There comes a point in every studio’s journey when testing stops being something you do and starts becoming something you need.
At first, everything feels manageable. You test as you go, fix things as they come up, and keep the game stable enough to move forward. But with growth comes complexity. New platforms, more content, parallel features. Suddenly, builds multiply faster than you can test them, and what once felt simple now feels unpredictable.

That’s when teams realise they’ve hit the QA wall.
Not because they’ve done something wrong, but because their game has outgrown their current setup.

And that’s a good thing. It means you’ve reached the stage where stability and scalability start walking hand in hand. The question now isn’t whether to scale QA, it’s how.

The Tipping Point

You’ll feel it before you name it.
Playtests start surfacing the same bugs you thought were gone.
Everyone’s testing, but nobody’s really owning it.

This is when studios start asking: Do we bring QA fully in-house, or do we look for external support?
Both paths can lead to success. The difference lies in what your studio needs most right now.

Building QA In-House

Building an in-house QA team feels reassuring. It means having people who live and breathe your project every day. They understand your studio culture, your language, your production habits and your players. They know why a certain bug matters more than it looks, or why a minor animation jitter breaks immersion in a way a spreadsheet can’t explain.

That closeness builds efficiency. It creates a setup where questions get answered instantly, fixes are verified within minutes, and feedback loops are on point.

But it also carries weight.
Hiring, onboarding, and managing testers takes time. The cost doesn’t stop at salaries.

It’s also process, communication, and retention. And as the team grows, so does the challenge of keeping testing consistent across builds, devices, and release branches.

Still, for projects with long lifespans, frequent iterations, or highly specialised systems, internal QA can become your best long-term investment. It builds knowledge that stays in-house and grows deeper every time.

I've seen many studios reach that stage, where building QA internally is part of the creative identity. They want people embedded in their daily rhythm, contributing to design discussions, and shaping the quality mindset from within. When that’s the case, in-house QA should be your go-to option.

When External QA Becomes the Smarter Move

External QA is a strategic tool.
Sometimes the smartest way to move faster is to stop doing everything yourself.

External partners bring what internal teams often can’t: coverage, scale, and distance. They test your game on more devices, more systems, and under conditions your internal setup might not replicate easily. But perhaps more importantly, they see your game unbiased and without assumptions, just like your players.

That objectivity is powerful.
When you’ve been staring at the same build for months, you stop noticing the small things. External testers walk in with fresh eyes and find what everyone else overlooks.

Outsourcing also adds flexibility. You can scale up during Alpha, Beta, or pre-launch, then scale down when production slows down. It keeps your core team focused while still giving you the safety net of thorough coverage.

Of course, good external QA requires good communication. It’s not “handing off” work; it’s collaboration. The best relationships feel frictionless, just like an invisible extension of your studio that moves in sync with your internal team. That’s the model we’re constantly suggesting at Alkotech Labs: acting as an embedded QA partner that adapts to your workflow instead of disrupting it.

The Hybrid Reality

Most modern studios don’t choose one or the other. They mix both.
A small internal QA team owns communication, priorities, and project context. External specialists handle scalability and time-heavy testing cycles.

That balance gives you agility. Your in-house QA guards the heart of the project, while your external partner strengthens its reach. Together, they create coverage that’s both deep and wide.

We’ve seen this model work especially well for studios preparing for multiplatform releases, live ops cycles, or major seasonal updates. They keep creative control and internal awareness while still benefiting from the scale, expertise, and neutrality that external teams provide.

Which Path Fits You Best?

Here’s a quick reference to help frame the decision. It's a spectrum where overlaps often deliver the best results.

The best setups rarely sit at the extremes.
They evolve, shifting between internal focus and external support depending on project phase, staffing, and ambition.

What Scaling Smart Means

Every hour spent managing QA internally is an hour not spent designing, balancing, or building new content. Sometimes the smartest move is to protect that creative bandwidth.

That’s where an experienced partner becomes invaluable, someone to help you build processes that keep quality consistent even as your scope grows.
That’s the kind of role we play at Alkotech Labs. We help studios build QA systems that last, whether those systems live entirely inside their walls or extend beyond them.

Closing Thoughts

Scaling QA is a maturity move. It’s what happens when your project grows beyond the “we’ll test it later” phase and steps into the space where consistency matters as much as creativity.

Whether you build in-house, find an external partner, or blend both, the goal stays the same: build trust.
Trust between your team and your process.
Trust between your studio and your players.

And if you ever reach that point where your team needs extra hands, new perspectives, or structured support to help you keep that trust steady, congratulations! We can help from this point.