I have been a Videogame Tester for 2 years AMAA

Should they tighten up those graphics on level 3?

Yeah, we actually just said that to our boss. She was quite frustrated at first but then she smiled and said 'great'. Amazing feeling.

Luckily I went to WW College, my mom couldn't believe it.

How many hours in a day do you test a specific game? Do you focus on one game at a time, or do you have multiple games in rotation?

1 game at a time, usually. Some testing rounds last 1 day, others 2 weeks and other 6 months! So, people would either be in amazing projects or get 'stuck' in less good ones.

But, a day, due to lack of tester, my experience and the fact I was known to be a quick tester, I have been assigned to work on 4 different projects (every 1-2 hours I would change room and test another title).

Do you have a CB so you can talk to other car beds?

I feel ignorant right know, what is CB? :P

It's a quote from the movie Grandma's Boy...which is about a group of video game testers.

me

My sister thinks I should get an alarm.

Something something alarm something something your sister.

Has testing video games as a job affected your gaming outside of work? Also have you found that you play games differently as a result?

While working I almost totally stopped playing them.

Now, I can only play multiplayer games online. I find it hard to sit in front of a videogame alone and actually enjoy it. My mind goes directly to the small glitches, synchronization issues, incorrect subs and so on.

I don't know if it is really related, I can only assume.

this is also what happens when you start developing games. even in multiplayer I usually just stop and look at their amazing normal maps or get into a discussion about how their lod system sucks. I was a tester, during summer breaks, for 3 years while at school, soon il be an intern at a seattle game company. if you think testing kills a gamers appetite, start making them.

Yeah, totally.

If you start actually creating a game that is a whole lot of fun.

You can actually go back at old titles and think 'WOW! They were gods back then!'. I mean, when I started, I could barely make a character move (with bones and such) and there are games made in 1997, with almost non-existing game engines, that are amazing.

I cannot help but bow at these masters.

You should try Freelancer :)

this?

Being in school in Video Game Development has prety much stopped me from playing them. I only play games when i need new ideas or when I wanna copy something.

You should probably get out of game design. I can't imagine a musician who can't listen to music because he writes it all day, an Artist who couldn't enjoy art, a director who couldn't enjoy film, etc.

That is one of the reasons I quit it.

I know the feeling. Before working there my free-time was all about videogames; then I actually started to enjoy nature, philosophy and, strangely enough, wikipedia (I would read up a minimum of 3 articles a day, just for the sake of knowledge).

Do you play the games through over and over again or do you do specific parts of a level until it is properly tested before moving to the next one?

It depends on how the project is setup (usually by either our Project Manager or theirs). But I would say it is far more common to have a checklist (in Excel) containing all the levels of the game (usually made by our Lead Tester) and we would check it PASS, if it was good, FAIL, if we found some bugs. So, we would test the whole game, like in a normal progression, and finish the game 1/2 times each round of testing.

But I have worked in projects were we needed to actually 'destroy' the game, meaning we would be in 40 people connected at the same time, spawning in the same location, and at 'GO!' start jump and launching grenades to each other! (fun for the first 2 hours)

When you're given the checklist are you also given directions on how to beat the game? Or is it better to have you figure out the game yourself so you can tell them that it plays weird? I guess this applies to more puzzle solving titles.

Usually we are just left by ourselves. It is much better as we would go just in a straight line otherwise. So, they just say to 'explore' and finish the game. For this reason, you can find skilled players beating the game in 1 day and other ones needing 10 days (mainly because they get stuck a lot!).

How did you get to your position? Does it pay well? I am honestly very interested in this

Well, I started 1 year prior the end of my education. I googled for months and send gazillions of emails to any game testing company. After 4-5 months, I managed to have 2-3 companies interested in my application.

They usually send you some tests for testing your writing skills (for bug reporting) and general knowledge about videogames (usually an essay). I got companies wanting me to actually report bugs based on a screenshot (they were giving for granted I had already experience).

Then you get a phone interview, that is the easiest part, as long as you don't have major communication issues (if you got that far, you usually get the job).

