If you look at the official website:

http://www.en.thewitcher.com/careers/


All the Software developer positions are directly related to programmers.

It seems that either one of the following is true:
A-)They don't need more QA ( which I seriously Doubt given the latest results)
B-) They don't use a QA team to test their game but do it from the DEV department itself.

If there's any seasoned QA engineer in here or someone that really understands its value. Share your opinions.


I've heard Video game QA is way more complex and hard than usual software and it's not that very well paid. Any thoughts?

I don't understand. The positions listed there are positions for which they are currently hiring; and I know for a fact that CDPR has a QA department, as it is clearly listed in the credits of both games.

If they are early in the development cycle of some new game, it would make sense that they are hiring DEV and not QA staff. If you have a formal QA department, and it appears they do, QA doesn't have much to do except planning until DEV starts releasing stuff to them.

The fact that they're not hiring for QA now doesn't have to mean they're shorting QA. It more likely means that the manpower cycle for QA is later on the calendar.

Building up a QA is much faster, than structuring a solid development team. Also why would CDPR want more QA, when there is a team currently in its office :P. a. Just because certain set of issues are not fixed, doesn't mean its QA at fault. A QA team can push in cases so fast, its overwhelming and it either needs a DEV lead, or the DESIGN lead, or the Producer (step by step in hieracy) requiring to takes up QA cases and processes according to requirement or priority.

b. Leaving the game for DEV's to do testing!..er...haha... It should also be noted that the DEV's don't usually play games or they never do (almost all of them, almost). The game is a software and treated as much, only difference is how the output is tested and to note that during the development process in the game the end result can vary from GDD to aplha version to beta..etc etc..until whats viable with the maintained deadline or changing the game to meet marketing trends/demands, etc...

(but generally in software development, the output cannot be changed..its suicide doing so, as it fails the objective to get the output the software was made for in the first place)

-Edited-

QA people are probably lining up themselves, they are easy to get...hardcore programmers/designers with experience ? Not as easy.

Well, that depends what you understand a QA is. I don't understand much about Video Game QA and all I've heard is that requires a person to be a hardcore gamer.
Also the Software Industry tendency is to diss QA as something lesser than a developer. When in reality the best QA members are actually experienced developers who truly understand the whole process of development (Product Management, Requirements Design, Coding, User Experience and Marketing) better than a usual programmer does and have the capability to revert the development process all the way down and up from Build to Use Cases. Many real QA engineers come from the programmer side. Not to mention test automation that requires software development expertise to create. A realistic and effective Automation project requires a level of understanding of software development way beyond knowledge of language. It requires to truly understand the project to begin with.

My speculation on why the QA side on CDPR could be better is because I've found some bugs in the game that are so obvious to reproduce by a QA that actually thinks as a real developer I can't believe my eyes when I see them.
For example the most recent one I found it's a bug in Roche's side when you're bringing Oren with his 3 friends to drink, you drop him and you get the camera out of focus from him. You try to pick him up again and the camera locks. Not to mention some inconsistency in the structure of quest when they interlace.
Another example, if I was a QA I would have never let the game release to PC without the Storage feature.

All in All i think the approach to QA in video games could be improved by some Product Software industry paradigms and that's the only reason why I think they could do better on that side.

Not to mention that any other member of the team hates when a QA tells them that what they're doing requires a fix. From the PM to the developer.

That person can only test cases as per end user perspective, not much of any great help when the game is in development stages.

Without basic background knowledge of Hardware and software system in which the game is being tested, or how to start testing (using checklist of cases or create a process to test the game), or how to properly trigger the test case (if its a bug), or knowledge about the different tools used for tracking/logging test cases, or how to properly document the test case so that a developer can easily understand, or how properly flag it with relative priority, and so many other requisites...its quite impossible for a hardcore gamer just out of the box to be part of QA during development and actually be of any use.

- - - - - Could be (its added bonus), but Nope...ideally never. Knowing the systems or someone holding his programming skills as a hobby, doesn't count QA as being either developers or programmers in the same system. QA doesn't have authority in a company to release a game, its upto the producer or publisher to do so. The closest QA can only get near, is marking up the status of the project in relation to its functionality with regard to standards. Like how you heard; "Deus EX is GOLD" news on the web, it means that the game has passed QA standards by Eidos (or Square Enix) requirements with certain criteria..gold being the highest standard.

