So NOW is QA Important?

[Flamehead]

I've noticed over the last several years that in the months leading up to release in the midst of the marketing hype and new features, etc., the one thing barely mentioned (and never discussed) is Quality Assurance.

Now I get it--when people are excited about what's to come, discussing QA, or making one's wishes known about QA, isn't sexy. But yet after every release (and seemingly more so this year), the forums are littered with fairly large issues. NOW the community is up in arms about QA (whether directly or indirectly).

Before someone jumps in and says "every game has bugs", I'm not talking about the little niggles...I repeat, I'm not talking about the little niggles.

I'm talking about the substantial and near gamebreaking bugs that are evident from simply playing a few games or navigating a few menus and trying a few things. Issues you discover from an hour or two, i.e., not items that are only found with hundreds of thousands of gamers hitting it at once.

So are those that are hot or frustrated right now going to remember this in March or May? Is the community going to emphasize this to the devs going forward? Are those with direct contact with the devs or in community days going to ask about it? Do they mention it?

Because if there's not a constant emphasis on this by the community as a whole year-round (like other issues), at what point do we (as a community) give up our complaining rights to some extent because we make it easy for EA to treat QA lightly?

Features may come and go, but a title that works correctly is not an unreasonable expectation. Do we give EA a pass except for the few weeks following release?

[prey2god]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Their QA Dept needs to do damage control now. Fix the mess everyone higher than them left. Just because this is the "stepping stone" for future Maddens to come doesn't mean it's a brilliant strategy. It could backfire at EA once the NFL License is up in 2014.

Then it's fair game. And a lot of fans will remember this day.

[RumbleCard]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Unfortunately we have this same conversation every year. Its been this way as long as I can remember. I sincerely doubt it will ever change.

There's no reason EA can't bring on 20 or so OS members a year, two weeks before release, to work through the game. I'm certain there are hundreds of members on this forum that would donate their time for free. That's right free QA testing. This would cost EA nothing.

But the tight lid these guys like to keep on games will most likely prevent this kind of positive pre-release testing.

[JayInSaratoga]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

There was extensive QA on this game, unfortunately though you cant count on the snuffler...

[prey2god]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

I don't see what's there to be tight lid about. Madden literally hasn't had any competition since 06.

They should embrace stuff getting leaked out

[CarryTheWeight]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Oh, QA is down across the board in the gaming industry itself (it seems). Notice how publishers and developers hardly delay their games anymore --- it's because they'd like to make their original release date by any means necessary. That's why so many games usually ship in such a bug-riddled state.

Last game I can remember that received a notable delay from its original release date was Mass Effect 2 (an EA title no less) and it ended up being one of the better titles of this console generation. That could very well be for thematic reasons, of course, but the bugs in that game were few and far between compared to other titles on the market. Makes you wonder...

In an era where most developers assume that their user base uses the internet, patching has replaced dedicated quality assurance. It's a shame, but why pay a team of testers when you can gauge community reaction for free?

[Soprano00]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

what I really don't understand are bugs like the AI making the wrong choice in the last seconds.

A) the same (wrong) behaviour is not observable in Madden 12 or Madden for Vita. Why did they introduce this change for the worse on something not engine or graphics related like that ? They could have left the one of last year as is and would be OK.

B) even in the case, how could this ever pass the QA tests ? I mean, they didn't even play 4-5 games to realize it ? Or they just knew that but somehow decided to not fix it ?

[roadman]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Carry the Weight nailed it.

There are usually release day patches because of the yearly cycle.

[Pared]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Unfortunately we have this same conversation every year. Its been this way as long as I can remember. I sincerely doubt it will ever change.

There's no reason EA can't bring on 20 or so OS members a year, two weeks before release, to work through the game. I'm certain there are hundreds of members on this forum that would donate their time for free. That's right free QA testing. This would cost EA nothing.

But the tight lid these guys like to keep on games will most likely prevent this kind of positive pre-release testing.

Exactly how would you "bring 20 OS members" to EA for free?

You do realize there are costs associated with this such as transportation, room and board? Or do you expect there to be individuals to pay their own way, for 2 weeks to work for free?

B/c THAT is the unrealistic expectation here.

[MoleDude]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

In an era where most developers assume that their user base uses the internet, patching has replaced dedicated quality assurance. It's a shame, but why pay a team of testers when you can gauge community reaction for free?

