What is playing game?
Game playing is the way a player interacts with a game, and is the connection between the player and the game. It’s the experience of a game, and includes the player’s challenges, the rules of the game, and the player’s behavior.
What is game testing?
Game testing, often called playtesting, is a software testing process for quality control of video games. The primary function of game testing is the discovery and documentation of software defects. Interactive entertainment software testing is a highly technical field requiring computing expertise, analytic competence, critical evaluation skills, and endurance.
Like other kind of testing, there are many different types and techniques of game 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Compatibility testing: Compatibility has been a major issue in the gaming industry, and upon necessary tweaking, the issue can be reduced to a great extent.
- Localization testing: In order to release the game across the world in various languages, localization testing is the only way to make sure that the translation is on point and does not disrupt the game flow.
- Regression tests: help in the re-validation and re-execution of tests. 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.
What is the differences between playing a game and testing a game?
Anyone can play a game. Not everyone can test one.
We play a game for fun or may be pass our time. We play the game we like whether it is for its content or game-play. It is very unlikely of a gamer saying that I hate the game but I still play it.
Everyone has a different style of playing. When playing a game, all we do is progress through the game and reach the conclusion. We can either complete all the objectives in the game or we can skip some, depending on our playing style.
Testing, however, requires a particular skill-set. A game tester needs to document everything. While testing a game, the tester (or the testing team) will go through the whole game, end to end, to make sure that the game is bug free. While testing the game, we notice everything. If we find something broken/not right, we get it fixed.
As a tester we have to test any game that comes our way, whether we like it or we hate it. We still have to make sure that we report all the bugs that comes our way, make sure we test all the functionality for each and every part of the game. Make sure it goes live with Zero bugs.
A tester has to make sure he/she gives 8 hours every day playing the game and make sure each and every check in the Test Plan is checked and documented and all the defects are reported to the developer on time. Testing has little to do with ‘playing’ the game, at least not in the traditional sense. We have little control over how we play it and we’re definitely not doing it the same way we would when playing for fun.
When we do find a bug, that’s not really the end of it. We have to do it again and again, until we’re confident can reproduce the bug and then we write a detailed report so the programmer tasked with fixing it can make the bug happen again. And then, in a few days when a new build is released, when a programmer says they fixed the bug, we have to test for the same bug again, to confirm the bug is actually fixed.
Is it true that only people who know how to play games can test games?
It is true that game testers spend time playing the game, but there is nothing easy about the job. We have to play the game methodically. We will have to play, over and over again, portions of the game to be able to carefully identify and explain, in detail, what it takes to trigger the issue.
Being a game tester requires a number of skills to identify and explain issues to the game developers. Developers rely on the skill of testers to find mistakes that were made in the development process and prepare the game to be ready for the end user. Testers must have a deep understanding of game design, attention to detail, the ability to explain issues to game developers, and much more.
In short, just because we can play a game does not mean we are cut out to be a game tester. We have to be organized, detail-oriented, methodical and a critical thinker. We also must be a good communicator (written and verbal). When we think about it we can see why we can move from game testing into other higher level jobs in the game industry. All the skills we demonstrate in game testing are the same skills companies look for in other career paths including graphic design, project management, quality assurance (QA), and development.
Conclusion
In conclusion, playing game and testing game are not the same. They have some common actions but the meaning is different totally. Playing game is just for fun or entertainment purpose but testing game need some technical skills to find out the defects to make sure the game will not have any critical issues after released to production.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_testing
https://www.testscenario.com/types-of-game-testing