Sega Test (division)

From Sega Retro

For the 2021 Sega history quiz, see Sega Test.

Sega Test, also known as the Sega of America Software Test Department, was the game testing and quality assurance division of Sega of America. Established in or around 1991 under the company's Product Development umbrella, it was tasked with assisting both first and third-party developers with testing of their in-development games during the 16-bit and 32-bit eras, and appears to have existed until shortly after Sega's departure from the home console market in 2001.

Company

Background

The offices of Sega Test in June 1995

After the considerable success of the Sega Genesis in North America, Sega of America established an internal testing department to provide in-house quality assurance for both first-party and third-party software for its video game platforms. Known as the Sega of America Test Department, Sega of America Quality Assurance, or simply Sega Test, the department was headquartered at 130 Shoreline Drive in Redwood City, California (located inside a larger building at 150 Shoreline Drive alongside the Sega Consumer Service Department,[2] one block down the road from the company's corporate offices at 255 Shoreline Drive), and served as the central quality assurance facility for the majority of Sega of America's published North American products during the 16-bit and 32-bit eras - including the Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, Game Gear, Pico, and Saturn.

Maintaining an internal department of testers was invaluable to Sega of America in assuring that the games they published met a certain level of quality. As company CEO Tom Kalinske explained, "Testers are very important to us. If we just listened to the folks working on the game, [the developers,] every game is a hit." He also noted that Sega Test was important in ensuring Sega of America avoided any negative hits to its reputation among consumers - as well as angry calls to customer service.[3]

Operation

“

The industry was so young, exciting, pioneering... even innocent. It's sad that we will never see that era again.

Those testers were no joke. I worked on the phones in customer support. But it was well known in the office the hours of blood, sweat and tears that those testers put in. There was no such thing as "patching". You either got it right and shipped a clean game or you shipped a disaster. It's amazing that there weren't more games shipped with catastrophic bugs back then. Just a testament to those testers and, most importantly, the executives back then who valued quality over timelines. Truly an era long gone.

„

— Chris Miggiani[4]

A standardized Genesis development board used by Sega Test for evaluating games.

Sega Test operated under a Test Manager (like Steve Apour or Steve Patterson) who oversaw the department and was responsible for both the hiring and promotion of staff and assigning game projects to individual lead testers. This small group of lead testers had access to a rotating group of game testers to facilitate completion of their assigned titles, with lead testers assigned to a single game for weeks or months at a time (generally to completion of testing) while individual testers could receive new assignments as needed. Lead testers determined the number of testers required on their game, planned the testing work which needed to be done, directed testers accordingly, and ultimately assumed responsibility for ensuring no bugs slipped through their team's testing. The role served as the point of communication between Sega Test and the game's producers, developers, and programmers - with lead testers often being the target of angry or bargaining game producers as a result. The department's internal training manual, known as the Tester's Bible, even warns testers against getting "talked out of bugs by producers."[5]

The department operated on a two-shift schedule, with the morning shift commencing at 7:00 am and concluding at 3:00 pm and the night shift running from 3:00 pm to 11:00 pm.[3] Working hours varied substantially but were often relatively high; some testers regularly worked 14 hour days, while others estimated that they clocked 80 to 90 hours per week. Dave Dodge, who served as a Sega Test manager responsible for assembling test teams, reported working up to 100 hours per week.[3] Overtime and crunch were common when racing to meet publisher deadlines, referred to as an overnight test cycle or 24-hour mode.[3]

Sega Test operated using standardized development cartridge boards containing four EEPROM slots. Technical Coordinators like Janine Cook would download ROM images of in-development games from Sega of America's BBS (ranging from early betas to release candidates), burn them to blank EEPROMs using a Needham SA-10 programmer, and insert them into the development boards with the game's corresponding memory size. These boards were later distributed one by one to testers by the test manager, who would enter the name of the tester in a location-tracking sheet to ensure security of in-development material. These boards also feature two LED hex address readouts for bug reporting; the addresses were recorded upon game crashes to provide development teams with further insight into the bug's location in code. For testing NTSC-J, PAL, and SECAM titles, Sega Test maintained a dedicated room of both development and overseas hardware, boasting multiple Super Targets with unknown board attachments and at least one Sega Saturn Programming Box.[3]

Entering a bug report for World Series Baseball Starring Deion Sanders on the Sega 32X.

