Who Cares?

Testing must be important to game publishers because of all the trouble they go through to staff and fund testers and then organize and manage the rounds of beta testing that precede the official game release. It's important to console providers because they require certain quality standards to be met before they will allow a title to ship for their box. Mobile game testing is important to handset manufacturers and wireless carriers in order to get approved for their devices and networks.

Testing is important to the development team. They rely on testers to find problems in the code. The testers bear the burden of getting blamed when serious defects escape their notice. If defects do escape, someone wonders why they paid all that money for testing.

Testing is important because of the contractual commitments and complex nature of the software required to deliver a top- notch game. Every time someone outside of your team or company is going to get a look at the game, it is going to be scrutinized and publicized. If all goes well, it might get canonized. If not, then your sales and profits could vaporize.

Despite all of the staffing, funding, and caring, games still get made wrong.