Game Crash Crisis: How Mobile Testing Services Save the Day
Mobile game developers are increasingly opting for mobile testing services to deal with the game crash problem. Learn how a reliable testing service can help fix them.
As of 2024, the gaming industry is witnessing increasing complexity and scale in the current generation of mobile games. The cycle of user feedback and patch/update has to be quicker than ever if one wants to retain their customers. Even if everything is all in place, a game crash can still happen due to a plethora of reasons, leading to frustrated players and posing losses in potential revenue.
To avoid this, developers usually opt for mobile testing services which take away the entire burden of testing and ensure smooth patches. But as the industry expanded, there are now so many names out there that one can get confused about how to select a reliable one. If you are still wondering if you should invest in these 3rd-party mobile testing to avoid a situation of game crashes and how to find a proper one from the pool of available mobile testing providers, then keep reading.
Why do you need to invest in mobile testing services?
This investment will guarantee smooth game performance across a range of mobile platforms and devices and also increase user satisfaction. This happens because the game goes through an early process of issue detection and resolution even before reaching the potential players. These specialized services are essential for retaining user confidence, blocking any breaches of data acquired from players, and overall increasing player satisfaction by improving the entire user experience.
Another significant reason to invest in a mobile testing service is related to the game crash analysis which such services are specialized to carry out. The problem of this abrupt closing and crashing of games can spoil the gaming experience and even irritate the player especially when he is in the middle of the game. Crash analysis is designed specifically to diagnose the issues behind such issues and helps fix them as early as possible by examining the circumstances, symptoms, and underlying causes of a crash. A typical game crash analysis involves the following steps:
1. Data Collection in Games: All the relevant data including crash reports, error logs, stack traces, and other related data pointing toward the real causes of such crashes. This complete report generated by software frameworks or tools helps proper identification of errors causing the crash.
2. Analysis of Crash Reports: The nature of the crash is identified after a thorough analysis of the generated reports. Such errors can indicate the type of crash which can indicate whether it is a segmentation fault or a memory access violation. Other errors can be pointed out at the location within the code where the crash occurred. The crash can also occur due to the device or platform where the game was running which can be checked from relevant metadata.
3. Identification of Root Cause: After the analysis is complete, the original cause behind the
Crash is pointed out which can be several reasons including null pointer dereference, unhandled exception, resource exhaustion, etc. There is also a possibility that the game code is working optimally but is influenced by external factors including network issues to which it is connected, third-party dependencies of the game, etc.
4. Debugging and Fix Implementation:
The next obvious step is to debug the error as soon as possible by using integrated development environments, debuggers, and logging tools that replicate the conditions that led to the crash and validate potential fixes. This leads to the implementation of a fix or patches with coding changes, optimizations, error-handling improvements in the game, or by pushing updates to attached third-party libraries or dependencies of the game.
5. Resting and Monitoring: The final step is to test the patch through several tests under every possible scenario a gamer will have. Third-party services commonly use regression testing, unit testing, integration testing, and real-world testing before launching the patch for the mobile game.
Now you know how every stage of crash identification/fixing for a game is done and how important such analysis is for developers and to keep the revenue streams stable. The next question might be how to select a reliable third-party service for such analysis. Well, a little bit of research on any search engine will indicate CrashSight from Wetest, an industry-leading name when it comes to mobile app and game testing.
CrashSight takes the above-mentioned steps to a whole new level by working in real-time i.e., it monitors the entire mobile game network with real-time alert data collection from online users and the game itself. This data collection feature is fed to a professional and comprehensive alert service that also provides game crash root cause analysis, game operational statistics, and smooth upgrade solutions, all integrated into one tool. Along with CrashSight, Wetest also has various testing tools now taken as the industry’s new standard and has been a leading name in the software testing industry with clients including Epic Games, Supercell, Tencent, and many more.
