While quality assurance staff are vital to assuring a quality game, we know that rabid fans are excellent at finding issues and problems that sneak into final releases. It might not always be a bad idea to invite the public into the playtesting process from time to time.
Such is the case with EA’s “Game Changers” program. Scott Probst (who is senior producer of Battlefield: Hardline ) spoke about the importance of the initiative during a recent interview, where fans were invited to playtest aspects of the title at their offices. “They’ve been key to our success. They gave us very, very clear feedback on what they really like, what they really didn’t like, what they’d like to see changed. And they’ve been working with the team even outside of their individual visits to the studio. They’ve gotten on email and fired away tons of thoughts.” He states.
With the rash of games being released far too early, resulting in a host of bugs and glitches, it’s nice to see developers walking the extra mile in order to ensure the best possible quality control. A ton of valuable feedback has ultimately resulted from the hours of Hardline testing, as Probst says they’ve “…tuned a lot of specific game modes according to their feedback to make sure these things are going to serve the Battlefield community the way we want them to.
The Battlefield: Hardline beta is due out on February 3.