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I wish good luck to the new union. I really do. At the same time, I fear for the outcome of this action: having worked for years in the game industry, game QA i

I wish good luck to the new union. I really do. At the same time, I fear for the outcome of this action: having worked for years in the game industry, game QA is one the game industry's jobs with lowest entry barrier, employing the least paid and qualified professionals. I know a lot of great and hard-working people doing game QA, but they are among the easiest to replace and outsource. This actually explains why they would want to create a union, and we will all now see what happens.

actionfromafar 3y ago
What is your fear exactly?
- Avicebron 3y ago
  I'd imagine the fear is they get crushed, replaced with the cheapest option available located in a place with even less rights. And everyone moves on with the narrative and another move towards labor rights dies with a whimper
  - zajio1am 3y ago
    > replaced with the cheapest option available located in a place with even less rights Cheapest is not equal to less rights. Compared to US most developed countries are cheaper, but with more labor rights. So it would make sense to outsource it to, say, CEE EU countries.
    - pylua 3y ago
      Why outsource to Europe at all at this point — many cheaper options.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        If you outsource to anywhere, including within your own country, you've always got a game of telephone going on. If you outsource to anywhere with a different language (which, from the US PoV kinda includes much of Europe, but less than you might expect from the national languages), what's lost in translation is comparable to the impact of machine natural language processing — so you get the same quality from ChatGPT etc., which is cool, but not quite good enough. (And when LLMs become that good, it will make a lot of people very sad). If you outsource to poor countries, you also have to worry about the stability of the power grid and telecoms impacting your ability to communicate with the reliability you expect in corporate circles. There's also a lot of variation in online security by nation, which forms part of the remote working rules in some companies: https://ncsi.ega.ee/ncsi-index/?order=rank&archive=1 https://ncsi.ega.ee/ncsi-index/?order=rank&archive=1
      - snovv_crash 3y ago
        At least in the software business, the cheaper options than eastern Europe usually have such broad cultural differences that the management overhead doesn't offset the cheaper cost.
      - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
        Fear of leaks, dealing with timezone differences that slow down the work, cultural differences leading to misunderstandings, or generally requiring more iterations to get the same result. Sure it might be cheaper even if it takes 10x as long, but games have tight roadmaps and hard deadlines so in some cases time may matter more than money.
  - stefan_ 3y ago
    This line of thinking makes no sense. Dare we upset the corporate overlords with unionizing or they outsource our jobs! The reality is, if it was cheaper, it would have been done yesterday. You are not saying anything.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      A unionized work force might cost more and tip the balance the the other way, for better or for worse. But mostly the problem here is probably retaliation.
      - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
        Either way, some work conditions are so bad that it is a risk work to taking over a status quo that harms workers in a way they can’t stay in the industry very long regardless. QA are certainly treated the worst in an industry that already has poor work conditions while representing more $$$ than the movie industry.
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Probably something like this: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-music-layoffs-google-alphabet-workers-union-2024-3?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-music-layoffs-google...
- ldoughty 3y ago
  It's not uncommon for businesses to "realign their business strategy" in a way that fires everyone in the union... In this case, as the parent stated, outsourcing would be a likely outcome
  - b800h 3y ago
    Yes, it's not like there aren't already third-party games testing companies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I'm not sure to what degree games companies use agile and devops practices though. Working with an outsourcer for QA is a sure-fire way to increase your lead times and slow down development.
    - pylua 3y ago
      I feel like qa is generally the easiest thing to outsource and will have the least impact.
      - rileymat2 3y ago
        Working at a very small place in house QA was absolutely impactful in being subject matter experts on what the software actually did and was supposed to do. I am not sure how you measure that.
        Ekaros 3y ago
        A good QA might be even the folks that know most how system actually works and what are all the features. Your developer can end up easily work in single corner, with few happy paths. Where as QA should touch nearly all surfaces of product. And even have idea what are most of the specs.
        rileymat2 3y ago
        Exactly, we had 1 to 2 QA people compared to 6 to 8 developers, roughly speaking the developers knew more about particular details of like a third of the system where QA knew all the interactions.
_cenw 3y ago
from what I heard from PirateSoftware about working QA at Blizzard making you a second-class citizen (and working at Blizzard in general sucks) and a friend who worked at a Call of Duty studio as QA who got treated bad enough to be a "stress casualty" (and never returned to the games industry) their standing can only improve.
