A new Google patent details an AI-powered gaming system that aims to automate the game’s QA and testing process. As many video game QA groups around the world continue to band together to protect their rights, one of the largest and most valuable companies seems to be looking for a way to automate the video game QA process.
According to Google’s patent, the number of game issues at launch are the fault of test teams that can’t cope with the size and scale of today’s games. “Gametesting is a mostly manual process that relies heavily on people constantly playing the game and looking for flaws,” the patent states. “Unfortunately, these teams can no longer scale with the complexity of today’s games, resulting in delayed releases and lower quality products.”
Google says that its new “Gameplay Trainer system provides game developers with a solution that is useful, flexible, teachable, and capable of advancing to more than just ‘winning’ in a game application.” This is important because testers often look for issues that result from unusual ways of playing, so a system that simply determines the best way to succeed in a game is likely to miss such issues.
The patent (via Very Ali Gaming) describes how systems can be trained to perform gaming actions in real time by generating observation data and using it to improve their future actions and adjust them as needed for further testing. Like other AI and machine learning tools, Google expects its game trainer to keep getting better as it spends more time testing a given game.
This patent came after QA teams at several large companies unionized: BioWare and Raven Software test teams unionized in June 2022, and workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax studios voted to unionize in January 2023. Notably, EA also filed a patent for a similar system in January. and in February it was reported that he had fired up to 200 Apex Legends QA testers.
QA is a critical, valuable and skillful aspect of game development that is sometimes misunderstood or underestimated both in terms of general perception and among some developers and publishers. Whether and where this technology will find application remains to be seen, but for it to be announced just as the labor movements that will champion its value are gaining momentum on quality control is unfortunate, to say the least.
Source : PC Gamesn