Then the pay is quite low at the beginning, in my case, it was increased yearly; or if you get promoted (don't count too much on this).

If you are interested in working in the QA field, I would suggest to get any kind of Game Tester position you find and go for it. Ask for getting tasks as support to the Lead Tester (same pay but more responsibilities and more work; which means more experience). Then, when you are applied for another job, you can sell yourself as a Lead Tester (or more), since you have had experience in that role.

How much do clothes cost in the Matrix?

2 rupies, back in 2010.

Because you play them so often, do you sometimes feel like it's a pain in the ass when you have to start a new game?

You mean a new new game? Or starting the same game again?

For the former, I would say it is a very good feeling. For the latter, I must say it is very frustrating, especially if the game is not really one of your favourite. But long games are usually fun to start again. The worst ones are the very short kid games, those with mini-games and a very slim story. Those are a real pain.

But, for example, there was a game that had a legend saying you had to finish it 8 times to get a special weapon; one day I was bored and I actually went for it (in the name of testing!). Well, I finished it 10 times and I didn't get it (the whole team went 'oooooh :(' ).

So, if it wasn't for the job, I would have never ever done such a foolish thing (I'm too old for this!).

How much do you get paid?

Roughly, around 12$/hour. (2 years ago)

My younger brother did testing for a few years, then went on to be a paid moderator for a game.

Most obnoxious regular thing you have had to do?

Funniest glitch(es)?

Most ridiculous way to break a game?

Most obnoxious regular thing you have had to do?

Well, I must say I really didn't like having to check textfiles and work directly on those. Mainly because they were always done in a different way and very hard to read.

Funniest glitch(es)?

Not much about glitches (I assume something like: Here )

Well, usually some very funny linguistic bugs (language specific); one thing I found quite interesting was a character, in a kid game, which had blond hair, blue eyes, a black strip on his right arm, doing something resembling to the Nazi salute whenever he was winning. Especially if the other 2 opponents were black.

Most ridiculous way to break a game?

This wasn't me, but a friend of mine actually managed to break a game just by putting some elastics on the xbox joystick and letting his character run around a specific tree. The game would crash 100% of the times (very bad)

How do you find things like that? I always wondered how people found all the little nooks and crannies in games (especially for strategy guides). It seems so damn tedius. Did he run around every single tree until he found one that broke? head explodes

Most of the crazy bugs come after months and months of playing the same game all over again.

That guy was so bored that actually put the elastic on the controller and started talking to another friend, he then completely forgot about it and went to lunch break. When he came back the game had crashed. Retrying the same procedure showed that it was a consistent crash (and yes, he picked a random tree; but I think it was one of the biggest in the map).

For very hard to spot bugs, it is usually up to the tester's creativity. I found myself finding very weird and normally hard to spot bugs just out of intuition or creativity.

For example, in a quite famous game of zombies, if you would keep on trying to jump over a specific bush, you would be able to get over it and find yourself falling out of the world forever and ever.

That day I was SO bored, lol.

Thanks for the response! I don't know if I could handle that. My OCD already makes it difficult for me to finish games.

If you finish a game 10 times a week and you also get to work overtime on weekends, you start doing things you never thought possible :P

[deleted]

No idea, man ;)

How do you become one? I heard it takes college to become a game tester but I always assumed you could just apply, go in and play, then leave with a couple bucks.

Well, as already answered, there are different kind of testing. What I was doing was more actually testing the game, check for issues, proofcheck subtitles and textfiles and so on. We were more focused on the linguistic part of the QA. You need at least a high school diploma (I had a professional diploma in IT and Computer Science).

It is a full time job and some days you don't even touch a videogame and work only on reporting bugs and translating text.

Sometimes studios will do play testing, where they bring in randoms to test the playability of the game and to give feedback, but the actual QA testers are regular 40 hour (sometimes 80) a week jobs that require an education background.

Yeah, I agree.

Hey man simple question... HOw does one apply for a testing job? Where would one go to advertise he's interested in becoming a tester? Are there different places to apply for testing different kinds of games? such as indie, mobile, mmos, or triple A's. (just need some direction) right now i study at a university for computer science and programming, hopefully will land a job in the gaming industry but always wanted to be a tester just to get a taste of this side of the industry.

