Video game Quality Assurance (QA) is a way of preventing bugs or defects in electronic games and avoiding problems when delivering fixes or customer service; which ISO 9000 defines as “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled”.
This defect prevention in Quality Assurance differs subtly from defect detection and rejection in Quality Control, and has been referred to as a shift left as it focuses on quality earlier in the process.
Two principles included in Quality Assurance are: “Fit for purpose” (the game should be enjoyable for the players); and “right first time” (bugs should be eliminated, avoid the need to develop patches).
Quality Assurance Houses can sometimes offer to take full ownership of the Quality Assurance, hence ensuring that a Developer/Producer will not be burdened in any way by the added workload brought forth by an effective QA process.
Tips: The Quality Assurance activities are broader than Quality Control’s, and the QA processes are an important part of game development. QA ensures that the game to be released will be truly enjoyed by the players, while also being devoid of bugs and other frustrating issues.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_assurance
http://www.bugsplatsoftware.com/great-video-game-crash-1983/