What is Game Testing and Its Various Types

Cyberpunk 2077 was released and issues followed owing to major bugs in the game that created havoc in the gaming world. Reports came out earlier that the undersized QA team and lack of proper testing were the primary reasons for the game’s failure.

This issue created widespread awareness or was a wake-up call for several gaming companies to incorporate efficient and sufficient QA into the gaming industry.

It is expected that the gaming industry will grow by an additional $256.97 billion by 2025. Software testing makes sure that all that money and time you spend on developing the game does not go in vain.

What is Game Testing?

Game testing, often called playtesting, is the process of identifying errors in a video game. It is the process of diving deep into a game to find flaws (bugs, glitches and the like) that may hinder the user experience. Game testing will help ensure that the game works properly, is enjoyable, and plays well on multiple platforms and devices. Game testers are able to test multiple scenarios and actions that users may perform, thus finding more problems in a reasonable amount of time.

To get a better understanding, let’s have a look at different types of game testing.

Different Types and Techniques of Game Testing

1) Functionality Testing/Functional Testing

Functional testing is performed on games to make sure that issues such as crashes, stability issues, performance issues, device compatibility, mechanical, audio-visual, integrity issues, etc. can be traced out.

When it comes to performance issues, crashes, game freezing issues, graphical issues, audio visual issues, etc. can be found so that they can be fixed before the release.

Functionality testing has a lot of advantages over in-game testing. They are,

• Helps in validating the performance of the game’
• You can ensure that the game is performing according to the requirements document.
• Crucial aspects that help in user engagement, such as graphics, audio, visuals, and texts, can be verified.
• The installation process, network issues, etc. can also be verified.

Have a Depth in View About: What is Automated Functional Testing?

2) Combinatorial Testing

Combinatorial testing is an efficient method to lower the number of test cases. Parameters are the crucial aspects of combinatorial game testing. Parameters can be easily found by having a deep understanding of the game requirements. Since parameters help in creating efficient testing, the number of test cases can be lowered a lot.

Some of the parameters of games include,

• Events
• Settings
• Gameplay options
• Character attributes
• Customization options
• Hardware configurations

Each parameter has a value and it can range from numbers or texts. Test cases created in this type of testing can either be homogeneous or heterogeneous in nature.

3) Ad Hoc Testing

Finding out the user path is a daunting task to perform. But with Ad Hoc testing, discovering user paths can be a less stressful task. Also, destructive user paths that get revealed after release can be very harmful to the game. So, in this case, ad hoc testing serves as a risk mitigation process as well.

Facts about Ad Hoc Testing

• Ad Hoc testing is performed without any documentation, plan, or process.
• The mission in front of the game tester would be to break the game by executing thousands of edge-case scenarios.
• Ad Hoc testing reveals bg that cannot be found out during functional testing
• For better results, it’s wiser to perform Ad Hoc testing at multiple intervals of SDLC.

4) Compatibility Testing

To ensure maximum ROI, a game must perform seamlessly across all platforms. Compatibility has been a major issue in the gaming industry, and upon necessary tweaking, the issue can be reduced to a great extent. When we look at the comment sections in play stores and reviews online, most of the issues reported are about the compatibility of the games across various platforms.

If you are thinking about why gaming companies are not giving the required focus to compatibility, here is the answer.

There are millions of devices, OS configurations, chipsets, ICs, processors, etc. in existence. To test the game in all of them is nearly impossible. However, isolating the factors that need to be tested will ease the process.

5) Play Testing

Playtesting is a process used in game development at different points in time to make sure that the flow of the game is as per the initial design.

Playtesting helps in testing various design elements, gameplay, audio-visual elements, etc. Playtesting has great business value because it’s performed by testers or gaming enthusiasts so that user expectations can be easily measured and tweaked accordingly.

Types of playtesting

Gross Playtesting

This is done when the first draft of the playable game is done in the development cycle. Usually, gross playtesting is performed by the design team to check the gameplay and make sure that it’s smooth.

