Quality Control in Games Development

The purpose of this thesis was to provide more information regarding the role of quality control in game development to game industry professionals, game development start-ups and potential employees of this field. There are several misconceptions about this profession and this thesis contains information regarding the impact quality control has in games development. The motivation to conduct this research and write this thesis comes from the author’s work experi-ence in testing games in a game development studio. From personal experience, the author had some misconceptions about this profession as well, which were cleared when she began working as a tester. The information regarding quality control is sparse compared to other aspects of game development. This thesis was written using a qualitive research method where the sources were from data col-lection, online survey, printed and online literature. The results of this research outlined the dif-ferent methods of testing processes the quality control department must undergo to produce a feasible outcome for a game. Quality control is one of the main aspects of game development, since this activity results in the discovery of bugs, establishing a defect database, and most importantly, the approval for a viable game to be published. Quality control does not cease when the game is released but continues postproduction as well. The conclusion of this thesis report is that quality control is vital to the development of a game, although some game companies still do not view it as an important aspect for their games. In addition to hopefully clearing the misconceptions of people who want to follow this career path due to misunderstanding of the skills and knowledge required to be a games tester. Furthermore, an attempt to settle the mistaken belief that quality control is not a viable career path and people beginning at this position to gain a position in other departments of game development. The author has signed a non-disclosure agreement with her employer. All information in this thesis that has been gathered from survey responses are taken from game industry professionals and are respectively referenced. Survey questions asked their opinions on quality control and when they feel testing is required most, whether quality control is required in start-ups, automated testing, and testers responsibility in detecting fun factor of the game