Game Testing: Partnering for Quality

Reliability, quality assurance at competitive costs make Indium 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 to.

ADVANTAGE INDIUM

Some of the qualities the publisher for included:

• The asset base
• The experience level
• Cost competitiveness

Indium’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 Indium’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 for the success of the game.

BENEFITS OF INDIUM GAME TESTING

We at Indium 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 casino worldwide in Apple store).

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 US