At the start of each day, staff signed in, read their work assignments off a whiteboard, retrieved their development boards and Test Plan assignments, prepared VCR tapes, and began performing structured test passes on their assigned game.[6][3] Testers were trained in different methods of discovering and documenting new bugs, from following gameplay steps out of order, performing repeated actions, testing collision detection, and generally pushing the boundaries of all forms of gameplay.[7] Throughout the course of the day, testers were tasked by their daily Test Plan to focus their testing on specific aspects of the software, types of input, and various types of product compliance.

Testers were chiefly tasked with verifying bugs on a printed Test Report[8] consisting of either previously known bugs (in order to verify they no longer exist in the current revision)[9] or newly found bugs which needed to be double-verified. When a bug was encountered, testers would hand-document it on notepad at their workstations, with staff trained to provide full reproduction steps, hardware configurations, hex address identifiers, and other info.[10] The resulting hand-written reports would then be walked into a room featuring multiple Windows computers[3] for categorization and entry into a FileMaker Pro database.[11] Testers were required to classify defects by severity, with Class A representing critical issues such as crashes or progress-blocking faults, Class B covering significant non-crashing flaws, and Class C capturing minor cosmetic or low-impact problems; A and B bugs were required to immediately be reported to the game's lead tester.[12] Bug categories include regional lockout issues, legal issues, issues with peripherals, software compliance, text issues, audio issues, gameplay bugs, and more.

A Test Report for Road Riot 4WD, which ultimately failed testing.

Test Reports were required to be as explanatory, clear, and descriptive as possible for the convenience of developers - particularly considering Sega Test's Japanese clients.[10] The department maintained rigid proofreading and verification standards, as developers of the day relied on their reporting accuracy in building further revisions. David Dodge states, "A problem that can happen is when people the programmers go in to fix a bug, sometimes they can create new bugs in the process, and we want to make sure that hasn't happened." Testing was also recorded to a VHS tape at all times to have a demonstrable record of bug reproduction.[3] Once fully verified and double-checked through a process called redlining,[13] completed Test Reports were then delivered to developers, who corrected as many bugs as possible and returned updated software to the department for further testing. These Test Reports were also responsible for rejecting revisions which did not yet meet company standards.[1] If a game was at risk of failing the testing process altogether (as was the case with Tengen's Road Riot 4WD), an account executive from the Licensing and Acquisitions arm of the company's Entertainment & Consumer Products department would step in and contact the developer in question in an attempt to determine how best to get their quality assurance issues resolved.[14]

Sega Test also had an occasional hand in a game's design and balance. Testers were encouraged to submit suggestions and subjective analysis through a Comments system:[15] when the majority of testers agreed on a Comment, the game's lead tester forwarded that suggestion to the developer's assigned producer.[16] Sega Test was also occasionally tasked with marketing work, particularly when it came to capturing gameplay screenshots.[17] The department generally did not receive supplementary material from client developers, resulting in testers hand-taping screenshots together to assemble their own in-game maps for the purpose of easier and more consistent testing.[3]

The department assisted with the rapid onboarding of multiple key Sega of America-published titles, ranging from the rapid onboarding of near-finished action games such as Kid Chameleon to complex, multi-month efforts on rules-heavy roleplaying games such as Warriors of the Eternal Sun, which reportedly required the logging of over one hundred issues in its first few days of test and sustained months of further regression testing.[18] In 1993 alone, the department tested 72 games. In 1994, this number increased to 96, and in 1995 the department boasted 106 tested games.[3]

This Is Sega Test documents the day to day life of a game tester at the department's peak.

One of Sega Test's biggest projects, Sega's 1993 blockbuster fighting game Eternal Champions, required the involvement of 51 testing staff working closely in conjunction with Michael Latham's Omega Group on extensive game balance testing. The department's work would go on to shape the final game's difficulty and balance, with several testing staff being migrated into Omega Group.[19] Sega Test's workload expanded with the advent of add-ons such as the Sega CD and 32X - the latter had its US launch lineup tested within the department - which demanded compatibility testing across a number of hardware configurations. Omega Group and Sega Test worked together again two years later to test and balance the release of the CD followup Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side, a monumental project for both developer Sega Interactive Development Division and Sega Test which saw over 110 testing staff assigned to the game. Mark Griffin recalls that he worked 188 hours in just two weeks as the game's assistant lead tester, with the experience "driving him into the ground" and noting the toll it took on his health and social life.[3]

