🐞 QA Stands For Quality p.8 - Game Development Pipeline
What Is A Typical Development Cycle For Games And Why It Is A Little Bit Unique
Hey friends 👋
Welcome to the next issue of this QA series, where I share the information that helped me become a QA and that I picked up over the years to climb from a Trainee QA to managing an entire department, and that I used to teach as a course on how to become a QA from scratch.
While we are still on the subject of development models, let’s shift our focus entirely to Game Development as its lifecycle, while incorporating a lot of stuff from other models, is still a little bit unique and even universal across all the projects I’ve worked on (so far).
Alright, let’s get into it.
💭 Concepting And Pre-Production
To paraphrase Alec Ryder from Mass Effect: Andromeda, every great game began with a dream. These are the defining stages of every game production cycle, setting up what the game is supposed to be and how it should behave before a single level or mechanic is built.
This phase includes early prototypes, narrative direction, core mechanics, engine selection, technical constraints, and defining requirements. QA involvement varies by studio, but from my experience, they don’t usually get involved at these stages (even though they should). This is all because these early prototypes are intentionally unstable; they’re meant to validate ideas, not meet final standards.
💡 Pro Tip: If you are involved in early prototyping or joining right after Pre-Production, be sure to check with the team what is and isn’t a placeholder or which ideas are final. It’s quite common for designers or devs to leave something not fully cooked to jump into something else.
