It seems like we’ve had an awful lot of buggy game scandals recently, as our own Jenni Lada noted in ” Is Quality Assurance Dead in 2016? ” As more and more of us take our consoles online, it’s easier for publishers to release games before they’re fully ready, and simply patch them later. PC gamers have known this pain for years, and this generation the console world is catching up, angering gamers as their brand-new $60 AAA title turns out to have obvious or game-breaking glitches. When confronted with a buggy game, plenty of people wonder what’s going on with the QA department. How come those lazy testers don’t find these huge bugs?
In many ways, the QA department is like the poor clerk at the Walmart returns counter who gets to be heaped with abuse from angry customers – an easy target that isn’t ultimately responsible for the quality of the product that was sold. The truth is, QA often did find those bugs, and the responsibility for buggy games lies a lot higher up on the totem pole. Over the years, a lot of QA whistleblowers have given us insight into why game testers aren’t lazy at all, and why we get buggy games anyway.
Corporate culture is one big problem behind why game bugs fail to be found and/or fixed. In many large companies, QA is considered a “lesser” department, housed as far from development as possible and often in areas with poor light and bad air circulation. If you look around the web a bit, you’ll hear plenty of stories from former testers who describe developers who don’t take them seriously, ignoring bug reports, or publishers who refuse to fix major bugs in the name of meeting sales deadlines. Speaking of deadlines, they’re at their worst for QA, as when development gets behind, QA often isn’t given extra time to test. Corners are cut exactly where the most care should be taken – in assuring that a game works the way it’s supposed to.
One of my relatives did a stint testing for a major AAA studio, and her experience backs up that of many others who have spoken up online. I asked her for her thoughts on the topic, and she put the finger on the long hours and poorly-planned deadlines she and her tester friends encountered. “You’re not eating right, you aren’t sleeping, you’re being pushed to finish so fast so they can release the game by some deadline and it’s never ready,” she told me.
So who is responsible for buggy games? QA certainly bears some responsibility, but I don’t feel comfortable putting most of the blame on the people who are paid the least, have the worst working conditions, and have little to no job security. Developers and coders are often at fault, for designing clunky game engines or ignoring bug reports that they can’t easily reproduce. Ultimately, though, the blame lies on project managers and publishers. These are the people who are supposed to be watching game projects at a high level, making sure there’s proper time taken at all stages of development and making the decision whether to delay a title that needs a bit more time in the oven. Maybe they need to say no to developers who engage in feature creep instead of getting a base game ready in time. Maybe they need to give QA more time for testing. Either way, at some point somebody in a fancy suit makes a decision to release a AAA game, well aware that it includes massive bugs and glitches. That person is not in the QA department.
The next time you’re disappointed by a buggy game, don’t go on the internet and yell at “lazy” testers. Instead, ask who decided to release the game in that condition. Ask why the developers didn’t or weren’t able to prioritize bug fixing. Ask why the publisher decided it was acceptable to release the game in such a fashion. Most importantly, look into the conditions of the QA department at the publisher in question, and if they’re bad, speak up for the testers. They’ll thank you once they’ve gotten some sleep and detoxed from their all-chalupa diet.