Video game testing is a challenging task, and it becomes increasingly difficult as games grow in size and complexity. But what makes the job even more cumbersome is covering the work of her three other testers while pretending to have a full team of developers who have contracted the work. This is what many of his QA devs say was directed at testing major games in his house for extensive third-party testing.
Two current and eight former employees of Romanian quality assurance outsourcer Quantic Lab, speaking on condition of anonymity, told PC Gamer about their work, and management asked testers to standardize against this important subset. Not only did it put more pressure on them, but too often they claimed they were under-resourced. Not only are you a game development expert, but you mislead clients about the size and capabilities of your QA team and tell your employees to keep their charades.
You may not be familiar with Quantic Lab, based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, but you probably know the games the Embracer Group subsidiary worked on: Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Necromunda Hired Gun, Cities Skylines and more were all tested by Quantic employees. Testers accessed development builds of these games and scrutinized them for glitches and potential blocks, similar to how speedrunners attempt to “break” games after release.
In June, a series of videos on the Gaming YouTube channel upper class gamer (opens in new tab) We have drawn attention to Quantic’s unfair management and duplicative business practices. UEG focused on the testimony of a former member of his Cyberpunk 2077 QA team at Quantic, how distress management caused those workers, and the negative impact this had on his Cyberpunk development.
Romanian tech journalist Doru şupeală has published several accounts from former Quantic employees alleging management misconduct against his substack. hacking work (opens in new tab)Speer provided invaluable assistance in researching this story. Quantic was also investigated by a Romanian outlet. Libertatea (opens in new tab)have published similar findings.
Employees I spoke to described an environment in which Quantic has always operated beyond its means, accepted projects beyond its capabilities, and was too thinly staffed.
They showed that these issues came to a head when the company signed a deal to test Cyberpunk 2077 and NBA 2K21. Cyberpunk has been something of a lightning rod for Quantic, but the company doesn’t seem to be officially credited with his 2K21, a practice touched upon by one of his now active employees.
“Unfortunately, many Quantic Lab testers were uncredited on all the games we tested,” they said. “In some cases, the criteria for publishers to give a person credit was if they had worked on that game for more than five months. No credit will be given.”
night city blues
Many of the employees we spoke with were closely involved in testing Quantic’s Cyberpunk 2077. They argue that Cyberpunk 2077 and NBA 2K were gravity wells for the company, drawing talent from other departments and leaving other projects understaffed even as Cyberpunk. The project was particularly unsuccessful. Every employee we spoke with indicated that these two marquee projects were well staffed, but not the experienced testers promised to the client. did.
“From a team of 30 [initially assigned to Cyberpunk 2077]I think only 10 people had QA experience,” a source who worked on Quantic’s Cyberpunk told us.
Several of the employees we spoke with mentioned being told by management to avoid talking about how many years they worked in the industry when communicating with CD Projekt employees. With his QA team at Quantic. They said CDPR contacted Quantic several times about the team’s underwhelming performance.
Quantic’s Cyberpunk team doubles down in the middle of development, but inexperience, the Covid-19 outbreak, and directives from Quantic executives that clash with CD Projekt’s development priorities put CDPR at a loss. Quantic underperformed compared to other QA teams that had I am working on a project.
Workers familiar with the project said one such problem was that testers submitted many low-impact bug reports to match the daily quota set by Quantic’s management. is said to be CDPR’s developers received numerous reports of low-priority graphical glitches, while Quantic’s testers went from pinpointing high-priority issues, such as main his quest glitches, that prevented progress to the final release. I was distracted.
Multiple former workers on the project have indicated that Quantic’s contract with CDPR could be extended through Cyberpunk’s renewal and expansion, but will be renewed when it expires in 2021. It was not.
Quantic was one of several quality assurance teams working on Cyberpunk 2077, including QLOC SA and CDPR’s in-house teams, but Quantic’s mismanagement resulted in the loss of Cyberpunk’s gameplay QA personnel. The fact remains that a third of workers struggle to meet their basic obligations.