Applying for a testing job is similar to applying to any other job.

As I said in some other post, you will probably receive some sort of test for seeing if you are suitable for the job (either linguistic or more technical one), then you will do a phone interview (if you passed the first screening) and eventually get a job.

I am afraid there is no position as AAA tester, I would love that!

You are just a tester who, eventually, get one or two AAA title per year to work on (if you are a good one). Most of the other titles are either on portable consoles or from companies your employer has partnership with.

I can say that among all the titles I tested there were:

1% Mobile

3% PC

6% AAA

30% Consoles

40% Portable consoles

(very very very approximated estimation)

How do you afford to eat?

What do you mean? The pay was above minimum wage, so I managed quite well. Avoiding drinking, I managed to save up for quite some nice trips :)

Ahhh, are you in the US? I worked at a video game developer for a couple of years in the UK (in PR, not QA) and the pay was terrible for those guys! Glad you lucked out more.

Well, I believe we managed mainly because we were living in a fairly small town and the prices were so high. But, I must say that getting a similar pay in Europe does quite of a difference.

That really depends where in Europe. Differences are very big.

Of course. I am talking about Europe in Nordic countries.

What is the best part and the worst part of your job?

Best part is the first day in the project you always wanted to work on.

Worst part is probably the lack of real recognition from managers and any major responsibility. Most of the successes we achieved came from the hardwork and pride of the testers, not really from any good management skill; hard to say, but true in many cases (not all).

How did you get into the business of being a tester to begin with? Can just anybody be a videogame tester or are there certain ways to get around to be one?

Well, I was also a linguistic tester, so language skills mean quite a lot. But, I would say that almost anyone, speaking 2 language fluently, could get the job. Of course, you need to be good at it if you want to work in better (more important) projects.

For a tester who tests functionality, I would say that almost no requirement other than calling yourself a gamer is enough.

I have seriously seen colleague not being able to pass very simple action games and getting very upset about it.

Two programming languages.. Right?

Well, I have used roughly 10 or more programming languages. I am talking about natural languages. Fore example English and French, or German...

I speak English and Spanish. Where do I sign up?

Perfect! Just google 'Spanish Linguistic videogame tester' and you should be good to go!

What is the best game in your opinion that you have ever tested? What is the worst game in your opinion that you have ever tested?

The best one was one of the AC franchise: really loved the project, team and Project Manager.

Copy/Pasting from a previous answer

Well, the worst one was a music videogame; I luckily had to test it for only 1 day, but it seemed endless.

The second worst one was a game in the Hello Kitty franchise, we had to test it for almost a month, but after the initial hatred, we actually ended up kind of loving it; since we were all in the same boat, we first, as a team, bonded quite a lot when mocking the game and started actually to care about the project.

Have you tested any AAA titles? Have you ever tested an AAA title where you thought, "WTF IS THIS SHIT?". I've played quite a few games where I simply cannot fathom how it could have passed QA.

Dragon Age 2 comes to mind as one of the worst games I've ever played.

Yeah, I tested quite a few AAA titles (I believe around 7/8 AAA titles). Most of them were actually quite fine.

One of them, involving a son of a king in a warm country, was kind of like you described.

Of course, it improved while the test went on but at first I was like 'are you kidding? His face is not supposed to be like that!!!'

How would one go about looking for a video game testing job? I'm tired of working at McDonalds..

As I mentioned, I have used Google quite a lot. I gave myself a deadline and I worked for it.

I took me 3 months to get the job. I had to postpone as it was far too early for me to start when they asked me to.

So, the best way would be to first find whether you are up to travelling and leaving your country, then look for a job in a country you would like to live in and then search for any company there.

I would actually look up on wikipedia and any other videogame website where they list QA companies and go through those.

I am more experienced in finding jobs where languages are involved (usually more than 2). So, I don't know if that suits you.

How did you find out the position was available? Did you find it on a job website, through a business/person contact? I have really wanted to be a game tester for a while now but didn't know how to go about it. I have basic programming knowledge from some college courses and I'm a hardcore gamer.

