At Zartek, there are five basic steps that game development undergoes. They are:
Discovery is the very basic step in which an idea is turned into a game. The scope of the game is deciphered and whatever else is required to bring it to a final release date.
Production is the phase that is the most labor intensive. It involves wire-framing, choosing the technologies and coding the game after setting the rules of the game and building the levels and the scenes.
Testing extensively forms the next stage. This is done for quality control.
The release phase consists of honing the different parts of the game, final debugging of the errors, and deciding the launch date of the game.
The post-release phase involves patching up minor bugs or creating brand new downloadable content.