Skip to main content
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Special Topics
W18

Testing Blockbuster Games: Lessons for All Testers

We can all learn valuable lessons from game development where, in addition to functional performance, overall experiential quality—user experience (UX)—is of critical importance. Blockbuster game development presents particular challenges with regard to scale, rapid iteration, and fuzzy requirements. Learn from Tulay McNally and Alex Lucas how BioWare QA participates in development from concept through release, employs key methodologies like session-based and agile testing, and provides a path for Video Game Testing as a career. Additionally, discover how Tulay and Alex take quality engineering beyond test automation by eliminating broken builds, enhancing tester capacity and accuracy, employing machine learning, and developing industry-leading telemetry and data visualization solutions. Learn how to meet these challenges with an embedded model―one that partners QA with developers―and an aggressive QA technology roadmap. Take back new ideas and approaches for meeting consumer and customer demand for higher interactivity and deeper levels of engagement.

Tulay Tetiker McNally, BioWare Electronic Arts

As BioWare’s director of development QA and quality engineering, Tulay McNally is responsible for strategic planning, organizing, directing, and coaching QA teams with a focus on QA managers and leads. With the other studio department and project leaders, Tulay’s goal is to ensure the projects’ and the studio’s success while anticipating future trends and technologies. She is a certified ScrumMaster and Certified PO. Tulay previously worked for Microsoft, Alias Systems, CG Channel, Square Enix, and SEGA.

read more
Alex Lucas, BioWare Electronic Arts

Alex Lucas is the technical director of quality engineering for BioWare Canada where, for more than a decade, he has led the development of QA technology across the critically acclaimed Mass Effect and Dragon Age series of games. Always seeking novel solutions to difficult problems, Alex has moved quality engineering beyond simple test automation at BioWare, employing machine learning, telemetry, and data visualization to drive game development quality from build delivery and pipelines through to the final game.
 

read more