The idea of QA is nothing particularly new to me, although I used to consider it as a bug squashing exercise conducted towards the end of a production cycle, as I imagine a lot of people consider beyond the belief of simply testing games. Some of my research in this area of Games Development is anecdotal, information acquired from a friend whom is involved in game testing for Valve Software. Although I have also found plenty of evidence of the roles QA plays throughout the design process whilst researching other branches, and more so it's importance to the quality of a product.
The role of QA begins early on in the development cycle, just as soon as prototypes for game mechanics have been made and for testing the persistant updates to the gaming engine. Testing also involves a lot more than simply finding out if a level or a weapon or mechanics works well - it is equally important to find out if any of these things actually work in the game or if they break the balance of gameplay... and just as important to get feedback on whether other aspects like story prove to be exciting and believable. At the very least, the role of QA in games development is important if the team take feedback on board.
Bug squashing is also another aspect of QA, and this is something that can happen closer to the end of development after the game as a whole has been largely completed, mainly to iron out any problems or issues that had not been resolved earlier or even anticipated.
If I were to again quote some examples from Valve as to the importance of QA, I can again point toward Half Life 2 : Raising the Crowbar. The book contains a lot of concept art featuring the Combine, Half Life 2's enemy and whilst it discusses a lot of different enemies that ended up not making it into the final product, I'm going to specifically look at the Hydra.
The Hydra was a creature that, besides being a spiritual successor to the Tentacle in Half Life 1, was apparently fun for playtesters to watch as it killed enemies and explored the environment, but unfortunately proved to be an unenjoyable experience to actually play against, and was eventually dropped from the game in order to focus on other enemy ai.
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