A day in the life of a Game Tester!

iXie Gaming — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 11:44:40 +0000

To give an idea of what a Game tester’s day looks like, we are talking about a guy who goes by the gamer tag ‘Dalda’

Is game testing a job or a career?
While the game testing career starts as a lower paying job, there is a high potential for anyone to grow in the industry very quickly. Those who have an urge, commitment and wish to make a name for themselves in the gaming industry, game testing provides a big platform to grow. If one is focused long enough and keep learning and stay current, he/she can make a managerial role within a short span of 10 years.

How did you get started?
I always found myself playing a lot of video games going back as far as I can remember. From my college days, I was interested in computers plus my long-standing interest in video games lead me to conclude that I wanted to be a part of the gaming industry.

The first job I got was in company, one of whose Executive was a friend’s Uncle. Knowing the bunch of us and our addiction to gaming we got offered a job.

What do you do all day?
Playing games was something I knew how to do, However, learning how to be a tester, I had to unlearn what I knew, which was killing bad guys, smashing stuff and level up faster. That does not help a tester, test a game effectively. On a regular day, my schedule was pretty tight. I had done to all sort of background stuff like anyone does at their job, like keeping track of what they do.

What skills do you think are most useful for a QA tester?
Attention to detail, and understanding the game. Learning the game properly and in detail will help us to understand patterns within the game, which will help to break the game and find more bugs.

What’s the pay like?
Unlike software engineers, game testing is not a highly paid job at entry. A game tester with 2 years of exposure would have more knowledge than a software tester who holds 5 years of experience. The learning curve is much steeper. All that will help one to grow quickly and get to bigger roles with better pay.

Are there any games which involve dread testing?
Definitely. Testing a game in a foreign language, without any support documentation or without anyone to explain the game, makes your job a lot harder.

Do you have a say in what games you test?
No. You go where you are asked to go and are expected to work on anything that is sent your way.

What’s the best and worst part of being a QA tester?
The best part is that you get to learn so much. You see a game when it is just in the developmental stages. You get to track the whole game through its various phases. You get to lend a hand in shaping the game and making it better for everyone to enjoy. You get to see the game through to the end. And at the end of it all, you are happy because you know you helped make the game better and everyone is enjoying the game!

Worst part would be, after working for a whole day on a game, I ended up dreaming myself as a character stuck in the game and being unable to clear the level to get out!

Do you play the games you test in your downtime?
Yes, occasionally. One of the games I tested – Section 8, my colleagues and I ended up staying late for a few hours past the end of the day just to enjoy the game. Some more games in that list are CS: Condition Zero, Unreal Tournament.

Has the job affected your enjoyment of gaming?
After a small initial stage of not wanting to look at a video-game after working for a whole day on video-games, I have gone back to finding and playing new games in my free time and it is still a lot of fun.

What’s your favorite game and why?
Last of Us! No game has had me being so mentally involved with the protagonist.

Favorite movie based off a video game?
Halo Legends and Resident Evil series. These movies stayed close to the video game storyline, while most of the other movie versions of the games did not portray the story line nor convey the experience when you play the game.

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Game Testing: Partnering for Quality

iXie Gaming — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 11:36:26 +0000

Reliability, quality assurance at competitive costs make iXie the ideal testing partner for this video games publisher.

CLIENT PROFILE
A leading global firm based in the US was developing a software tool for workforce management, employee attendance marking, collecting labour data and generating attendance summary of a large workforce. The software was developed using .NET technologies and AJAX and Oracle 10G was the database used.
The client was scouting around for the right testing partner, one who had the capability to manage the testing process at rapid speed, without sacrificing quality. Importantly, the QA team at the client site wanted a 100% automation-driven testing process, to reduce time-to-release, for every build. Also, the project needed handling of multiple data sets for a highly data intensive application.

KNOWLEDGE CHALLENGES
The client had attempted to create an in-house testing team but faced certain hurdles:

Games need to be tested on the right devices for accurate quality assurance. For this, the client needed to invest in the devices, which would become redundant after the game was released.
The second challenge was to hire key, experienced QA personnel, which added to the costs.
Assets also add to overhead costs, an additional drain on the finances of the publishing company.
In-house testing would dilute the focus of the company from publishing to managing the testing assets.

The ideal solution was to look for a testing partner with its own asset base to outsource quality assurance too.

ADVANTAGE iXie
Some of the qualities the publisher for including:

The asset base
The experience level
Cost competitiveness

iXie’s game testing proved to be the right fit for the client because of our experience in testing across devices.
We were able to perform testing on:

Our testing lab houses mobile devices and Tablets of all kinds – Android, iOS, Windows and Amazon Kindle
We also have gaming PCs & Laptops to support game titles
We have experienced personnel, averaging 12 years of experience in game testing.

BENEFITS OF USING iSAFE
One of iXie’s key and standard approaches to testing is to work closely with the client’s third party developers in planning and executing the project, interacting with them in real time. Our key ingredients for testing success are:

PLANNING
Our work was mapped out to include testing for:

Functionality
Compatibility
Compliance
Regressions
Smoke
Test case preparation

INVESTMENT
After understanding the requirements for the testing, we invested in:

Purchase of mobile devices
Purchase of high-end PCs
Network (exclusive leased line, backup network lines)
Firewall
Hiring of full-time resources

IMPLEMENTATION

Execution – we worked closely with the client right from the alpha stage of the project, then beta, close master, soft launch, global launch and maintenance, updates and patches
Shared daily status report
Shared Weekly status report
Tracked a milestone checklist
Maintained an iOS compliance and compatibility checklist

COMMUNICATION
We maintained communication with the client, thus retaining their trust and updating them of progress periodically through multiple tiers:

Chat based – Skype, Slack
Audio conferencing bridges
Video conferencing bridges
Email communication
Bug database (JIRA/Mantis)

These four steps ensure that the game to be tested is understood well, the test cases prepared, each level tested methodically and the client provided with the right information critical to the success of the game.
BENEFITS OF iXie GAME TESTING
We at iXie go the extra mile to make sure the projects we undertake are delivered successfully, on time, every time. To ensure this, we equipped ourselves suitably:

Rapid scalability of resources – our team was beefed up from 8 to 80 in two months. This helped us complete the project on time.
Infrastructure: We spruced up our infrastructure to suit the needs of the project, thus covering every aspect of testing.
Effective Communication: Continuous interaction with the customers and their third-party developers helped us gain their confidence and test in real time.
Suggestions and Improvements: Based on our vast experience in game testing, we made suggestions to the customer on game design and monetization. This not only got positive feedback, but the suggestions were implemented and enhanced the quality.

TOOLS

Defect Management Tool – JIRA

METRICS

15,000 test cases were developed

KEY PROJECT STATISTICS

Team size: 80
Duration: 7 + months

Accolades –
I can’t say enough about how great this team has been.
We have had a launch on 4 platforms – first geo-locked, and then world-wide.
The team has been very adaptive to last minute overtime requests, and have done so cheerfully.
They have been integral to a very successful launch (we are number #3 in Apple store worldwide).
We also have a 5 star rating in the Apple store.
In other words – this team is excellent.
There is nothing they need to improve right now.

-QA Manager of a billion dollar gaming firm in the US

The post Game Testing: Partnering for Quality appeared first on iXie Gaming.

Testing Mobile Games Archives - iXie Gaming

A day in the life of a Game Tester!

Game Testing: Partnering for Quality

Reliability, quality assurance at competitive costs make iXie the ideal testing partner for this video games publisher.