elif 3y ago
Yeah if they push too hard, more developers will go the "early access IS QA" route. game devs have already started gamifying bug reporting for in game loot, skins, etc. No one is more eager or qualified to give feedback about games but the gamers themselves. The downside in this industry is minimal. No one can sue a game dev if a bug slips out, assets can be rolled back or whole systems changed to negate their impact with no recourse available to consumers.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  All the widely anticipated games have more than enough folks nowadays willing to endure through janky private alphas and betas. So much so that it's common for a lot of bugs identified in later beta stages to not even be fixed. So a large QA team is only needed nowadays for games that nobody is really that hyped about, or games that cannot risk any chance of plot-lines/art leaking before release.
  - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
    Yes and no, guess who has to repro bugs so they can be assigned for fixing based off what players report during alpha/beta tests?
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      In this case it’s actually detrimental to have a large QA team. A smaller, more competent team is invariably better.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  QA is not just about running the software, observing problems, and filing them. As you say, eager beta testers can do that! QA is also about: 1. Exploring every corner of the software, comparing it to the written spec, and measuring any discrepancies, even those not visible to the user. 2. Exploring beyond the corners of the spec and using that exploration to improve the documents. 3. Writing software to automate this exploration and to automate defect-finding in general. 4. Fuzzing and other “red team” penetration testing. 5. Participating in design reviews and contributing towards the testability of the product. In other words working side by side with the developer to ensure the hooks are there to make the software testable and automatable. 6. Monitoring metrics and telemetry to find trends that are emerging post-deployment and getting them documented and reported before they are widely noticed. And so on. QA should be a highly skilled, highly technical job, a level equal to developers. If QA at your company is just waiting for a new build to get thrown over the wall so they can manually test it in a vacuum, your company might be doing it wrong.
dotnet00 3y ago
With how common extremely buggy, near unplayable releases are these days, I'm surprised QA testing is still a thing at AAA studios, because it certainly doesn't show.
- ffsm8 3y ago
  It doesn't show because the management has the same opinion as glimshe. That's opinion is wrong though, because testing is more then just playing the game a little. You get the same issues in companies that straight up don't value tests whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, bugs become increasingly frequent, especially if the software is developed by multiple people. Methodically testing something in a reproducible manner, potentially through scripting to enable regression testing is challenging, in some cases more challenging then writing the code/behavior you're testing. glimshe isn't wrong about how hard this is going to be for the QA people though. These companies don't value quality, which is precisely the reason why they're hiring the people that are easiest to replace. Most QA workers currently just go through the motions of a "manual acceptance test", with the result you just mentioned.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  I think “blame QA” would be a valid response if QA had actual power to delay product launch dates in order to meet quality standards.
  - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
    Yup, QA log bugs, then producers triage them and punt/decide to not do what doesn’t fit in the schedule. Any time a game ships with horrible bugs, i wonder how many more even worse ones had to be fixed, for the game to ship with the remaining ones.
- kevingadd 3y ago
  It's largely outsourced to cut costs, you get what you pay for.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jayd16 3y ago
Good QA is not easily replaced but it's a job you under hire for a large part of the game lifecycle. It's cheaper to gut the team after a release and bite the hiring cost on the next game than to hold on to them. You don't need a legion of folks testing a prototype. Pretty sad because good QA folks provide a lot of value despite what I'm reading in some of the other comments here.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  Well, if they have to keep their QA team employed now, maybe it will lead to a longer testing period before launch. One can dream.
  - jayd16 3y ago
    Even if it just lead to OT pay and more visibility into planned layoffs, it would be a win for the QA folks. As it is, big studios plan crunch time leading up to a launch and then large layoffs. They never say who's getting laid off so you have to just pretend its not happening. In the film industry, the fact the job ends is just part of the culture. At least owning up to that, paying OT, and giving folks an opportunity to line up another gig would be good. Even better if the union handles healthcare so there's no disruptions there.
  - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
    I don’t think more testing will lead to better quality games necessarily. My experience is testing always comes up with more bugs than devs can fix already.
whateveracct 3y ago
I was in a union as a grocery store bagger. That seemed to work.

actionfromafar 3y ago

What is your fear exactly?

