The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is present in all aspects of gaming. Gaming and tech enthusiasts would know all about the AI-driven transformation in gaming experience. The experience you get when you play rummy or poker has changed drastically since those early online poker rooms more than two decades ago.
The game experience is not the only area where you will see the impact of AI. It is just as important in the development phase of games. It is worth remembering that game testing evolved from a private affair where developers would try the game on their friends and family. Soon, game testing service providers emerged who would spend hundreds of hours playing them and identifying bugs. A rummy game developer would, for instance, share the rummy APK, wait for the results and refine the game.
Thanks to AI, these practices are fast becoming a thing of the past.
Game Testing Basics
The basics of game testing have traditionally involved human testers who would test the game for bugs and discrepancies. They would test only one scenario at a time. Any oversight could lead to the restarting of the testing from scratch. Understandably, it is a labour-intensive process and hence expensive too.
Traditional game testing is a slow process. But, thanks to human involvement, it had room for creative thinking. Humans can make unusual observations and come up with problem-solving skills. Judgement and discretion are other key advantages that you would get in a human game testing exercise.
AI Integration in Game Testing
While machines cannot offer the human perspective in its wholesomeness, AI integration in game testing has been a popularly adopted process in recent times. AI integration allows game testing through automated scripts and algorithms. Being machine-driven, these processes are much faster and more accurate. They can test a large number of gaming scenarios and test parameters.
Although integrating AI into game testing involves a heavy initial outlay, there is much less incremental cost over the testing processes. Thus, with AI integration in game testing, you get efficiency and scalability with long-term cost efficiency.
Why Is It Becoming Popular?
AI-powered game testing is ticking a lot of boxes for game developers. No wonder it continues to scale in terms of popularity.
AI-driven bots can now uncover bugs and glitches in the game and highlight performance issues. They also monitor performance metrics, like loading time and frame rates. They monitor the CPU and resource utilisation and help the developer optimise the game for hardware configuration and responsiveness.
And not just game optimisation, AI-powered bots can test the user experience and check the game’s design, navigation and features in great detail. It can test thousands of gameplay scenarios and give you reports on the control options, the difficulty levels, game characters and so on. Besides, aspects like subtitles, colour, brightness, etc., can also be tested through these AI bots.
A game must not have loopholes for players to exploit. Any chance of hacks and cheats in the gaming mechanics can ruin the gaming experience completely. AI can be used to test games for such anti-cheat systems.
As one of the leading games markets, India is also witnessing a wider use of AI-powered game testing. Service providers like GameCloud have tested and validated over 1000 games and apps. Game testing services in India include UX testing, functionalities, compatibility, configuration and performance. Besides, beta testing of the public version is a popular service. Given how many people play rummy, poker and other skill games in India, fair gameplay testing is also a much-needed service.
Key Algorithms and Tools Used
AI-powered tools are already heavily relied upon for various aspects of game testing. From machine learning algorithms to automated testing tools, here are some of the popular AI tools for game testing.
- PlaytestCloud uses machine learning algorithms to study player behaviour and their interactions with the game. Remote testing solutions for mobile games are also offered by this platform.
- Applause is a crowd-testing platform which offers real-world testing capabilities that can take multiple gaming environments and devices into account. This makes it ideal for testing your fantasy game or rummy apk.
- AI is an autonomous testing tool that simulates human testing of mobile games. Using machine learning, it undertakes intensive UI/UX testing to make the game’s player experience enjoyable.
- Appsurify tool also uses machine learning to automate game testing activities like risk-based testing, test management, test automation, etc.
- Unity Test Tools is used for early detection and fixing bugs with a suite of integration and automated testing capabilities.
Litmus Tests in Gaming
Litmus Tests in Gaming
The importance of human intervention will always remain in gaming, at least to some extent. However, as AI-powered game testing tools incorporate more and more machine learning capabilities, their role in quality assurance within the gaming industry will continue to rise.
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