Every single time anything new goes into a big game the whole game has to be tested, front-to-back, side-to-side. My dream – there’s a lot going on with AI machine learning right now, and people using AI to generate all these images. What I always say when I bump into the AI folks is: ‘Help me figure out how to use an AI bot to go test a game.
Because I would love to be able to start up 10,000 instances of a game in the cloud, so there are 10,000 copies of the game running, deploy an AI bot to spend all night testing that game, then in the morning, we get a report. Because that would be transformational.
If this comes to pass, this could be a major turning point for the video game industry. Mainly because testing games is a very monotonous process, and if it is done using AI, it could mean games in the future could have fewer bugs since it would increase QA efficiencies.
Xbox Games Studios’ Response To Treatment Of QA Workers
Over the past few years, word has been going around that QA workers are underpaid and not treated like normal employees. Some people working at Nintendo have said it was like a nightmare, as they reported mistreatment, harassment, and inappropriate behavior.
Blizzard Albany workers have said that Activision is “union-busting” by hiring a law firm, Reed Smith, who has tried to repress any attempts at unionization. Blizzard Albany was previously known as Vicarious Visions, the developers behind the brutally difficult Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. The Albany Game Workers Alliance says that instead of following Microsoft’s lead and treating employees equally, Activision has done the contrary. The company has made a conscious decision to deny labor rights while spending boatloads of money on hiring the law firm.
Xbox Game Studios using AI for all future QA tasks will significantly change how games are made. And for now, it is not possible to say if that will turn out to be a good thing or not.