Some companies have their openings on their website and they are usually always hiring (unless of an economic crisis in the videogame industry, such as the one in 2009/2010).

Some others, like the one I was working for, had ads all over the internet, you could literally find dozens of ads from different job boards.

Mine came up so many times that it caught my attention and gave a proper look to it; researched about the company, got in touch with some employee and then went for the application.

Do you ever buy the videogames you test that really stand out?

Or do you get some free copies?

I personally never felt the need to buy a game I tested for months.

But we seldom got some free copies, it is very rare and a quite amazing moment.

The only project, I got a videogame for, was a game I didn't particularly like. And that was quite random; the PM managed to convince the client to give us some copies.

adios turd nugget

Au revoir, mon ami.

that was another grandmas boy reference.

I definitely have to watch that movie! Too many references I miss.

So, uhm, what happens if there is a complicated part in the game which you have to test, but you cannot do it due it to it being incredibly hard? I would imagine some games require really precise timing or something like that.

Well, I got to say it never happened to me. But I had quite some colleague who would literally scream and throw the controller on the desk stating that the game sucked.

After being asked the reason of that, they would say it had a bug which made it impossible to get over the abyss. Well, you can foresee what would usually happen next (*me taking controller, jumping properly, giving it back to colleague, embarrassment *).

But I personally never found a videogame which was way too hard for me to pass.

I grew up with Heart of Darkness and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, those were hard as hell!

What genre of games do you personally test most, or do you just kind of test whatever they throw at you? Is there any personal preference involved?

I personally used to get a lot of arcade, puzzle games.

They are quite a big deal, especially kids ones on Nintendo DS. I don't get all the fuss about them, but there are a lot of those!

You usually get assigned to a project kind of randomly. If you are really interested in a particular title you can contact the related Project Manager and, if s/he doesn't dislike you that much and if s/he can pick her/his own team, then you get a good chance to be part of what is called the core team.

So, if there was a quite big title coming up and we knew about it, I would often go to the involved Project Manager and show my interest. It usually worked out. :)

Wow, that is really cool! I'm not sure how disclosure of information works as a game tester, but if you can tell me what well-known games you worked on I would love to hear what they were!

Here is my way to overcome that possible issue:

Copy/Pasting from one of my previous answers

• One featuring a guy in the past who likes to sit on benches and disappear (best project I worked on!)
• One about a young kid and his friends who want to gather some spheres.
• Another about a guy and some zombies in Las Vegas.
• One about a, now old, stealth soldier and nuclear weapons, quite of a snake.
• And one about a son of a king living a warm country. He likes to jump around, if you know what I mean. :P

Have you tested GTA V?

Nope. Nothing from Rockstar.

How do you test a RPG? There isn't often a "level".

Well, it is usually quest based, or area based.

So you get to test quests, and this means ALL OF THEM!

So, you receive a quite nice excel document which contains a list of all the quests and subquests (this happens if you are a lucky tester, if not, you get to write it yourself and be kind enough to share it with the team) and go through all of them at least once per round.

How die you become a videogame tester?

I first found the position (job advertisement), applied for it, did some examinations (some tests about bug reporting and language skills; I had few hours to print them, complete them and scan them back) and then I had a phone interview. After few weeks, I got the offer and a contract. :)

Do you like it? Ill be at home for ~7 months now and might be interested in doing something similar.

Well, I used to find it fun but sometimes it feels just like another office job.

Keep in mind that I was going to work at an office, so I wasn't testing from home; if that is what you are interested in.

Do you play videogames? like ofc you do for work but other than that ? or are you too damn bored with them when you ''get of the clock'' ?

I actually stopped playing videogames, I felt like I should do more in my life. I actually learnt quite a lot during that time, I was reading much more and everyday.

It's like my hobby became my job and my 'job' (to study) became my hobby. Crazy uh?

[deleted]

I used to make around 12$/hour back in 2011.

Is it white-box or black-box testing?

