It is no surprise to see the ever-increasing speed of the mobile gaming industry. In the last 20-30 years, its audience skyrocketed from a few million to 2.2 billion users. Now it is unimaginable to see the world without mobile games. With that acceleration of popularity, mobile game testing becomes more complex and harder to handle.
Most of us have played them for different purposes: for entertainment, passing the time, even earning real money. Even if you are not interested, you have probably heard the names like PUBG Mobile, Subway Surfers, Call of Duty, FIFA Mobile, etc. Almost everyone around us has somehow been involved in this tremendously big industry. However, we, as users, only see the surface part of the whole process. Game developers have to handle various challenges they come across during the testing of the game. This article will focus on the main burdens they face and the main methods to overcome them.
How Many Mobile Game Testing Types Are There?
Although it is also applicable to app testing, there are two types of testing for mobile gaming. Black box and white box testing are trendy in the software testing world. However, they apply the same principles in mobile game testing, too. They differ for the purpose they hold, so let us look at these differences. With crowdsourced testing, you can get the results faster.
Black-box testing is applicable if you want to test the overall playability and functional aspects of your game. There are different examples of that in mobile game testing. The leading role of this testing is trying any visual appearance in the game. These are special effects, elements in graphics, and animations. The actual gameplay is on that list, too. Other than that, we can also mention the testing of a graphical user interface and experience. Generally, the automation of the flow of testing relies on black-box testing.
White-box testing is more about systematic aspects of the game. You can also apply white-box testing for external entities like social media, databases, and third-party components on the game’s integrational side.
What Issues Mobile Game Developers Face?
It does not matter how perfect you think your product is; there are always problems. And it is normal to have them. The way developers approach these problems is the main factor that differentiates them. Generally, it is mentioned that there are 6-7 challenges in mobile game development.
Just like testing mobile apps, mobile game testing will also bring some mainstream challenges. Most of them are standard for both testing types. We will start from the most significant problems to more underrated, but still important ones and try to mention all of them.
The Type of Connection
For the QA team, one of the first challenges to cope with is the game’s connection type. Mainly, there are three main mobile data connection types, being 3G, 4G, and 5G. Each of them has brought a new level to the speed of the connection. It is expected that 90% of the world population will have access to 4G. However, the speed of the connection remains an issue for mobile game testing. To improve your QA, you should go through this step. There are questions developers should ask themselves before releasing the game. Is this game working smoothly in a Wi-Fi or mobile data connection? Can the players enjoy the game the same in 3G, 4G, and 5G? Talking about Wi-Fi, even the type of Wi-Fi connection varies for different locations.
So, when you start testing, it is crucial to apply your testing to all types of connections. Other than that, the bandwidth usage should also be taken into consideration. Simply put, the kind of connection is one of the first things you should test in your mobile game testing. And there should be no shortcuts in that.
Operating Systems
Another problem for the testing process could be legacy devices. Depending on the device you use, your experience of specific mobile apps or games could change. It is well-known that most people apply to Android or IOS. The statistics also show the total dominance of these devices in mobile game testing. More than 99% of smartphones in the world use these two operating systems. However, these 2 operating systems do not cover all smartphone users. In the market, only 1% of all users are still a significant number. You should not forget that there are some devices like Windows Phones, BlackBerries, and others.
Other than that, older versions of Android and iOS are still used in different areas. Why is mentioning this significant? Because updating the OS is one of the most irritating procedures when it comes to smartphones. Although updates are meant to develop the devices’ performance, in most cases, it happens vice versa. And an application or a game that was working smoothly on your device in an older OS version starts crashing. That is why some people hesitate to update their devices’ OS. So, testing should cover not only the main OS types but also their different versions. If it is available only at latest versions, the app loses hundreds of thousands of potential users.
So, the testing procedures should take into account the existence of such devices. If you want to give your competitors a hard time, OS is an excellent point to start in mobile game testing.
Security
If we segment the challenges the users face, security could be number 1 in our list easily. Not only mobile gaming, but the whole digital world appreciates security more than anything. And today’s gamers are no exception. They want to feel secure when they link their data to the game. Most modern mobile games are online and demand email addresses or other personal data for registration. So there is no way you can underestimate this feature. There is no chance to get higher ratings from the players when you can not guarantee their security.
So, before launching the game, you have to scrutinize the game properly.
The starting point should be the local data storage. Personal information and credentials are the main components of local data storage. If an operating system APIs do not function well, the user’s info can be transferred to the other apps on the same device. And that is one of the most unwanted situations regarding the reputation of the app. Authentication and authorization issues
are another significant part of security problems in the testing process. They include the realization of fingertips instead of complex passwords and other features. Also, developers should take into account the code quality.
Multiplayer Options
One of the gaming industry’s turning points has been adding the multiplayer feature to the games. As it has given the players the chance to play with overseas players, it is a must for mobile games. However, it has brought a lot of problems with itself. It is one of the most problematic features of modern games, which is full of bugs.
Logically, testing this feature is also one of the most challenging tasks in the whole testing process. It can take several days to test this feature of the game for the testers. With crowdsourced testing, you can get the results faster.
Screen Sizes
If you want to mention one ever-changing feature in smartphones, it should be screen sizes. Every year we see different-sized iPhones, Samsungs, and other popular mobile devices. It makes the responsibility of game developers even bigger. To develop a game that is adaptable to each kind of screen size is not an easy task. Game creating companies have to take it into account. Otherwise, there is a considerable chance that you will get negative reviews and comments. Remember, the gaming world is not patient at all. All they need to avoid the game is one single problem. After that, you will start losing customers who won’t come back even if you fix it. So before launching the game, you have to chase perfection. And you have to test every feature of your game in every possible device.