An overwhelming majority of game developers believe that artificial intelligence will play a “critical role” in the future of quality assurance. 

That’s according to the new The State of Games QA report from AI startup Modl.ai, which spoke to over 300 game developers, including former staff from Netflix, Microsoft, Jagex and Reliance. 

"Game development budgets are climbing to thrilling new heights, which is great news for the industry, but that means more opportunities for bugs. AI offers a solution to that," Modl.ai CEO Christoffer Holmgård said. 

"Survey results show that while the industry recognizes the transformative potential of AI in QA, many developers are still searching for practical ways to adopt it. At Modl.ai, we’re committed to bridging that gap by offering AI-powered tools that make testing smarter, faster, and more accessible, empowering studios to release games with confidence."

As it stands, 94 per cent of developers say that they are using non-AI automation in their workflow. In fact, 39 per cent describe their department as either “highly automated” or “entirely automated”. 

One common concern around modern triple-A blockbusters is the number of releases that come out with major bugs, the most notable example being 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077. Modl.ai’s research bears out how widespread the problem is; only 29.7 per cent of respondents say that they have worked on a project that was released without bugs.

There are a number of reasons for this; the first and most obvious is that major games are becoming more and more complicated by the year. Bigger releases mean more complicated code, more assets and more that can go wrong. Meanwhile, 50 per cent of developers say that they don’t think – or are unsure – that QA budgets are rising fast enough to keep up with this rising complexity. 

“You’re never going to catch every bug, but AI can get you closer,” said Indium Play CEO ​​Dajana Dimovska, one of the experts Modl.ai consulted for this research. 

“It can take on early testing responsibilities, reducing the need for large QA teams throughout the production phase. As the game reaches a more playable and polished state, manual QA testers step in — working alongside AI to identify and address quality issues. This collaboration between experienced testers and AI ensures a better final product.” 

77 per cent of developers say that they did not do all the necessary quality insurance in time for their most recent release. 57 per cent say they did “most necessary QA”, while only 23 per cent say they did everything required. 

Looking to the future, 94 per cent of developers say that they agree that artificial intelligence will play a role in video game quality assurance in the future. 41 per cent say that this involvement will be “very important”, while another 30 per cent say it is set to be “extremely important”.

When it comes to introducing AI into the quality assurance process, a massive 87 per cent of developers believe their studios are ready for this tech in some respect, though only 18 per cent say that their companies are “fully ready”. There’s still some way to go in the full adoption of artificial intelligence, but the groundwork appears to have been laid for this tech to propagate into QA workflows. 

“I think it will be the bigger studios that end up leading AI adoption,” Netflix senior test engineer Henry Golding commented. “They have large teams of technical staff and the capability to introduce new tools into their existing suites. The budget is there to try things. I expect that in the coming years, we’ll find out what works and what doesn’t, and I look forward to hearing from those folks who end up doing some very cool things.”

Modl.ai is an artificial intelligence start-up that has set its sights on changing game development with the aforementioned tech. As well as putting AI to work in improving game testing, it is also being used to model player behaviour and enhance game development. 

You can read Modl.ai’s full The State of Games QA report right here. 

Our partner newsletter, AI Gamechangers, recently interviewed Christoffer Holmgård, who also spoke at PG Connects London last month.