Compliance & Certification
Platform approval starts long before submission.
Shipping a great game is only part of the journey
Every console and platform holder expects your title to meet hundreds of technical, operational, and user experience requirements.
Games can deliver exceptional gameplay yet still fail certification due to platform-specific behaviours, system integrations, save data handling, suspend/resume functionality, controller standards, accessibility rules, commerce flows, or other compliance issues.
Each failed submission introduces risk – development resources are redirected, schedules slip, and costly resubmission cycles delay launch.
Beyond compliance checklists
At TestFly, certification testing goes far beyond compliance checklists. It’s about reducing launch risk by identifying issues early enough to resolve them without disrupting development momentum.
Our specialists have deep expertise across PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store, Apple App Store, and Google Play. They validate the entire player experience, covering everything from initial launch and progression to online services, commerce, accessibility, suspend/resume, system messaging, installation, and updates.
This ensures consistent platform compliance across every ecosystem.
Certification Throughout the Development Lifecycle
Shift Left Philosophy
The most successful certifications don’t begin a few weeks before release; they begin during game design. At TestFly, Shift Left isn’t a buzzword – it’s how we work.
We integrate certification planning and validation from the outset, not as a final checkpoint. By embedding certification into the entire development lifecycle, we help studios identify compliance risks early, minimize rework, maintain velocity, and approach first-party submission with confidence.
Our teams work alongside designers, producers, engineers, and QA to provide continuous certification intelligence that improves technical decisions and minimizes production risk.
Design Phase
Certification considerations start before a single line of code is written.
TestFly’s specialists collaborate with your team to review platform technical requirements, planned features, user flows, online functionality, commerce systems, accessibility needs, and platform-specific services.
By identifying potential risks during design, studios can make informed architectural decisions that reduce downstream effort and avoid costly redesigns.
Development Phase
As features are developed, TestFly continuously validates platform-specific functionality alongside functional testing.
We verify compliance as gameplay systems evolve, allowing developers to address issues while code is still active.
Our ongoing validation reduces certification issues that accumulate later and keeps teams aware of submission readiness.
PreCertification Phase
As release approaches, we perform comprehensive pre-certification testing using current platform requirements and submission guidelines.
This phase provides a realistic assessment of submission readiness by identifying remaining compliance gaps, validating fixes, and confirming that previously identified issues have been resolved.
For studios that engage TestFly later in development, we also offer standalone pre-certification testing as an independent service. This provides a comprehensive assessment of certification readiness before first-party submission, helping teams identify and resolve compliance risks without requiring full lifecycle engagement.
Our pre-certification activities include technical requirement validation, platform-specific feature verification, regression testing of resolved issues, submission readiness assessments, risk-based reporting, and Go/No-Go recommendations before submission.
The objective is to eliminate as many risks as possible before the title reaches the platform holder, reducing the likelihood of rejection and minimizing costly resubmissions.
Why TestFly
Most certification providers focus on helping studios pass certification. TestFly helps studios avoid certification issues before they become submission blockers.
Certification failures rarely exist in isolation. They often originate in gameplay systems, platform integrations, save data, multiplayer, commerce, accessibility, or backend services.
Our specialists combine certification expertise with Functional QA, Compatibility Testing, Automation, API Validation, Multiplayer Testing, Localization, Accessibility, and Performance Testing to identify and resolve cross-system risks throughout development.
Using our Shift Left approach, we develop certification strategies, reusable test cases, and validation scripts while continuously assessing submission readiness as the game evolves.
The result is fewer late-stage surprises, reduced production risk, improved first-pass readiness, and more predictable launches.
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