The game testing industry has seen a significant transformation over the last few years and is experiencing tremendous growth. There won’t be denial in saying that the use of games has been fuelled after the outbreak of a covid-19 pandemic. As per a report by Forbes, By the end of 2023, the worldwide gaming market is predicted to reach $200 billion.
Game development companies and developers are investing their resources to dive deep into this field in light of the anticipated growth to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology and provide comprehensive, well-thought-out automated game testing services to their clients. Also, do not overlook the fierce competition in the gaming market landscape.
In the past, only teams who relied primarily on manual testing could evaluate games to determine their stability. However, over the past few years, a new trend of automated game testing has emerged. With game testing through automation tools, testing teams have discovered a whole new world for facilitating a quicker testing and deployment cycle. A dependable and cost-effective automation QA strategy is made possible using automation technologies for game testing. It eliminates the need for QA Quality Assurance engineers to spend additional time and effort on manual testing.
Several technologies on the market are impacting industries and modifying the SDLC (Software development lifecycle) process to be more robust, effective, and impactful due to the growing trend of automated game testing in the software business. However, while working on automating games, one must also overcome some challenges. Let’s discuss some of the myths about automated game testing.
The Myths Surrounding Automated Game Testing
Before examining the potential for automated game testing, one needs to dispel a few myths from their mind.
- Game Code Reusability: Reusing game code is highly challenging because each game is based on new code using a different game engine, unlike other software products like banking apps, healthcare apps, and ebook applications. Much planning and thought must develop and maintain specific testing methods that enhance test reusability by hiding the specifics of the game object code from automated tests.
- Eliminate Human Involvement: Automated game tests can not replace the requirement for manual testers because, in the end, some tests, such as ad-hoc or play-testing, cannot be automated.
Benefits Of Automated Game Testing
Saves Resources
Test automation is more effective at finding flaws at an early stage of game development and saves time and effort on QA, which helps deliver clients’ goods on schedule.
No Human Intervention
Automated tests can be run continuously (24/7) without any effort or manual intervention. The automated test allows testers to access and evaluate certain game levels that would require a lot of manual labor and time. They may occasionally run into situations or circumstances that prevent them from succeeding with manual labor.
Easy Assessment
Test reports produced after running test suites or test scripts make it simple to assess the evaluation of executed test results. Automated tests make it possible to run tests simultaneously across several platforms, which speeds up test execution and gives game testing a lot more value.
Reduced Efforts
Reduce manual testing efforts so that QA may concentrate on additional edge case scenarios that automation cannot handle. Moreover, it saves corporate expenses and aids in improved workforce utilization for duties associated with game production.
Accessibility
Automated tests make a manual tester’s hard job more accessible, giving them more time and mental space to create more effective test scenarios. Automated testing can assist you in maximizing test coverage for complicated and complex cases.
Thoroughness
Thoroughness in testing is gained by automated testing. Testers frequently use different testing methodologies and depending on their experience and expertise, their focus areas may also change. Automation ensures that all aspects of testing are focused on, resulting in the highest level of quality.
Time To Market
Faster time-to-market is ensured by enabling continuous test case execution, test automation significantly speeds up the time it takes to sell an application. Test library execution is automated. It proceeds more quickly and lasts longer than manual testing.
Security
Information security can be leveraged effectively. the caliber of the test data you employ will have a significant impact on the effectiveness of testing. As it takes time to generate high-quality test data manually, testing is frequently carried out on copies of live databases.
You may reuse your information repeatedly by using automation technologies to assist with building, modifying, and safeguarding your test database. This could result in significant time and money savings.
Faster Feedback Cycle
Test automation for game has always ensured the faster feedback cycle, allowing for speedier validation of phases the games or product’s development. It is especially effective for detecting problems in terms of faults that are made early in the development process. This ultimately helps the team work more efficiently.
Reusability
One of the key benefits of test automation scripts is their reusability. But, it is quite challenging and complex. Unlike other applications, new code is created for each game. As a result, a unique technique is needed for automated game testing. For example, to increase test reusability, provide functions that hide game code specifics from automated testing.
Factors to Take into Account Before Automating Games
- Return on Investment (ROI): Make sure you plan for higher ROI from your automation efforts.
- Maintenance: Until the problems are resolved, we must remain dedicated and spend our money and effort on script maintenance tasks.
- Consider Tech Stack: One needs to spend enough time defining and assessing the tech stack that would satisfy and support the game engine that is utilized to produce the game before we even consider automating any set of game capabilities.
- Documentation and Tracking Framework Workflow: Maintaining documentation for the deployed framework pays off in a variety of ways, including when it comes to teaching new automation team members, beginning new projects, and more.
- Skilled Resources: Before committing to game automation testing, it’s essential to identify and deploy trained resources because there may be situations where a firm or organization lacks skilled personnel, those that do exist are preoccupied with other project deadlines, or project budget restrictions exist.
- TECHNOLOGY AND OUTPUTS: TEST AUTOMATION FRAMEWORKS Choose the most reliable and cross-platform way to make the most of your efforts and increase testing coverage. It is commonly recognized that automated methods can be used to generate test cases automatically, validate requirements, and cut expenses. Large software entities can be fully automated, but doing so has a price that many businesses haven’t been willing to pay. In the past, one of the causes has been a worry about insufficient integration with well-known development life cycles.
Wrapping up
Test automation has many potential benefits for the gaming business, including higher game quality, enhanced efficiency, coverage, and cost savings. Even though automating testing in later stages of development is a widespread practice, game developers should begin as early as feasible and test throughout the entire development cycle for smooth and efficient dissemination of their games.
And just in case, you are feeling reluctant to pursue game testing, consider running through all the above-defined benefits of having an early-bird approach. Besides, it is crucial that you never skip the opportunity to evaluate all the factors that can help you streamline your game testing initiatives for productive deliveries.