In-house Playtesting

This type of testing is performed by an in-house team or contract gamers. These gamers will be proficient in gaming, and they will go through every aspect of the gameplay to ensure that the gameplay is smooth and the game is interesting and can lure in a lot of users.

Blind Testing

Usually, a beta version of the game will be sent to selected players and will ask them to do a survey or log the issues they have found in the gameplay.

Since the game is tested by real users, insights gained will be much more useful than relying on someone who has preoccupied thoughts in mind.

Final playtesting

The mechanics of the game won’t be considered in this type of testing. In fact, the aesthetics of the game will be fine-tuned upon the suggestions of testers.

6) Cleanroom Testing

If you look at the issues closely, you will start to see a pattern emerging. This pattern can be attributed to a root cause.

That’s the necessity of cleanroom testing. Some of the biggest hurdles in performing cleanroom testing are that it can only be performed by someone with statistical reasoning knowledge, design knowledge, and mathematical knowledge.

However, programming knowledge is not required to carry out the process.

7) Localization Testing

Your game has English as the official language. However, you wish to release the game across the world in various languages.

How will you make sure that the translation is on point and does not disrupt the game flow? And also, how will you make sure that there are no offensive remarks in the game?

To make sure that no such things happen, localization testing is the only way.

Attributes that will come under localization testing are,

Language

• Spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes
• Numeric formats such as DOB, financial symbols, calendars, etc.
• Metrics and currency formats
• Errors that are related to the country’s formats, such as phone numbers, zip codes, etc.
• Language flow
• Translation errors
• Voice over issues’
• Cultural references that are sensitive in nature.
• Contextual issues, in which the words are different than the context,

Visual issues

• Characters that are not recognized. For instance, UTF characters
• Font issues’
• Translations that are longer when compared to the original language. This might cause the textual string inside the game to break.
• Translations that do not work
• Compliance issues
• UI/UX issues
• Visual placement

8) Regression Testing

Games are often subject to enhancements or alterations. Regression testing ensures that the new incorporations are not at all disrupting the smooth functioning of the game.

Through regression testing, the new output of the test can be compared with the older ones for a better picture. Regression testing helps test the game from scratch and unravel new bugs every time.

In short, regression tests help in the re-validation and re-execution of tests.

What You Should Check for Game Testing

Effective game testing must focus on several aspects to ensure that each product is qualitative:

• User Interface: An intuitive and responsive UI is necessary. Menus, icons, buttons, and dialog boxes need to function well across a wide range of devices with variations in screen size. 
• Gameplay Mechanics:  Ensure that the game mechanics work as they are intended, with all elements such as character movements, game controls, level progression works as intended.
• Performance: The testing of the game shall be done on various devices concerning performance. It should not contain any bugs or other problems that could hamper functionality, such as slow loading, lagging, or complete crashing of the game.
• Security: Test for any vulnerability tending to affect the integrity of the game, such as exploits for cheating or unauthorized access to user data. 
• Localization: Localization involves testing a game released in multiple regions for language accuracy, cultural appropriateness, and regional functionality.

Extensive testing in each of these fields helps ensure that the game will be fun and smooth for all players.

Important Metrics for Game Testing

Among the important things in game testing, tracking the right metrics to measure the performance and user experience is most important. A few of the more key metrics that should be closely monitored include:

• Frame Rate (FPS):This is the number of frames per second a game renders. Smooth and high FPS is extremely important for smooth gameplay, such as those released in action-packed games.  
• Load Time: The time it takes to boot the game and load levels; the faster the loading time, the higher the satisfaction of users, hence their dropping-out rate decreases accordingly.  
• Memory Usage: The actual number of how much RAM and VRAM any particular game will consume. Using memory efficiently will result in smooth execution of games on every device, including those with low resources. 
• CPU and GPU Utilization: Keeping track of how much processing power a game consumes. Optimizing CPU and GPU usage can help prevent overheating and battery drain in mobile devices.
• Network Latency: Network latency is the time delay before data transfer actually begins once there is an instruction for its transfer to begin. Low latency is what is required for responsive game playing. 
• Crash Reports: These are detailed logs explaining when and why the game crashed. Crash reports are analyzed to identify and fix stability issues. 
• Retention Rates: These are the frequency  of how many times the player comes back after the initial session. Normally, high retention rates will just show how much the game is entertaining and addictive.  
• Conversion Rates: This is the metric that defines how good the game is at converting its players into paying customers if the game has in-app purchase options. 
• Error Rates: The bugs or any other glitches that disturb the experience of a gamer in case of replaying of the game. 

