Case Study TEAM17 UPGRADES CRASH DETECTION WITH BACKTRACE TO GET MORE TIME WITH QUALITY ASSURANCE BEFORE SHIPPING GAMES
“With Backtrace, we don't have to worry. Instead of waiting for QA to write a report with steps on how to reproduce the crash -- we understand immediately what happened, why it happened and whether it matters. This saves QA and development a lot of time and helps us turnaround crash fixes in no time.”
- Peter Clark, Programmer @ Team17 About Team17
CHALLENGE Team17 is an independent games label and creative partner for studios around the world. The process of finding and resolving crashes takes way too long. There is a slow turnaround between when QA finds a a crash and the time it takes to fix it -- which Since their founding 30 years ago, Team17 has developed and published some of the most innovative and inventive video games series. prolongs the overall time it takes for the QA team to test the whole game. Their iconic titles include Worms and Alien Breed, The Escapists, Overcooked!, Moving Out, Hell Let Loose, and Blashphemous.
Friction points in problem detection: Crashes need to be first verified by With 110+ games under their belt, and more still to come, Team17 is pushing the the QA team. They in turn will report it to programmers who resolve the boundaries of gaming and entertainment by being genre flexible and ensuring issue and then hand it back to QA for testing. that it encompasses the spirit of independent games.
Productivity and project stability: The development team is heavily Tech Stack and Environment reliant on the QA team to provide insight into crash information. Languages: C#, C++
Less focus on testing the game before shipping: QA is our primary bug Operating system: Windows, PS5, Xbox Series detection and verification team in our GDLC. The team would often spend Game Titles: Overcooked! All You Can Eat, Worms Rumble more time reporting on bug details and less time testing the quality of Dev Tools: Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Trello, Redmine the game.
LIFE AFTER BACKTRACE
Seamless Workflow Integration SCALE BUG RESOLUTION AS NEEDED The easy integration of the Backtrace platform into our With Backtrace, the Team17 development team now spends development workflow has given us seamless access to crash less time deciphering error and crash reports and more time alerts and reports that help us resolve issues faster. Ultimately, focused on resolving bugs. Backtrace's crash data gives our development team the insight they need to monitor how well the team is handling overall crash resolution and maintaining game stability. Better Prioritization Backtrace helps the development team resolve issues MORE TIME WITH TESTING GAMES before it gets to the QA team. This gives QA more time to Removing the responsibility of detecting and verifying crashes do comprehensive testing of the whole game. from the QA team gives them more time to spend on testing and exploring how to improve more facets of the game other than mostly performance issues.
WHY BACKTRACE? Prior to Backtrace, Team17 had been relying on the QA team to detect and verify errors and crashes. They needed a better, more automated solution. Backtrace removes the burden of this primary responsibility from the QA team and gives programmers and developers an error reporting platform that seamlessly integrates into their development workflow -- giving them the insight they need to resolve crashes faster and deliver better quality games. Everyone wins!
100 / 100 100 / 100 100 / 100 CRASH VISIBILITY AGGREGATE WORKFLOW AND TRACKING CRASH DATA INTEGRATION
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