One of my jobs in QA was on the live side of a game after release, a very different world than development. What kept me effective and growing was learning to predict what players might do and where the game might trip them up.
Being on the live service side of a mobile game, I got a front row seat to how players actually behaved. Part of my role was tracking player-reported bugs once the game was live and figuring out what was going wrong and why. Every day I’d read through feedback, bug tickets, reviews, and forum posts. Players found issues in ways that surprised everyone on the team. They skipped tutorials, they tried things in strange orders, they broke systems that seemed perfectly solid to me in the test environment.
That experience taught me a lot. When I moved to testing a new version of the game that was about to release, I brought those lessons with me. Instead of just running through what features were added, I’d stop and ask myself: what are players likely to do here? Where could this mechanic confuse someone? What happens if they try to do something backwards? What happens if the players have a large and old savegame and jump into a new event instead of a new player?
I noticed weak spots that weren’t obvious at first glance. For example, a new event feature worked beautifully if you played it step by step, but fell apart if you left halfway through and came back. We had players who always jumped into events late and felt lost, so I made sure to test that scenario. Sure enough, I found issues that would have frustrated real players, and I documented these findings clearly and shared them with designers so they could adjust the flow and add better guidance.
If you’re just starting out in QA, here are a few things that really helped me and that you can start practicing right away:
Learn from players. Watch how they play and pay attention to their feedback. You can learn so much from how real players break things.
Play the game wrong. Ignore the intended flow and see what happens. Quit in the middle of things. Press buttons at the wrong time. Do things out of order.
Look for friction. As you play, notice moments where you feel confused or frustrated. Those are probably going to be pain points for players too.
Think in patterns. If players report the same kinds of issues again and again, look for similar risks in new features.
Share what you see. Don’t keep those insights to yourself. Share them with your team so designers and developers can make changes before players ever encounter the problems.
Working on a live game taught me that QA is more than checking if something “works.” It’s about making sure it works for players, from those new or old to the game, high spenders and low spenders. Even when they play in unpredictable ways. The sooner you start thinking that way, the stronger your skills will grow.
So my advice? Step into the player’s shoes every chance you get. Break things before they do. Predict what they might try and test it. That mindset will save your team headaches and make the game a much better experience for everyone who plays.