Avicebron 3y ago
I'd imagine the fear is they get crushed, replaced with the cheapest option available located in a place with even less rights. And everyone moves on with the narrative and another move towards labor rights dies with a whimper
- zajio1am 3y ago
  > replaced with the cheapest option available located in a place with even less rights Cheapest is not equal to less rights. Compared to US most developed countries are cheaper, but with more labor rights. So it would make sense to outsource it to, say, CEE EU countries.
  - pylua 3y ago
    Why outsource to Europe at all at this point — many cheaper options.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      If you outsource to anywhere, including within your own country, you've always got a game of telephone going on. If you outsource to anywhere with a different language (which, from the US PoV kinda includes much of Europe, but less than you might expect from the national languages), what's lost in translation is comparable to the impact of machine natural language processing — so you get the same quality from ChatGPT etc., which is cool, but not quite good enough. (And when LLMs become that good, it will make a lot of people very sad). If you outsource to poor countries, you also have to worry about the stability of the power grid and telecoms impacting your ability to communicate with the reliability you expect in corporate circles. There's also a lot of variation in online security by nation, which forms part of the remote working rules in some companies: https://ncsi.ega.ee/ncsi-index/?order=rank&archive=1 https://ncsi.ega.ee/ncsi-index/?order=rank&archive=1
    - snovv_crash 3y ago
      At least in the software business, the cheaper options than eastern Europe usually have such broad cultural differences that the management overhead doesn't offset the cheaper cost.
    - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
      Fear of leaks, dealing with timezone differences that slow down the work, cultural differences leading to misunderstandings, or generally requiring more iterations to get the same result. Sure it might be cheaper even if it takes 10x as long, but games have tight roadmaps and hard deadlines so in some cases time may matter more than money.
- stefan_ 3y ago
  This line of thinking makes no sense. Dare we upset the corporate overlords with unionizing or they outsource our jobs! The reality is, if it was cheaper, it would have been done yesterday. You are not saying anything.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    A unionized work force might cost more and tip the balance the the other way, for better or for worse. But mostly the problem here is probably retaliation.
    - BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
      Either way, some work conditions are so bad that it is a risk work to taking over a status quo that harms workers in a way they can’t stay in the industry very long regardless. QA are certainly treated the worst in an industry that already has poor work conditions while representing more $$$ than the movie industry.
mysterydip 3y ago
Probably something like this: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-music-layoffs-google-alphabet-workers-union-2024-3?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-music-layoffs-google...
ldoughty 3y ago
It's not uncommon for businesses to "realign their business strategy" in a way that fires everyone in the union... In this case, as the parent stated, outsourcing would be a likely outcome
- b800h 3y ago
  Yes, it's not like there aren't already third-party games testing companies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. I'm not sure to what degree games companies use agile and devops practices though. Working with an outsourcer for QA is a sure-fire way to increase your lead times and slow down development.
  - pylua 3y ago
    I feel like qa is generally the easiest thing to outsource and will have the least impact.
    - rileymat2 3y ago
      Working at a very small place in house QA was absolutely impactful in being subject matter experts on what the software actually did and was supposed to do. I am not sure how you measure that.
      - Ekaros 3y ago
        A good QA might be even the folks that know most how system actually works and what are all the features. Your developer can end up easily work in single corner, with few happy paths. Where as QA should touch nearly all surfaces of product. And even have idea what are most of the specs.
        rileymat2 3y ago
        Exactly, we had 1 to 2 QA people compared to 6 to 8 developers, roughly speaking the developers knew more about particular details of like a third of the system where QA knew all the interactions.