A lot of black-box, sadly. In some projects, if you had some experience, you could actually get some very useful information on how they actually produce and debug their games, but most of the time they just assume all the testers are dumb (a safe bet, I'd say).

How do you get into this feild of work?

Well, I applied for the job and got it. It isn't as hard as it seems, but you need to know more than a language for getting much more options.

What are your credentials?

I could speak English and another language. I also had quite some experience in gaming and programming (the latter wasn't that important).

Do you have a pulse?

If so, you could be a video games tester!

More or less! :P

If you're able to answer, what was your worst testing game you had to endure and how long did you have to play it?

Is there any real advancement into the industry beyond testing? I've always heard that once you're a tester, you become pigeon holed and looked down upon.

Well, the worst one was a music videogame; I luckily had to test it for only 1 day, but it seemed endless.

The second worst one was a game in the Hello Kitty franchise, we had to test it for almost a month, but after the initial hatred, we actually ended up kind of loving it; since we were all in the same boat, we first, as a team, bonded quite a lot when mocking the game and started actually to care about the project.

There were chances to get better positions, but, at least in the company I was working for, knowing and befriending the right people seemed to be enough for being promoted.

Have standards (if you develop on xbox or sony) gotten any easier to deal with. When I use to do it I remember getting rejected over the dumbest stuff (i think our specific one was it took .1 second longer for the game to boot then their standard).

Well, we get very much trained in seeking for those 'platform' related bugs. For example, the naming for certain components of the Wii and so on.

But we got a very diligent and professional department focusing on those specific standards. I worked there usually once a week. But if I remember we got rejected a title for a button which was incorrectly spelt.

thats almost impressive... since most button names are one letter

Well, I think it was something like SELECT.

But I am quite sure about a time when, in a title, all the buttons were written in words and not icons, and that was quite of a big deal.

Which games have you tested?

Well, quite some. I cannot name them all.

But I have tested a title of a very famous action stealth franchise and 2 titles of an extremely famous historical action videogame.

I am not sure I can tell more :(, sorry.

So, how's Assassins Creed IV?

Edit: I'm saying he is heavily hinting at testing Assassins Creed

Amazing! They have hoovers there and you can actually use a Transformer.

Nah, I don't know; that title is far too new (if it even exists) for me to be able to have information about it.

EDIT: Happy cake day!

I'm guessing you work at Ubisoft Montreal. Your english kind of resembles a French-Canadian. I could be wrong though.

Your english kind of resembles a French-Canadian.

Not sure if a compliment or not.

It wasn't meant to be an insult. I just noticed you type like other French-Canadians that I know. I live in Ontario but less than an hour from Montreal. I also know a few people who work at Ubisoft in Montreal

Well, we had some collaboration with them from time to time.

Or Possibly THQ Montreal before the recent issues - in which case I may have worked with you.

Not quite. But not too far ;)

Can you tell me which games you didn't test? huh? huh? Did you not test Assassins creed?

Ahah, nice one. Well, I didn't test any World of Warcraft.

How and where can I get a job as a game tester.

I googled like for months and got jobs in many companies, I went for the first one who gave me to sign a contract.

So, I'd say try to google it up, places like Germany and Canada are full of these kind of jobs.

How would you recommend getting a job like yours in the gaming industry? What courses did you take/experience do you need to get a foot in the door?

Well, I started learning an extra language properly. I was studying programming, so IT experience was covered, and, of course, a quite broad experience in videogames (as long as you start mentioning very old and niche games as your personal favourites, you are good to go).

Cool, thanks for the reply! I'm actually thinking of taking an IT program (my friend took the exact same program and now makes 20 bucks an hour browsing Reddit at an ISP all day). As for niche games, I got that covered! My dad brought home a 3DO one day with like 90 games for it, they'll eat that stuff up! (Plus bitches love the 3DO)

Go for it then! Just be confident in yourself and sell yourself highly.

How does one test a game? Is there a process or did you just randomly go about? How long could testing a game take?

Well, sometimes you get a checklist and you simply have to go through it. It might contain the names of every single level, the name of every item you should test or simply each line of text you should read in-game.