“I don’t blame cyberpunk [Quantic]CDPR still released the damn thing,” one former Quantic employee who worked on the game told us, “but the fact that the game was in pristine condition [Quantic] The same employee who contributed” speculated that a better managed team in the same position could have bought valuable time on CD Projekt’s project.
spread thin
While it was common for one person to handle the entire project, in practice a team of one to three testers was required.
Alongside Cyberpunk, the company’s regular work on other smaller projects continued, but staffing problems worsened. It said it was “standard practice” to misrepresent the “size and experience” of the company’s QA team to clients.
Multiple sources said these smaller projects were run understaffed and management pressured employees to create the look of a full team. “On smaller projects, we were lucky to have at least half the testers,” says one former employee.
The degree of staffing shortages for any given project was not a static situation. The game undergoes a series of tests, and the teams working with them have different abilities at different stages. At some point in development, the project may have reached or near capacity. Then we’ll be back for another round, but this time handled by a minimal crew.
“While it was common for one person to handle the entire project, in practice we needed a team of one to three testers. [in addition to the lead tester]“Some lead testers were working two to three projects at a time, allocating fewer testers to each than they needed.”
Our sources say that Quantic’s “lead testers” often have only one to three years of industry experience, as Quantic targets new graduates and has a high turnover rate. That’s it. A source at AAA said he was promoted “quickly” if he got to that point from his level of entry in two and a half years. Professional pressure at lower wages in less than a year.
Along with the regular pressure to test games, these lead testers are often put in a position to maintain a fiction of team size and competence in communicating with clients, according to employees.
“I am the lead tester facing the client and I had to. [lie about their team’s size]”I’ve done it dozens of times.
Some of our sources have proven misleading in the way clients record their work: Quantic’s testers typically use a database called Jira to record client bugs. Individual testers typically have their own Jira accounts they use to report issues, but employees I’ve spoken to say that Quantic’s testers quit, were absent due to illness, or were assigned to other projects. He claimed that he was often encouraged to log in to the tester’s account that was stolen. We never even touched the game in question between rounds of testing, or even once, to avoid discrepancies in activity that could raise questions about team size.
low wages, low morale
Compounding these dishonest practices, employees we spoke to said they were underpaid and worked in a toxic environment. , said that stress trickled down to the wider team.
Multiple employees told us that management directly stated that testing games was an unskilled job. 1,450 Romanian Lei, or about 300 euros per month). Full lead testers can expect around €680 a month, but a former employee we spoke to said living in Cluj is still very difficult.
Despite my initial passion for game development, I never did it again.
As with many workplaces, the Covid-19 outbreak has had a negative impact on Quantic Lab, and the employees we spoke with were highly critical of Quantic’s response. They said despite the widespread adoption of remote work in the gaming industry in response to the pandemic, work-from-home privileges have been unevenly granted and largely reserved for senior executives. Testers were placed shoulder-to-shoulder, and multiple employees testified to the infamous meeting. A Human Resources employee said 6-foot social distancing is only necessary and safe when individuals are face-to-face. Unless otherwise, closer.
Ultimately, the employees we spoke to were exhausted by low pay, high-stress environments, lack of support, and perhaps the petty resentment that comes with doing “low-skilled” work, especially during the pandemic. “At this point, [Quantic] You should pay for my treatment,” said one.
Most of the ex-employees we spoke to admitted that they’d gone on to other jobs in tech or gaming and at least had something to put on their resumes. I hated games and never wanted to work in game development again, even though I was passionate about it at first.”
Quantic Lab did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Aside from Quantic Lab’s specific issues, quality assurance is already a particularly underrated and underrated aspect of game development. QA employees are often external contractors, on a corporate scale, like Quantic, or on an individual level, with pay, benefits, and job security disparities with salaried workers.
The success of Game Workers United’s QA union at Raven Software shows the potential for progress, but unionization is inherently difficult, especially in industries where labor behavior is relatively new and in companies with high turnover.
Employees we spoke to were pessimistic about the prospects of Quantic changing for the better as a result of the current negative publicity. One suggested a top-down management overhaul by the corporate owners of Embracer Group, which acquired the company in November 2020.
