Sports video games are generally on a short cycle time—tied to the start of a particular sport’s season. Like all video games, the pressure is always on to add more features to sell more games, and the list of “cool” features is endless. Getting buy-in to implement automated testing in this environment can be a challenge. And once you get that buy-in, your next challenge is to ensure it provides significant value to the game team. Fazeel Gareeboo shares the lessons they learned at EA Sports—lessons you can take back to your project. Fazeel describes the sports video game development environment and discusses how you can overcome the reluctance of product owners to spend precious resources on implementing automated testing. Fazeel addresses how to get buy-in from the team and finally how to make your product—game or not—more successful using automated testing.

1. T24
Special Topics
5/8/2014 3:00:00 PM
Game On: Automating Sports
Video Game Testing
Presented by:
Fazeel Gareeboo
EA Sports
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Fazeel Gareeboo
EA Sports
A software development director at EA Sports Tiburon, Fazeel Gareeboo manages a team that
provides automated testing for the studio. Before moving into management, he developed
computer aided design (CAD) software and wrote device drivers for Windows and MicroStation,
including the first 2048x2048 Windows device driver-for Bill Gates’ house. Fazeel has a special
interest in automating any repetitive work and in creating great teams for the kinds of work that
computers cannot do yet. He grew up on the island of Mauritius and worked in Europe before
settling in the United States. Reach Fazeel at fgareeboo@ea.com.

3. 4/26/2014
1
Fazeel Gareeboo,
EA Sports
Sports Video games
Game development
Game stability during development
Automated smoke testing
Technology
Q&A

4. 4/26/2014
2
Key differences from other software:
◦ Requirements
Usually not ‘given’
Internally generated by game designers
◦ ‘Metric’ for success – Sales – hard to predict
◦ Platforms
Consoles are closed
Need licensing
Fixed release date – tied to sports’ season
Game subject to licensing authorities’
approval

5. 4/26/2014
3
Fixed release date
Requirements TBD
Multiple external approvals (consoles,
licensors)
Pick a set of features that would make a great
game
Develop and polish the features in time for
the release date

6. 4/26/2014
4
Alpha
• Feature
Complete
Beta
• 0 bugs
Final
• Ship it !
‘unknown’ number of defects + Fixed release
date
Hard to add more resources to project
“Crunching”

7. 4/26/2014
5
Make sure the game is stable all the way
during development
“Stop the line” – Toyota way manufacturing
◦ Freeze the depot
Automated testingAutomated testingAutomated testingAutomated testing is key because manual
testing cannot keep up with the pace of
changes

8. 4/26/2014
6
Given the existing challenges of developing
the game, investing in automated testing
does not rank high on the list
Case for a stable game throughout
development is received more favorably by
those underwriting the game – company
executives/publishers, …
◦ CostCostCostCost
Invest a known amount in setting up Automated
testing
◦ Benefits
Lower development costs:
Team not blocked during development by game instability
No need to crunch during Alpha
Lower risk to ship date:
Game stable throughout development

9. 4/26/2014
7
Central team for Automated Smoke Testing
Central technology created to support
automated testing on consoles
Game teams supported by central team, and
we run set of smoke tests on every build of
the game and provide results to the game
teams
New Game
Built
Copy to
game
console
Run test
scripts on
game
Report
results to
Dashboard

10. 4/26/2014
8
No, not really
Having test results is not sufficient.
Need effective policing of breaks…
◦ Individuals
You checked something in that broke the game
Did you not test this ?
From now on, we need you to run all the tests before
you check in (we have a dashboard to verify)
◦ Team
Create and publish a stability policy
“If we don’t have a full set of passes in 2 days, we freeze
the depot”

11. 4/26/2014
9
Major pieces:
◦ Automation infrastructure
Runtime component that is integrated into the game
Server component
◦ Test scripts
Easily edited
Stored in game depot
◦ UI automation layer
‘Blind navigation’ leads to brittle scripts
E.g. move to x,y then press ‘A’
Need to provide a way for the test script to talk to the UI
layer
What UI components are on screen ?
Select component Button | ‘Ok’
Is UI ready to accept input ?
‘industry standards’ / ‘open source’ – not
readily available, because consoles are closed
systems
Applies to :
◦ Automated testing technology
◦ UI automation layer

12. 4/26/2014
10
Automated testing of automated testing tech
highly recommended
Making the case for Automated smoke testing
may be easier higher up the food-chain
Having the test results is not enough. You
have to drive through the culture of stability
at the individual and team levels

13. 4/26/2014
11