Why is Quality Assurance an Essential Part in Game Development?
Games are designed and developed by software development companies with the use of several programming languages such as C++, Java, and C++, unlike other mobile development solutions. So, there are chances that their codes can be shoddy and can be vulnerable to hackers. Quality assurance is the much-needed part for the game development process as it ensures that the app is very-well tested, free from bugs, and is appropriate to launch in the market.
Gaming Piracy - A Key To Hacking
According to Wijman, mobile gaming's revenue will account for $77.2 billion by 2020, an improvement of 13.3% from 2019 onwards. Their projected data stated that nearly 2.6 billion gamers would play on mobile devices from a total of 2.7 billion in 2020.
However, another study by CNBC reveals that video game revenue was estimated to boost with $174 billion based on IDC last year.
The CNBC research shows that many developers put various efforts in their codes for gaming and do struggles to stop hackers from cheating.
Jake Davis - Most Wanted Cyber-Criminal & Leading Teen Hacker on the Planet
If you are the person who imagines that software testing for game development is not very important, then this example is perfect for making up your mind.
Jake Davis, an alias Topiary also renowned as the most legendary hacker who has worked with LulzSec, Anonymous group, and many relatable hacktivist members. His real name is Jake Leslie Davis, who openly claimed numerous cyberattacks, like hacking Gawker, the Westboro Baptist Church, and HBGary. He also mentioned that he got addicted to modifying games and started from the age of 10 to indulge in these activities, mainly when he played 3D Pinball on Windows XP.
Remember always, hacking is done by the intelligent coders or the ones who are masters in programming skills. So, how do you assure that your video game is safe against hackers? Is your video game free from bugs? If not, you are very close to losing your personal information. The only solution to protect your privacy online and smartphones, websites from being hacked is quality assurance software testing or game testing.
Know the Different Types of Software Testing for Games
The primary goal of the video game testing is to identify the areas where there is a need of high improvement for the next versions. The QA of gaming makes several checks while upgrading new features and developing new games for business. The focus of the game testing in the game development process relies on errors, completeness, inconsistency, and coherence. Due to this respect, there are various types of methods curated for game testing that one must follow as an essential testing technique for custom game development.
9 Mobile Game Testing Techniques:
Combinatorial Testing.
Clean Room Testing.
Functional Testing.
Compatibility Testing.
Tree Testing.
Regression Testing.
Load Testing.
Ad hoc Testing.
Play Testing.
1. Combinatorial Testing
In an umbrella term, combinatorial testing is used to define the set of test design methods based on experiments. It is an experimental design method for commercial software testing and can be utilized to generate test cases. With combinatorial testing for gaming, it is easy to increase the efficiency of test execution, reduce cost, and provide better quality to game lovers.
Essential Advantages
- It allows the testers to generate combinations for testing in a systematic approach.
- It involves pair testing, category-partition testing, and catalogue based testing.
- It is effortless to cover the possible combinational values of the parameters during this test.
- The parameters are defined from the elements, game functions, settings, play options, events, customization choices, and character attributes.
2. Clean Room Testing
Clean room testing in the gaming software development process is to check the reliability of certification levels. The technique allows us to develop a new product with the help of existing versions and reverse engineering. Moreover, it is known as a clean room design because it helps in developing new software in this way so that no one can violate the patents or go against the copyright rules.
Essential Advantages
- It reduces bugs from software and allows the programs to start after the formal specification.
- The method combines design refinement, mathematical reasoning, and statistical reasoning while generating test cases and performing the testing.
3. Functional Testing
The main aim of using functional testing in game development is to identify the errors and bugs so that one can get flawless user-experience. It checks whether the functions of the application are working as per the requirements and may consume more time of testers due to the always occurring graphics, audio-visual errors, and gameplay issues.
Essential Advantages
- The complex testing strategy comes under the category of black-box testing.
- With functional checks, the app allows smooth installation, supports payment gateways, and works well with social networking options.
4. Compatibility Testing
The purpose of compatibility testing for video gaming is to check the functions against graphics, software configuration, and the hardware. It is one of the desirable mobile app testing strategies that checks whether the title of the game can run on specific devices or not.
Essential Advantages
- The stability and functionality of the software are checked by compatibility testing.
- It increases the confidence of game QA testers in front of their clients because it gives ease to meet the unique business requirements of both the developers and the end-users.
- It takes care of readability, which means it checks whether users can easily understand the game or not.
- The validation of the app interface or screen size compatibility is tested during this phase and to ensure the high-quality to the customers.
5. Tree Testing
Tree testing is similar to usability testing because it enables the testers to organize the test cases and identify the suitable test sets to make the changes in a particular code of the application.
Essential Advantages
- It is suitable for navigation page menus and advanced page layouts in game designing.
- There is no hassle required to draw the wireframes or write a piece of content for testing. With a tree (menu) and instructions (tasks), it permits to get the testing done.
- The overall understanding of the complex function in the game can be improved.
- It requires low-cost experimentation, optimization of product names & types.
6. Regression Testing
The reason to consider the regression testing in video game development is to analyze whether there is a need to retest the parts, which never get changed from the software. The test cases are rechecked to examine the functionality of the previous app function and guarantee that there are no definite improvements needed for the existing vulnerabilities or bugs.
Essential Advantages
- It is necessary to compare the results of the previous app with the current ones.
- More time saving while bugs detection in the first stage.
- It can be implemented as functional testing to check the overall usability of the product.
- Quality is undoubtedly improved during this phase.
7. Load Testing
Load testing or performance testing checks the performance of the game under real-time pressure. It shows the insights of an app when multiple users use it at the same time.
Essential Advantages
- It tells whether the current app's infrastructure is an ideal-fit or allows the game to run on devices smoothly.
- It explains how many users can run the app in a single time and also help you to determine the scalability rate.
- Test the durability of the program with a maximum user load and cover performance management strategies.
8. Ad Hoc Testing
An unplanned testing method or Ad-hoc based testing is made to break down the system for random testing without any documents or test cases.
Essential Advantages
It can be used for guessing the number of errors and finding the bugs by random checks.
No particular structure is followed by the testers due to random based testing.
9. Play Testing
Play testing is the unique strategy of game testing that lets you analyze the difficulty level while playing the game. It is used to check other features like balance, fun factors in the app.
Essential Advantages
- It tells the testers whether the video game is constructed in a well-structured manner or not.
- It is judgemental-based testing rather than factual based testing.
- It is used to check the design of the game, and testing is done mainly on PCs.
Conclusion
Games are played by everyone, from seniors to juniors, yet everyone is unfamiliar with the bugs contained in the application. What is vital for you as a gamer - security or fun? If you give priority to your safety and don't want to get your personal information stolen by hackers, it is high time to think about the game testing services. To make your work convenient, we want to connect with you to offer you a diverse range of Game QA testing services online. Let's talk!
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