Who are 'QA' and what do they do?

Who are 'QA' and what do they do?

QA stands for quality assurance and QA are the people who work along side the game team. They are a core part of the team and they test the game throughout its development cycle. QA will be looking for bugs, glitches and problems, but they'll also be feeding back on the systems that are being made. They'll tell you whether or not something, in essence, is working and whether or not its fun. QA have an opportunity and a responsibility to feed back to you and say, "This game idea that you had that we all thought would be fun isn't working, it's no fun actually. We need to come up with something better." QA are a great sort of tool to be used by everyone. Usually they are the most unique people in the studio, quite young. QA is sort of an entry level position, but you can choose to become specialised in that area and become a QA lead, or often QA people will go on to become designers or producers as well.