Testing Techniques, Tools, and Tips

Speakers: Evan Birkby

Track: Production

Format: Lecture

Experience Level: Advanced

Description: With over 16 years of testing and test management experience, Mr. Birkby has managed the testing for many of the top games in the industry. Most recently as director of Quality Assurance at Gearbox Software, he led the testing on the new WWII francise Brother's in Arms published by Ubisoft.

Topics will focus on efficient communication between test and development and identify new breakthroughs in efficient test coverage techniques. Various methods for bug reporting and tracking will be given and ways to make the data relevant with good trend analysis will be presented.

Attendies may be interested in how testing can lead to other careers in game development and that will be discussed with some great success stories.

Comparisons of various bug tracking tools will help attendees identify where improvements can reasonably be made and there will be a great deal of information on how test leads can create more efficient and effective test plans.

Use of test automation, and test engineers will be discussed with examples given of successful tools created by QA Engineers.

Testing on multiple platforms and how this can done effectively will also be discussed.

Idea Takeaway: New test techniques and great ways to communicate the state of a projects qualiity will be identified. Attendees can expect to indentify what works in their current test processes and come away with new strategies to address weaknesses.

Intended Audience: Producers, Managers, and anyone in Game Testing will gain a better insight on how testing can provide improved processes to game development.