Duplicate reports are a common occurrence in the realm of game testing, and often arise due to a rather laid-back approach towards bug reporting. It’s a natural human tendency to look for shortcuts, to find ways to streamline our tasks and reduce workloads.

Traditionally, it’s considered good practice for testers to check for pre-existing reports of a bug before or during the process of lodging a new one. However, this is a challenging task. The reason? The bug search engine often fails to detect previously reported bugs, especially when using unique or unconventional keywords. Furthermore, this is a task that requires a good level of education and a willingness to devote time to ensure the submission is meaningful.

Embrace the Duplicate!

BetaHub is transforming how we perceive duplicates. Instead of viewing duplicates as an element to avoid, we’re beginning to see them as beneficial.

A user who reports a duplicate is not penalized. This is because a duplicate report is an important piece of information signifying that another individual has noticed the bug. The content and accompanying media of the duplicate are preserved so that game developers can review the main report and the duplicate with equal ease.

Heat it up!

Given that each duplicate is treated as an additional report, how can we leverage this situation? Well, we can heat up the “temperature” of a given task.

In this context, “Heat” is a metric indicating which tasks are causing more buzz within the game’s testing community. It’s an algorithm that takes into account factors such as:

• The number of duplicated reports for the same task
• The number of upvotes for a given task
• Comment activity relative to the age of the task

How Does BetaHub Recognize Duplicates?

To address this, we harness the power of OpenAI’s GPT. At present, there’s no better way to determine whether two bug reports of different descriptions refer to the same problem (unless we hired an additional person whose sole role would be to handle this).

As with any algorithm, GPT is not flawless and occasional errors should be expected. However, our goal is to continually monitor and refine how we interact with GPT to minimize these inaccuracies.

In Summary

In a field often burdened by duplicate reports, BetaHub is turning the tables. We celebrate duplicates, seeing them not as burdens but as valuable additions to our data collection. With the aid of OpenAI’s GPT, we effectively identify duplicates, enriching our understanding of bugs and enhancing the quality of the debugging process.

The Heat metric takes our process a step further, identifying the significance of tasks based on community interaction and providing a clearer picture of which bugs need urgent attention.

As we continue to evolve and refine our approach, we remain committed to minimizing inaccuracies and constantly improving the bug reporting process.

Beyond BetaHub: The Future of Game Testing

This new approach to handling duplicates is only a glimpse into the future of game testing. As we delve deeper into harnessing AI and machine learning technologies, we envision a landscape where debugging becomes increasingly automated, streamlined, and efficient.

Moreover, the introduction of more sophisticated metrics, like Heat, will offer a more nuanced understanding of bug impacts, further enhancing the game development process.

So, let’s welcome the new era of game testing, one where every bug report, duplicate or not, plays a vital role in crafting better gaming experiences. Let’s embrace the heat, the duplicates, and all the complexities that come with this ever-evolving field, for they truly make our games better.