Computer gaming has become a very lucrative industry in the past twenty years or so, with lots of consoles coming and going, with massive improvements each time a new one comes out. A whole generation have grown up on computer games and they just keep getting better and more realistic. However, unfortunately some get so excited about their game being complete that they do not undertake all of the necessary quality control to ensure that it is fully working when released.

Obviously it is not possible to pick up every single issue that happens in the game, there are way too many possible random errors to do that, however it should definitely be expected that software testing will find all the glaring, obvious and frequent bugs to make sure that the game is playable and there are no crazy things happening.

The user experience is a major part of the game and just one bug can damage this. Bugs can be all kinds of things, from a character walking around in circles to walking through walls that are supposed to be solid. Sometimes in games like sport simulations the game can become unrealistic, with players running through the goal or the ball moving in an unnatural way – it damages the realism to the player.

Some examples of bugs in computer games are the Age of Empires Nintendo DS game literally breaking when you make a character that is less than 4 letters long, while Pool of Radiance on the PC actually deletes your Windows system files when you uninstall it!

The company who makes the games will also suffer, not just the people who play it. The manufacturers are responsible for software testing, and anything that slips through the net reflects badly on them. If the issue affects a lot of people, then it could be reported in the press which reflects very badly on them. It may also stop future sales of other games they produce if they get a bad enough reputation.

The sofware testing training etesting will help you to achieve an ISEB certification – an essential qualification if you want to join the gaming industry as a software tester.

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