Most of the times we would have a first part where you had to finish the game as soon as possible and unlock everything, then go back and check every minor part carefully.

Some other times you had a specific area and you were told to just mess around and do crazy stuff; as they weren't too common, I kind of liked these. You could spend 1 hour just running straight into a wall, while glamorously sipping your coffee, and state it was all for testing purposes.

How I miss those days!

1: whats the biggest game you worked on? 2: how is the job? and if bad, can you still enjoy videogames?

1:

Biggest game I have worked on was one of the Metal Gear franchise. We had several teams all over the world and with different time zones and we actually had to work around 11 hours a day for several weeks.

But in size, I believe one title of a very famous action stealth game. We had something like 5 teams working on it for quite some months.

2:

The job can be really fun or utterly annoying. I really depends on the project manager and your team, the title comes second.

I have worked in very amazing projects and hated it. And worked in titles I disliked but enjoyed it and actually felt quite sad when it ended.

In some projects you get also very close contact with the Project Manager in charge, so sometimes you can be surprised by team pizza or simply some donuts. That always made our day!

I can still enjoy videogames, but I still have some bits of my jobs in me (my mind focuses a lot on minor details and very small bugs).

is it truly as glamorous as it seems?

How many tedious bug tests do you have to do? Or is it more of a test of the levels and gameplay rather than meticulous tests?

also, what is your opinion of burritos/hot pockets/ramen? Oh and of course weed.

Well, it is a very weird field. You get days where you work your ass off and seem like you are underpayed. Other days seem to fly: you are there in your testing room, fill with good buddies, playing a multiplayer shooter and just having a laugh. Even the manager joins in and tells a joke or two. It really depends on the team you are and the people you have around you.

As I said before, I got projects which were supposed to be awesome, but due to poor management and very low teamwork (yeah, teamwork is important in testing as well) the project ended up being unpleasant.

Other kids dancing game, which, on the other hand, became one of the best ones; just because you had a laugh all day long.

For the second question, I must answer: it depends. Some projects required us to be meticulous tests: test each single item that is available in the game, even flag every single dialog line that has been seen in-game. Some others were more free testing and just wander around the map and try to break the game.

Love burritos and ramen. Kinda like the hot pockets.

Thumbs up for weed!

How did you become a game tester/translator? Was it just a job or were you interested in the game industry?

I gave myself a whole year to find a job abroad. At first I never of working as a tester. But google started giving more and more results containing 'game tester'. So, I became interested in it and used it as a keyword for my searches.

I was actually interested in working in the gaming industry, mainly as a game developer.

After 2 years of QA, I radically changed my mind; it is not for me. But I would still go for a QA position (Lead Tester or higher).

Ironically I just posted this along with some other questions on r/gamedev (http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/19ngki/school_and_games/) what did you go to school for? What do you think needs to change in the industry to make it better?

I studied as Head technician, Computer Technology. So, I got a good background of programming (desktop and web), systems, networks, maths and probability.

Well, the industry needs much better equipment and better management. Some projects were awful only because of the PM we/they had.

top 5. games you have tested?

1. One featuring a guy in the past who likes to sit on benches and disappear (best project I worked on!)
2. One about a young kid and his friends who want to gather some spheres.
3. Another about a guy and some zombies in Las Vegas.
4. One about a, now old, stealth soldier and nuclear weapons, quite of a snake.
5. And one about a son of a king living a warm country. He likes to jump around, if you know what I mean. :P

I'm about to start a new job in QA on Monday. Any advice?

1. Start making friends in the management side (they will pick you over others if they can choose who they want to work with).

2. Enjoy the first week. And I am honestly saying this, you are probably going to start with other 'beginners' and they usually have some sort of training session; our lasted a week, more or less. This was, in my opinion, the best period of my entire experience while working there.

You get to bond with people in the same situation and have so much fun; I mean, you are playing videogames!

Then it will get only harder and more frustrating. Get there and enjoy it :).

Good luck with your new adventure!

Many thanks, I appreciate the advice! I'm pretty excited. They haven't directly told me what I'm going to be working on, but I have an idea. I know it's going to be a MOBA... a legendary one. ;)

You're right about being with a group of beginners. At the interview they mentioned having to fill 10 positions.