Accordingly, it might be useful to monitor these indicators in order to make conclusions based on that data. Not only regarding the performance but also the quality of operating the game.

Testing Tools for Games

Game testing requires specialized tools that can handle the unique challenges of gaming environments. Here are some of the most effective testing tools used in the industry to ensure games perform well and provide an engaging player experience:

Specialized tools are needed to handle the unique challenges in game environments. A few of the best testing tools used in the industry for assuring game performance are given below:

• Ranorex Studio: It is excellent for a wide variety of game types, both for desktop and mobile game automation. It supports various programming languages and also integrates well with other testing tools.
• TestRail: A test management tool that helps manage testing activities, maintain and prioritize test cases, and track results in one single interface. Highly useful in big teams where complex test suites need management.
• JIRA with Zephyr: Most utilized for bug tracking and project management. JIRA, when integrated with Zephyr, will transform into one powerhouse right from managing all aspects of game testing workflows.
• SikuliX: It is ideal for testing the visual elements of games, SikuliX uses image recognition as a basis to drive interaction with graphical user interfaces. This comes in very handy while dealing with games containing complex graphics and animations. 
• LoadRunner: This is developed by Micro Focus and can simulate several thousands of users concurrently using application software. It can record and then play against various components, showing their performance. It is very instrumental in the stress testing of games to ensure that they will be able to bear high loads without necessarily compromising their performance.
• Unity & Unreal Engine Profilers:In the games designed on Unity/Unreal Engine, there are built-in profiler aids in tracking down the performance and resource utilization of the games, enabling developers to finetune the gameplay, graphics, and other system dependencies.

Common Bugs Experienced in Games Development

Various bugs can detract from the gaming experience, and identifying them is a primary goal of game testing. Some common types of bugs found in games include:

• Graphical Bugs: These would include issues in the in-game graphics, such as glitches in the textures, clipping, or some wrong animation that creates visual disturbances.
• Sound Issues: Sound problems refer to issues that occur during the playback of audio. These problems include delays and echoes of the audio, which detract from the user’s ability to become immersed.
• Gameplay Bugs: Issues that clearly make game mechanics difficult, like unresponsive controls, logic errors in the flow of a game, or bad scoring.
• Network Bugs: The issues that occur during the multiplayer online game, such as network lag and loss of data synchronicities, will surely annoy players. 
• Compatibility Issues: Bugs that can only appear in certain devices or OSs, affecting the game’s accessibility or functionality across a wide array of platforms. 

Finding and correcting these bugs is very important in keeping the quality and competitiveness in the market for mobile games.

About Testscenario

Testscenario is a leading software testing services company specializing in game testing services. With a team of experienced testers and advanced testing tools, Testscenario ensures that your game delivers an exceptional user experience. From technical testing to user-based assessments, Testscenario provides comprehensive testing solutions tailored to your specific needs. Whether you are developing a mobile app or a complex game, Testscenario is here to help you achieve the highest standards of quality and performance.

Final note…

These are the types of testing performed on games to make sure that they are liked by users across the world.

These testing forms can only be performed by an experienced game testing company. Be it technical testing types that require game testing tools’ assistance or user-based testing, it has to be carried out with the utmost care.

Not to mention mobile apps. Apps that have made billions of dollars are often tested continuously to ensure maximum user experience.

For professional game testing services, consider partnering with Testscenario to bring your game to the next level.