_cenw 3y ago

from what I heard from PirateSoftware about working QA at Blizzard making you a second-class citizen (and working at Blizzard in general sucks) and a friend who worked at a Call of Duty studio as QA who got treated bad enough to be a "stress casualty" (and never returned to the games industry) their standing can only improve.

elif 3y ago

Yeah if they push too hard, more developers will go the "early access IS QA" route. game devs have already started gamifying bug reporting for in game loot, skins, etc. No one is more eager or qualified to give feedback about games but the gamers themselves. The downside in this industry is minimal. No one can sue a game dev if a bug slips out, assets can be rolled back or whole systems changed to negate their impact with no recourse available to consumers.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
All the widely anticipated games have more than enough folks nowadays willing to endure through janky private alphas and betas. So much so that it's common for a lot of bugs identified in later beta stages to not even be fixed. So a large QA team is only needed nowadays for games that nobody is really that hyped about, or games that cannot risk any chance of plot-lines/art leaking before release.
- BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
  Yes and no, guess who has to repro bugs so they can be assigned for fixing based off what players report during alpha/beta tests?
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    In this case it’s actually detrimental to have a large QA team. A smaller, more competent team is invariably better.
ryandrake 3y ago
QA is not just about running the software, observing problems, and filing them. As you say, eager beta testers can do that! QA is also about: 1. Exploring every corner of the software, comparing it to the written spec, and measuring any discrepancies, even those not visible to the user. 2. Exploring beyond the corners of the spec and using that exploration to improve the documents. 3. Writing software to automate this exploration and to automate defect-finding in general. 4. Fuzzing and other “red team” penetration testing. 5. Participating in design reviews and contributing towards the testability of the product. In other words working side by side with the developer to ensure the hooks are there to make the software testable and automatable. 6. Monitoring metrics and telemetry to find trends that are emerging post-deployment and getting them documented and reported before they are widely noticed. And so on. QA should be a highly skilled, highly technical job, a level equal to developers. If QA at your company is just waiting for a new build to get thrown over the wall so they can manually test it in a vacuum, your company might be doing it wrong.

dotnet00 3y ago

With how common extremely buggy, near unplayable releases are these days, I'm surprised QA testing is still a thing at AAA studios, because it certainly doesn't show.

ffsm8 3y ago
It doesn't show because the management has the same opinion as glimshe. That's opinion is wrong though, because testing is more then just playing the game a little. You get the same issues in companies that straight up don't value tests whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, bugs become increasingly frequent, especially if the software is developed by multiple people. Methodically testing something in a reproducible manner, potentially through scripting to enable regression testing is challenging, in some cases more challenging then writing the code/behavior you're testing. glimshe isn't wrong about how hard this is going to be for the QA people though. These companies don't value quality, which is precisely the reason why they're hiring the people that are easiest to replace. Most QA workers currently just go through the motions of a "manual acceptance test", with the result you just mentioned.
CharlesW 3y ago
I think “blame QA” would be a valid response if QA had actual power to delay product launch dates in order to meet quality standards.
- BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
  Yup, QA log bugs, then producers triage them and punt/decide to not do what doesn’t fit in the schedule. Any time a game ships with horrible bugs, i wonder how many more even worse ones had to be fixed, for the game to ship with the remaining ones.
kevingadd 3y ago
It's largely outsourced to cut costs, you get what you pay for.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jayd16 3y ago

Good QA is not easily replaced but it's a job you under hire for a large part of the game lifecycle. It's cheaper to gut the team after a release and bite the hiring cost on the next game than to hold on to them. You don't need a legion of folks testing a prototype. Pretty sad because good QA folks provide a lot of value despite what I'm reading in some of the other comments here.

bmicraft 3y ago
Well, if they have to keep their QA team employed now, maybe it will lead to a longer testing period before launch. One can dream.
- jayd16 3y ago
  Even if it just lead to OT pay and more visibility into planned layoffs, it would be a win for the QA folks. As it is, big studios plan crunch time leading up to a launch and then large layoffs. They never say who's getting laid off so you have to just pretend its not happening. In the film industry, the fact the job ends is just part of the culture. At least owning up to that, paying OT, and giving folks an opportunity to line up another gig would be good. Even better if the union handles healthcare so there's no disruptions there.
- BehindBlueEyes 3y ago
  I don’t think more testing will lead to better quality games necessarily. My experience is testing always comes up with more bugs than devs can fix already.

whateveracct 3y ago

I was in a union as a grocery store bagger. That seemed to work.