Oh nice! So, yeah, try to hook up with the nicest ladies and make a buddy or two :D

I kind of miss that feeling of excitement :)

One more question for you. So the HR person has been kind of a ditz. She's been telling me she would be emailing me some paperwork and an employee handbook for 3 weeks now. I've emailed and called and emailed and called, and oddly she always says 'I'll do it later', but never does. I have no idea what the dress code is. Any advice? I managed to find a single picture of the staff at the office, they were all wearing jeans and tshirts...but I think the picture might have been from a holiday party. I've even directly asked the HR person, and she even blew of answering me directly. All very weird. Any thoughts? At this point I'm planning on wearing either nice jeans or some khakis, along with a plain black long sleeved shirt. I don't want to deal with the HR person anymore, because I don't want to be making waves before I even start day 1. Again, thanks!

I would say to go there wearing some casual but still classy clothes (a pair of jeans and a black shirt will do). So you can never be wrong and you can then adapt accordingly.

About the HR, I can just say that it is such a common thing that I would just say to go for it and relax. There could be plenty of reasons for them to be like that (one above all: they are lazy :P).

What are your typical hours?

Have you thought about working in Quality Assurance for non-video game software?

Do you think video game QA suffers (or more accurately your salary) from the idea that "you are just playing video games all day"?

We were working from 8 to 16.

I am actually working in QA for a non-videogame, I am working as QA tester and Testing architect for a software house. So yeah :) But I must say that I miss some bits of the videogame industry, especially those days when the new build didn't arrive and you could just crash on the couch and wait for the build.

I am not sure the salary is related to that fact. QA companies know the importance of a proper tester, Dev companies do know the importance of a proper testing phase (I have seen many companies not caring but of their tests and having to literally waste thousands of dollars because of it; [note: the first submission of a game is for free, the following ones require the payment of a fee which increases with the attempts. Many games get stuck at submission phase and get waived because of that]). I believe we don't get payed a lot because devs want to have cheap testing and there are loads of people wanting to do the job. That's capitalism in action.

Of course, we suffer when we get to go to our friends or even to the girl you just met at the bar and you start talking about your job. You either are honest about it and start saying 'I am a game tester' and she will surely be like 'Ooooh, so you get payed for playing videogames. Cool!'. Or you just more subtly say: 'I work in the videogame industry, I work on videogames. blablabla. Your dress is amazing!'.

How does one get your job?

1. Google
2. Find companies
3. Send emails
4. Do tests
5. ???
6. Job
7. PROFIT!!!

seems legit. he even said google not bing so i trust OP

Bing won't work.

The funny thing is that most of the people don't know that; 83% of the population of planet Earth still uses it.

Has testing video games taken the excitement out of playing video games?

Well, I must say that I enjoyed testing some games. As I said earlier, I find myself enjoying much more multiplayer games and look more at every small bug. I still can enjoy games; I believe the reason is that if a game is good and big, you can test it even for months, without hating it.

Are you staying for overtime today?

Of course!

http://i.qkme.me/3t8wnx.jpg

Yeah, I have to agree on that.

You won't see games in the same way, for sure.

How would I get an application? Why do I need to get accepted? And are there any age restrictions?

Well, find the company you want to work for and send them an email.

Mmmh, not sure about your question; if you want to get a paycheck, they should accept you, right?

As far as I know, minimum 18 years old. Never seen anyone younger, but it depends on the company and how they call it. Some companies have 'student internships', which is another way to say 'we get really young people to work for free'.

Sorry I meant what do I need to get accepted and what are they looking for? And what company should I apply for? I need something to get on my feet after college this year, something bigger at least.

I can't really suggest anyone in particular, it depends on where you are willing to go for the job. It could be US, Canada, Europe.

For the first question, I would say to read a bit on bug reporting (not necessarily videogame bugs) and state you have 'some experience in bug reports and QA databases'.

