Public test realms do the heavy lifting I think.
But indeed, I lack context. I don’t know how many is correct for a game of a given type and size. 200 just feels like a lot.
But indeed, I lack context. I don’t know how many is correct for a game of a given type and size. 200 just feels like a lot.
I worked briefly on a AAA game and my team had 2 dedicated american QAs for the feature that knew everything there was to know and tested happy paths/made docs, and there also was a building of testers in Ukraine that tried to break the game in a myriad of ways and filled general bugs.
At some point in alpha we had around 500 bugs filled in jira, and this was only one game mode.
This isn't even possible, I'd be amazed at 25% of paths!
Although EA is known in the industry to have relatively many QA people and good QA. Their games stand head and shoulders above many other publishers’ in terms of polish at release. I’m not sure about the exact QA figures, but I expect maybe 500?
It would be a shame to see EA ruin this well functioning component of their publishing business to chase short term profit with cheapest outsourcers. But it would not be beyond the “smarts” of some game industry executives.