[reader_mode]

I mean he's basically saying what I am - they are the exception, very few teams are doing it, no public information on how to do it or best practices, everyone reinvents everything on their own from scratch.

I'd wager the popular engines are well tested because of the number of titles shipped on them not because they have good testing automation - but TBH I haven't worked in this industry for almost 10 years so maybe things changed.

[megameter]

10 years ago was right when "TDD" became hugely hyped. Before that, test automation was patchy throughout the software world, not just in games.

I believe the same is true of "best practice" today: game studios aren't actually behind the curve, you just don't hear much about how things are progressing on this end because most of the conference talks aren't about broad concerns like testing, they're about the myriad specialities of the field.

And there absolutely is a legacy-code thing that hinders AAA in many cases. When the engine is old, that's good, because it's shipped something, but it's bad, because it's using older practices and Things Have Moved On.

[reader_mode]

That's a fair take too - maybe TDD wasn't as widespread in general so I just got onboard when everyone else did. Although I should note I'm not a fan of TDD and it's not something I would recommend for games or anything similar - it's a very narrow tool - I think you agree because you put "TDD" in quotes I just don't want to make it sound like I'm recommending it - I'm a fan of automated testing.