For the rest, you should show you are willing to work a lot of hours on boring titles (that's mainly it). Being just a videogame tester isn't much of a big deal, it gets harder and more extensive when you are something like junior QA, meaning you can become senior and so on.

what is the difference between a gametester and someone who plays a lot of games? i think ive been a professional gametester for 25 years

Well, you got A LOT of documentation to write and quite some procedures to follow.

For example, you think something might cause a bug, you should test it (usually several times) and reproduce it. Once you can get it once, you need to reproduce it at least 5 times or more and then you should write a whole bug report (some of them can be quite long and tedious).

Imagine that 1 bug report, if you are fast, takes 4/5 minutes. Daily you get to report a minimum of 10 bugs (if the project is new and you are not lazy).

So, playing a videogame is quite different from testing it.

But, there are projects in which you should get acquainted with the game, so they basically tell you to play the game (do a playthrough); which is awesome. Only in that case, you are payed for playing.

Proof?

You either have to choose between me giving you as much info as possible or getting my face and name out there.

I am in the credits of several videogames but you will read my full name.

Sorry about that. I hope you can still find some interesting questions to ask.

You can submit the proof confidentially to the moderators here if you wish to remain anonymous, otherwise you can post to /r/casualiama as they don't require proof.

I have contacted you.

I am so, so sorry bro.

Sorry? Why? :P

It is kind of fun, the first 6 months. Especially if get good games! :D

As someone who was stuck testing NHL Breakaway '98 for 3 months, back in 1997, I am also so, so sorry bro.

MORE CORN!: Of course getting paid $7.50 an hour as a 15 year old kid was kind of awesome. I pulled a lot of 72 hour shifts fueled by 24 packs of Mountain Dew. I was the youngest tester, I think the other, older guys were using coke, speed and various amphetamines. Good thing I didn't pick up a drug habit then, I waited until college.

Well, I also was the youngest one; not as young as you though.

And yes, sadly, many people manage to get to the end of the day with monstrous doses of energy drinks, which is kind of sad.

I have never tried it, but some people often went to work stoned, it must be quite of an experience; especially while testing some really crazy kids games :P

How much is your life a likeness of Grandma's Boy?

You know what, I discovered that movie just today and only because of this post.

I will take some time and watch it and come back to you as soon as possible :)

[deleted]

I would say google it up as 'Game Tester <insert country of interest>'. Expect to receive tests from them.

If you can speak more than a language, you improve your chances quite a lot.

What do you know about "Destiny"?

Release dates? Price? Platforms?

No idea, sorry :(

Im a tester for UWE ( Natural Selection 2 )
Sounds like you are only testing single player games.
Anyways... Is there no reproduction of bugs, or testing the fixes by your part? Or do you just play the game from start to finish and report the bugs as they occure? Did you have any QA responserbilities?
And since you did nothing but test, how did the Devs respond to feedback or surgestions?
Did you have a healthy relationship and good communication whit the devs when it came to the feedback?

We were testing any type of game. But we got far more single player ones (for example on DS).

We were reproducing bugs (before reporting a bug it MUST be reproducted at least 5 times, or less for linguistic ones), if that is what you are asking.

And yes, we were testing the fixes. We had a special part of the following testing round, especially for 'closed as fixed' bugs.

We tested the game and, as the bug occurred, noted it down, shared with the team and, eventually, reported it; but this depends on the formation of the teams and on the project itself (some projects forced us to have more teamwork and share information before reporting anything to the main DB of the developer).

Can you be more precise in QA responsibilities? I worked from documentation part to testing and, sometimes, managing parts of a project.

The last 2 questions really depend on the client we had. Sometimes we had a client who would communicate with us directly, sometimes through our Lead Tester/Project Manager and sometimes we would even had to wait weeks before an answer.

Crash on boot. SHIP IT!

The game crashes 30% of the times? Good enough! We will just provide a patch later on.

I too got a Dota 2 beta Key. AMA anyone.

LoL, wanna play sometimes? :P

Did u ever test a game u thought totally sucked but became a hit?

Well, not really a hit. But there are games that, just for being from a certain company, seem to sell much more than others (and they are very bad, in my opinion)