more specialised.
It has been said for a long time that manual testing is impossible to replace. Still, the demand is decreasing even in video games since more and more QA processes are being automated, and AI and ML are being used more often to predict possible faults in QA. To sum it up, a bright QA future awaits those who can adapt, are innovative, and study a lot!
“There has definitely been a shift in recent years where folks are starting to appreciate their QA teams more”
Steph McStea, QA lead at Double Eleven February 2023 MCV/DEVELOP | 47
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