is written and increases as the game progresses towards completion. The main QA team will monitor the game from its first submission to QA until as late as post-production. Early in the game development process the testing team is small and focuses on daily feedback for new code. As the game approaches alpha stage, more team members are employed and test plans are written. Sometimes features that are not bugs are reported as bugs and sometimes the programming team fails to fix issues first time around. A good bug-reporting system may help the programmers work efficiently. As the projects enters beta stage, the testing team will have clear assignments for each day. Tester feedback may determine final decisions of exclusion or inclusion of final features. Introducing testers with fresh perspectives may help identify new bugs. At this point the lead tester communicates with the producer and department heads daily. If the developer has an external publisher, then coordination with publisher's QA team starts. For console games, a build for the console company QA team is sent. Beta testing may involve volunteers, for example, if the game is multiplayer. Testers receive scheduled uniquely identifiable game builds from the developers. The game is play-tested and testers note any uncovered errors. These may range from bugs to art glitches to logic errors and level bugs. Testing requires creative gameplay to discover often subtle bugs. Some bugs are easy to document, but many require detailed description so a developer can replicate or find the bug. Testers implement concurrency control to avoid logging bugs multiple times. Many video game companies separate technical requirement testing from functionality testing altogether since a different testing skillset is required. If a video game development enters crunch time before a deadline, the game-test team is required to test late-added features and content without delay. During this period staff from other departments may contribute to the testing—especially in multiplayer games. One example of sustained crunch, especially among the QA team, was at Treyarch during the development of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Most companies rank bugs according to an estimate of their severity: A bugs are critical bugs that prevent the game from being shipped, for example, they may crash the game. B bugs are essential problems that require attention; however, the game may still be playable. Multiple B bugs are equally severe to an A bug. C bugs are