This is exactly right. Communities (just like this one) exist for pretty much every game out there, and can generally be counted on to produce fairly accurate reports. I actually think I prefer it this way, honestly. It's frustrating, and maybe the patches won't cover everything we all want, but at least it's pretty accurate.

The only thing I wish they would do is follow the trend of MMO's and have closed and/or open betas. They could do something similar to what Blizzard did with Diablo 3, where only a very small portion of the game was playable, but it was tested a pretty darn long time.

Madden, and other sports games, are in an even tighter crunch because of the yearly release. So the beta idea might not even be feasible.

[cuttingteeth]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

We had the guy doing the madden diary blog, though. Remember that? So how much of a non-sim-gamer must that guy be? I mean, if he didn't catch any of the bugs/glitches that everyone else so plainly sees...wow. It's likely the "quality" of their quality control that is the issue.

I nominate Bart Scott to be head of QA. I don't think he'll stand for anything less than solid.

[fistofrage]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

Exactly how would you "bring 20 OS members" to EA for free?

You do realize there are costs associated with this such as transportation, room and board? Or do you expect there to be individuals to pay their own way, for 2 weeks to work for free?

B/c THAT is the unrealistic expectation here.

Honestly, I think there are alot of OS members who would take a few days off of work and go test the game for basically 30 hours over a 3 or 4 day period. I know that I can find most "game killing" or things that don't work well within 10 hours of game play.

It would probably cost EA around $3,000 or $4,000 per person to get people down there and put up for 4 days to receive 30 to 40 hours of testing.

The real question is, is EA aware of most problems anyway and just don't know how to fix them or don't have the time or resources to fix them? If they already know the issues, this would be of no benefit to them.

If they aren't aware of the issues and getting the outside parties help identify the issues for them, would fixing the issue result in additional net profit that exceeds the cost of the exercise?

The other issue, is who is going to screen the people before they are invited down there? You'd have to be certain that the people invited are ferreting out issues that EA genuinely wants to fix because every gamer has different ideas of how the game should play, etc.

[LowerWolf]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

I'm not sure I buy the premise that nobody here talks about QA until the game is released. Even in May, most of us wonder just what will be broken. Even during the hype phases, there are a lot of people on here saying they won't buy the game until the patches are released.

And sadly, with patches, it's become the norm to rush things out and then fix it later.

I used to work in newspaper. The motto used to be "get it first, but get it right." But in the internet age, the "get it right" part has been lost. Now it's "get it first, if it's wrong we'll fix it later." Seems to be the same with games. And, continuing the newspaper analogy, copy editors are the first to go when a newspaper tightens its belt. I imagine it's the same with QA in the gaming industry.

[Shizz420]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

[QUOTE]Oh, QA is down across the board in the gaming industry itself (it seems). Notice how publishers and developers hardly delay their games anymore --- it's because they'd like to make their original release date by any means necessary. That's why so many games usually ship in such a bug-riddled state.[\QUOTE]

Basically, QA has been "outsourced" to the consumer.

Instead of spending more cash to hire people to QA games, the big publishers like EA just release the game, get the bugs from the frustrated gamers, and then fix them.

It's awful and wrong. But unless they lose sales, they wont care.

[fistofrage]

Re: So NOW is QA Important?

[QUOTE=Shizz420;2044079229]

Oh, QA is down across the board in the gaming industry itself (it seems). Notice how publishers and developers hardly delay their games anymore --- it's because they'd like to make their original release date by any means necessary. That's why so many games usually ship in such a bug-riddled state.[\QUOTE]

Basically, QA has been "outsourced" to the consumer.

Instead of spending more cash to hire people to QA games, the big publishers like EA just release the game, get the bugs from the frustrated gamers, and then fix them.

It's awful and wrong. But unless they lose sales, they wont care.

Its true, EA gets a ton of free testing from the paying customer. A nice business model if sales don't erode from it. One of the problems I have seen with EA over the last few years from my perspective is that they really focus on the online feedback. Unfortunately this feedback comes from people who just want to win and have a level playing field. Everyone knows that online play now games between randoms are basically "Win at All Cost".

Those fixes to bring the online play now games into balance for whatever reason haven't translated well into the single player games against the AI for whatever reason. Just my opinion, but it happened both in fight night and the football games that I bought. Changes made based on online feedback have generally negatively affected my single player game.