Quality Assurance in games is one of the most underrated parts of game development. These departments usually employ people to go over games with a fine toothed comb making sure everything works correctly. But, due to the ever more complex nature of gaming, this can often be incredibly tedious work, even if you genuinely love the game. This could be an area of game development where AI might actually be helpful, without infringing on creativity. Well Razer certainly thinks so, releasing it's new AI powered gamdev tool with QA Companion.
The tool sounds super handy, acting as an automatic bug finder and logger. Especially given bug hunting has been one of the smarter uses for AI so far. Razer's new tool claims to free playtesters up to play the games, rather than having to stop and log every detail themselves. It also boasts the ability to fit into already existing workflows devs likely have, as it's available as a plugin for Unreal, Unity, and custom engines using C++. It even has custom settings for different genres and styles of games, and all of this can of course be customised to fit whatever the devs are actually working on.
Razer's QA companion isn't completely unique, as other companies are also coming up with similar sounding AI testing companions for logging bugs. One example is TestBot from Mighty Build and Test, though this one focusses more on having a bot play your game. Both could be really handy tools to augment the QA process, but it's important to remember that's all these are, tools.
For good quality assurance, you need quality testers. The human element is still incredibly important because there's information that can be vital that may not be included in these logs. There are also natural human inclinations that are more likely to be acted on and thus more valuable in testing.
I don't believe any of these tools should be about removing people from testing games, because all you're going to end up with is games that can be played by robots. While there are plenty of bots to worry about in gaming, I don't think they're supposed to be the target audience.
To understand being a QA tester in games, here's a little thought exercise. Imagine you're playing your favourite game and you walk through a door. Ok, now go back and do it again but this time do it on an odd second instead of an even one. Ok, again but this time you have a different item equipped. Again, but approach it from a different angle. Good, now keep doing this for eight hours a day. If you're starting to picture Dr Strange confronting Dormammu then you're starting to get the idea.
It's something I didn't fully appreciate before I spoke to Megan Summers, an Aussie gamedev with a background in QA, several years ago over on Byteside.
"So you know, you've got your ground foyer in, you've decided where you're going to put the electricity wires, you've decided where the plumbing is going to go in. That's all the design and technical people." Explained Summers, adding "And then QA opens every door 10 times to make sure that the door hinges work, but they're also checking that the paintings are straight and they've also got to go and sit on every toilet and flush it 50 times to make sure.”
This is what it can take to help make sure your game doesn't have any weird bugs that might drastically affect the player. And also why it's not uncommon for so many bugs to go unfound. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and not all developers have the budget to pour it into GameDev. Having a tool that takes some of the logging work away means you can put more time into finding new ways to open that door, as opposed to writing out the bug details.
Razer's AI QA Companion is currently in beta and will become available on the AWS Marketplace soon. For now you can get a look at it and even sign up to join in on the beta here.