Also if you were the producer and spent/exhausted millions of dollars on a game, then halted releasing it just because of some odd camera locks or some lone feature not working....the market (fans of the game) will crucify the company, the game will be ridiculed for not releasing at so and so date (worse if your game has Pre-ordering purchases), Media will publicize the spotlight, Then everything will turn out in negative sense for something which could be fixed in patches after releasing the game at the mentioned *release date*. (there is an extremely high possibility that you will be outright kicked from the company for making such a decision or stance)

:)

Well, none of the above interpretations are what I meant. Your perspective is good from a developer standpoint and if I was in your position(I'm assuming you're a dev) I would do the same(which I have in the past). I would also like to hear the perspective of a QA engineer. Not a QA tester. Around 90% of what you interpreted and replied to is the contrary of what I meant. What I meant in my original post is what is the perspective of someone who works in QA and has also been a developer. Do they agree with me that video games require better QA or not?
I thank you for helping clarify to myself what my point was. And thus, express it.

I agree with you in the last point and that's absurd and a very common and obvious practice in any software development company: push new things while you recover from the last "small screw ups". But how many times do we hear gamers complain of how they're doing the company's work of finding the bugs for them. We all as consumers know there is a problem here and my point is that I think is lack of QA.

Btw, What exactly do you do?

More so, about the point that QA comes later. If a QA member participates in the development of the product for the ground up it will facilitate the process of producing a quality product.

Overall my impression of QA in games is that they're a much lesser class than dev in most everyone's mind and that's why today's games have so many problems. Call of Duty Black OPs?

QA is what controls the quality of a product. I don't think enough is being done in general in the gaming industry on this side.
Blizzard might be an example of how to do it the right way but only because they put themselves in such a position that allows them to control their release dates.

I might be wrong in certain cases..but its a bit closer to reality. Me!....I play Witcher 2, really. O:)
(a fan of the game)

Please reread-Post modified above. Also, does that mean all you've said is speculation or do you have some real game development experience? I'm trying to find out how it works beyond common sense. At least development experience? Anything?

Blizzard was like that BEFORE Internet broadband existed, it was simply an example of how the effort produces quality. That doesn't imply it's the only way to do it. Wonder if anyone has created automation for Games? I think CDPR DEVS already Rock out!!

I think they just need a little more QA(or to improve their process) and their games will be even better.

1991*

CPU 286 - with HGC (hercules Graphics card), used to play games by executing simCGA (simulate CGA) and then run the games. (I forgot the RAM being used, was probably 256 KB).

My first games
Prince of Persia by Jordan Mechner
Test Drive (first version, awesome) -> [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Drive_(video_game]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Drive_(video_game[/url])
Dig Dug
Round 42
Rogue
F-19 Stealth Fighter (really superby...really..superb game)
etc..

Ha, I beat you by 5 years. Mine was Space Invaders(DOS Version) on an XT (8086) machine :). And POP is a memorable one when it came out in 1990. Good list!! :)

Here's mine in no particular order, besides above:
Barbarian
Bushido
Loom
Original King Quest.
F-19 too
F-15
F-117
A10-Tank Killer
Dig Dug - ROCKS!!!
Earl Weaver Baseball.


Anyways, I'm just saying: There's a hole I've noticed in the games and even if The Witcher is Wayyy above the average I think improving QA will improve the overall game.

Add another 2 years and I wasn't born then..and I think its hardly fair.. :P

More over, when I had the 286 at home (HAHA)...I had asked a question to my teacher in the computer lab at school "Is systems here AT or XT", the teacher was like "What!"...lol.. they didn't know whats an AT or XT!!.zzzzz (systems at school were all on XT's_8086's)

Then one day I really freaked out the teachers when I typed in DIR and I was interrogated with questions do you know what "DIR" is and I calmly replied "Dir is a command file for the DOS operating system, which displays list of contents in the current path", they looked differently towards me from that day. Right now I was pretty sure that they looked at me with envy!.


Best thing is to know, is to ask CDPR itself..they are extremely friendly in replies.


Its partly there....QA use it to check redundant features which, in which testing perceived quality or expectations is not required. Whether its being used, depends entirely on the system housing the QA.

- - - -

Example where Automation testing cannot be applied
Testing up Anti Aliasing image quality..hard to figure how can a automation test script check it up with efficiency!, the engine is displaying the screen render as mentioned by programming. By default it would be a pass, as its the doing what its supposed to do.