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Game Development vocabulary · Production, QA & Playtesting

QA

Meaning in game development, with examples

/ˌkjuː ˈeɪ/abbreviationCore term

In game development, QA means: Short for quality assurance: testing a game to find, document and check bugs before and after release, and also the team that does this work.

In Turkish: QA, kalite güvencesi, test ekibi

How it is used

Said letter by letter: Q-A. People say QA found a bug, send a build to QA, or work in QA as a QA tester. Many developers start their careers in QA. Large publishers also hire outside QA companies.

Example sentences

  1. QA found a crash when you pause the game during a cutscene.

  2. I started in QA and moved into design three years later.

Common collocations

  • QA tester
  • send to QA
  • QA team
  • QA pass
  • outsourced QA
  • bugA mistake in the game that makes it behave in a way it should not, such as a crash, a character falling through the floor or a quest that cannot be finished.
  • playtestA session in which people play an unfinished version of the game while the team watches and collects feedback on fun, difficulty and confusing moments.
  • buildA playable version of the game produced from the project's current code and assets at a certain moment, for example for testing, a demo or a release.
  • steps to reproduceThe exact list of actions in a bug report that someone else can follow to make the same bug happen again, so developers can see it and fix it.
  • certificationThe process in which a console maker tests a game against its technical rules before allowing it to be released on its platform.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Production, QA & Playtesting

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