In 1995, Sega of America contacted independent film production company Green Mill Filmworks to produce This Is Sega Test, a brief documentary overviewing the work environment of Sega Test. Defined as a "trainumentary" (a documentary intended for internal employee training), the documentary features interviews with both company executives and key game testers, and provides comprehensive information on an average tester's workday - including smoke breaks. Filmed primarily on June 15, 1995,[20] VHS copies of the documentary were used as the company's official new employee training beginning in 1996. Green Mill Filmworks later publicly released the video in May 2016 in commemoration of the its 20th anniversary,[21] standing as a uniquely preserved look into the department's quality assurance workflow.

Legacy

Producer and former Test Manager Steve Apour noted that testers were in a unique position to migrate into producer, marketing, and market research roles. Company CEO Tom Kalinske noted that Sega of America's marketing department favored recruiting from Sega Test because video game marketing required marketers who both understood and were passionate about video games, highlighting Sega Test as a strong entry point into other parts of the company. Multiple notable Sega of America staff became developers this way, such as Doug Lanford, who originally advanced from tester to game designer and programmer at Sega Multimedia Studio, where he was involved in designing the fundamental gameplay of both Jurassic Park and Wild Woody.[18]

Several Sega Test staff would go on to pursue notable careers elsewhere in the gaming industry. Joel Breton, who began as a tester in 1994, subsequently became a producer at GT Interactive, founded Bethesda Softworks East, and became a vice president of VR at HTC. Dave Dodge later earned an MBA and co-founded the child coding education company CodaKid,[21] while Janine Cook migrated to EA Canada and later returned to Sega of America in a production role.[22]

EEOC v. Sega

Main article: EEOC v. Sega.

In 2002, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed an employment discrimination case against Sega of America, charging that the company directed the third-party staffing firm Spherion Corporation to terminate temporary employees assigned to Sega Test, asserting that 13 Filipino game testers were terminated due to their national origin and five additional testers were terminated in retaliation. Under the consent decree, the 18 former employees received $456,000 from Sega and $144,000 from Spherion.[23]

Softography

Master System

Mega Drive

Game Gear

Mega-CD

32X

Mega-CD 32X

Pico

Saturn

Dreamcast

Game Boy Advance

PlayStation 2

GameCube

Xbox

Windows PC

List of staff

Documentation

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Sega Test (division)

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 File:RoadRiot4WD TestReport 1993-09-17.pdf
  2. ↑ "I worked at Sega 90 - 91 in that very same office building. ... I worked on the phones in customer support.", https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/05/video_take_a_look_inside_sega_of_americas_testing_facility_circa_1995 (Wayback Machine: 2025-02-06 22:35)
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 File:ThisIsSegaTest VHS US 1996.mp4
  4. ↑ https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/05/video_take_a_look_inside_sega_of_americas_testing_facility_circa_1995 (Wayback Machine: 2025-02-06 22:35)
  5. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 45
  6. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 44
  7. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 6
  8. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 8
  9. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 9
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 11
  11. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 33
  12. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 5
  13. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 38
  14. ↑ File:RoadRiot4WD TestReport 1993-09-17.pdf, page 1
  15. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 3
  16. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 4
  17. ↑ File:SoA TestDepartment TestersBible.pdf, page 41
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Interview: Doug Lanford (2011-03-01) by Sega-16
  19. ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/eternalchampions/journal/Harry-Chavez-Passed-Away-222473284 (Wayback Machine: 2021-11-17 05:55)
  20. ↑ @JohnAndersen21 on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2022-05-24 17:31)
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 https://greenmillfilmworks.blogspot.com/2016/05/this-is-sega-test-color-28-min.html (Wayback Machine: 2016-05-22 12:04)
  22. ↑ https://www.brokenjoysticks.net/2016/05/15/internal-sega-usa-trainumentary-90s-thing-ever/ (Wayback Machine: 2025-09-09 19:34)
  23. ↑ https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/sega-spherion-settle-suit-alleging-bias-against-filipinos-retaliation (Wayback Machine: 2025-02-21 19:02)
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