Video gamers around the world are familiar with Valve, the creators of the original Half-Life shooter released in 1998. Since those early days, Valve has gone on to release several more versions of the Half-Life series as well as Left4Dead, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike. But in order to produce a successful line of video games, any software company must have a means of ensuring those games will be a hit with consumers. For Valve and others, that's where game testing comes in.

The process of game testing is designed not only to determine the functionality of the software on various computers, but also how players react to the game. Obviously, the hardware testing comes first. If a game will not run on the average computer it's not worth producing until it does. Valve games for example, are designed to run effectively on the average Windows or Mac computer. Unfortunately, the company doesn't produce products for  Linux operating systems.

Testing for Hardware Compatibility

Hardware testing involves running the software using a typical hardware setup of the day. The company must test a variety of video cards, sound cards, processors, and setups to ensure that as many consumers as possible can run their games. This may sound like a pretty straightforward task but it's not. Especially in the Windows environment, hardware can be especially fussy when it comes to the high demands of video games.

Manufacturers of lower quality video cards are highly vulnerable to producing inferior equipment that doesn't perform well, so video game makers like Valve try to focus on the high-end hardware first, later giving their attention to making their software usable with low-end hardware.

Valve Games

Testing for Consumer Reaction

Once hardware issues have been moved out of the way, the game producer moves on to testing a sample of consumers who will play the game. In the old days, Valve games like Half-Life were tested for consumer response through written surveys and visual observations. Researchers simply put test consumers in front of their computers and allowed them to play the games for hours on end. The researchers would record what they observed and then follow up the session with a written survey. The system worked well, but it left much room for improvement.

Today, measuring biometric responses to stimuli is fast becoming the new paradigm of video game testing. Biometrics allows video game testers to measure things such as brain wave activity, heart rate, blood pressure, body heat, perspiration, and so on. Knowing these things helps game developers understand the human reactions to their products, allowing them to tweak and adjust for optimal reaction.

If a particular game is designed to produce an adrenaline rush as the player moves from one scenario to the next, measuring biometric response tells the game tester what parts of the software need to be changed. Likewise, if certain portions of the game are designed to allow the user to return to a more relaxed state, biometric testing will prove whether or not the goal has been accomplished.

Game testing is an important component not only in the success of Valve games, but in the success of their competitors as well. Without the ability to test hardware and consumer reaction, game developers would be left to shoot in the dark. And in the competitive world of video games today, it's important that every new project has the best chances of being a successful hit.