International MMO publisher uses Leapwork to test and protect central revenue stream

Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games typically involve millions of players exploring new worlds, making friends, leveling up, and making lots of in-game purchases. Because MMO games are typically free to play, in-game purchases are an essential revenue stream for game publishers. And, while bugs in the game might lead to backlash in the gamer community, a bug in the in-app purchase mechanism could have serious consequences to the company’s bottom line. 

One of Leapwork’s customers is an internationally renowned MMO publisher with over 400 million registered users. Their Quality Insurance team has 60 testers focusing on smoke and black-box testing, reviewing updates and new games in their near-final state with no insight into the code itself. Even with 60 team members, the testers were always scrambling to respond to last-minute changes. Needing to speed up time-to-market for new games and updates, the organization knew they needed to automate tests for quality and for in-game purchases. 

Today, the game publisher has used Leapwork to build automated tests around their central functions, especially in-game purchases. They test to ensure that players can select what they want to purchase, pay for their purchase, and then receive and use the item they purchased within the game itself. As the QA team builds automated testing flows for core functionality, they’ve expanded the scope of testing – building new automations and using manual testing time for more complicated game features.  

“Some things aren’t being tested at all, but could be. Automation isn’t just about shaving off time, but about expanding on what we can do.”
Quality Assurance Specialist

With thorough testing coverage, the publisher has confidence that game updates won’t compromise the current in-app purchase system. This means developers and game leads can focus on their players: building more thrilling quests, more functional tools, more fascinating worlds to be explored, and – significantly – more items to be purchased in-game. For this game publisher, not only does testing ensure a higher-quality experience for gamers, it puts them in a position to grow their most lucrative revenue stream.