IAmA Video Game Tester, AMA!

How accurate is this? http://i.imgur.com/CswqK2j.jpg

OMG first I have seen this comic - very close.

40-80 hours a week is standard during crunch time. The most I have ever worked in a week is 101. I once worked 30 hours straight.

A bug report tends to be just a few lines and you rarely have to restart every time something goes wrong.

Depending on your local labor laws, you are entitled to breaks and lunch.

I have never been given nutrient rich sludge every 8 hours - honestly I feel like I have been screwed! (Jokes aside, some places will pay for your supper if you work overtime. Working OT every day of the week + free fast food every day = The QA 'You gonna get fat' 50 pounds)

I once worked 30 hours straight.

What, why!? How!?

I worked at Activision. 48 hours was my longest shift. Basically boiled down to a broken build, the leads not knowing it was broken let day shift off. Build arrived and it was easier to make us stay with the promise of free food and a rotating nap schedule. I slept under my desk for 2 hours that shift using an unopened roll of paper towels as my pillow.

I would say challenge accepted years ago, but alas - I am too old for this shit now.

Working overnight during crunch time. Rolled over to the next day. Would have stayed longer if my boss had not told me to GTFO.

Paperwork from people dying at their desk is prob pretty crummy to fill out I am guessing.

So I have a question. With a job that has you spending so many hours playing video games do you find it hard to play video games for fun?

Most people go though phases of playing games in their free time to not wanting to play games at all.

I went like 2 years not wanting to play a game. Back to 'normal' now.

No 5 page report, just an entry form in whatever shitty bug tracking software the company decided to spend $0.00 on that month.

JIRA

No that costs quite a bit of money ;)

JIRA isn't all that bad. It is one of the best tools for the task of tracking workloads in a ticket based system. The problem lies in the implementation of JIRA and the plethora of plugins companies install with their 100's of custom fields and ridiculous workflows. Albeit the underlying architecture of JIRA makes those companies instance run like shit so JIRA is good when scoped and maintained but like anything give it to idiots and it becomes shit.

a well maintained and well configured jira instance is a dream.

but 1 in every 1000 jira instances are well configured.

Jira is love, Jira is life

Best/Worst game you testes, and how much are you paid?

Edit: tested, haha

As for the best/worst game I have tested. That is a super hard question.

From a testing standpoint:

The best games I have tested tended to be from indie developers working on their own IP (intellectual property) as they tend to care more about their work and their game and they listen to the opinions of the testers.

The worst games is a bit of a toss up.

a) Any game that focuses on multiplayer. Network testing is soul destroying.

b) Any F2P (Free to play) game that is usually based on an existing IP and is designed for 'Stay at home mothers' and children with access to credit cards. Ethically speaking it makes me sick and the game itself just tends to be unredeemable crap.

Why exactly is network testing "soul destroying"?

It is something that could be automated by one person but rarely is.

Unfortunately, it involves X amount of people to basically not play the game and back in and out of lobbies all day, joining a match and then leave, getting in a match and letting someone kill everyone assap to end the match ect.

Pay varies a lot depending on a bunch of factors such as:

Government labor regulations, salary or paid by hour, type of studio, if overtime is paid, access to bonuses, if benefits are available, if it is contract work, experience, shifts worked, level of responsibility, type of QA.

For a first QA job, you can generally assume minimum wage.

3rd party generally does not pay well and you are generally worth twice the amount they pay you (for example, they will charge a big company say $20 per hour of your time but pay you only 10-13). This is also usually contract work and hours vary (overtime is usually paid)

From my experience, the closer you are working to the developer, the higher you will be paid.

I have been paid as high as $6 over minimum wage per hour.

Jesus. I'm in software QA and I think I started at ~$29 an hour plus OT 5 years ago. Doing QA automation now and making well more than that.

I guess game QA is a lot more contract work than actually working for the company.

Our minimum wage and dollar conversion may be different however.

I have thought about switching to software as I know it pays much more - but I like working in the games industry, its just a personal choice.

If youve been doing this for so long whynis you pay stagnent. I might of missed something but said you were paid 6 dollars over minimum for highest pay.

In QA (and the games industry for that matter) It is common to do contract work for the duration of a project, so people tend to switch companies a lot. In doing so, your pay will most likely fluctuate. Some companies value experience so they will pay you accordingly, others do not care at all and will pay you the same as a new person.

Instead of being unemployed, there are times I took a low paying job and I would aggressively search for something else until I found something better.

Worked for EA yet? I did a little QA there. If you show interest in management of any kind you easily move on up. But yeah generally if you want to stay a basic QA salary is hard to come by.

Which one if you don't mind me asking? The EA in my city has a terrible reputation and I have had friends work there who would rather be unemployed then go back. EA is one of the few bigger studios I have not worked at (only by chance mind you)

I used to work for Tiburon as well, and unfortunately, it wasn't really anything positive. Day 1 they tell you that you will not move up into development or design or the art departments (most of us had degrees in art/programming and applied for exactly this purpose). Day 90, you realize you've been missing your quotas because your manager has been rejecting your bugs and filing them himself.

Out of 9 people hired in my starting group, I was one of 3 not fired after 6 months. A friend I had known for years but had worked in a different group had made himself a nice niche doing exactly that and is the only person I know of to have not either quit in frustration or get fired.

WOW.

All for a bug quota. Sad.

Anywhere that demands a bug quota is the worst btw. If everyone else is pulling in 10 issues a day on avrage, that should be the bar to aim towards.

EA is awful to QA. There's a bunch of people I work with that have worked at EA in the past and the common theme is they don't care about QA they just want to put out a product to make money. Then lay off the entire department once it's released.

Pretty much the story I always hear.

As someone who employs QA, the answer is about supply and demand curve. There are countless 20 year olds who happily sign up to test video games for min wage. When they've stuck around for a few years and know enough to define the test plans and such they can make a little more but they're still not a rare breed.

Unfortunately, I find the vast majority of testers just want to 'play the game and write bugs' - anything more than this they say "This is not my job, I will not do this" and than complain how they have so much experience yet are underpaid :/ smh

Does your job ever bore you to death? Do you still have the desire to game outside of work?

Sometimes work can get dull when you have a crummy task (for example, entering in and out of a multiplayer game lobby all day)

People in QA tend to go through phases when it comes to playing games outside of work.

Sometimes you are really excited about a game you are working on, a type of game you have never played before - so you go home and play a bunch of other similar games for research.

When new to QA, some testers have a hard time playing older games in their own time as they find they become too negative and critical while playing them.

Testers often go through a burn out stage where the last thing they want to see is a game when they leave the office.

The stage I am at now, I can finally enjoy 'the games I like' now outside of work. In my own time, I stopped playing for almost 2 years at a point.

I know one gamer who has never done QA. From speaking to me he has decided that he never wanted to do it as he loves games too much and does not want to 'lose the magic'. I respect that.

This is really similar to the way becoming an independent circuit professional wrestler impacted my love of watching it on TV. I caught myself critiquing the show more than I was enjoying it. I've been out of the business for nearly 10 years now and still haven't found the love of it again.

I've heard similar from athletes in sports. That said, I'm an umpire and I'm the opposite. I've found a love of the games that I officiate that I didn't have before. Though how I watch a game is significantly different than it used to be.

Actually, I can get behind this as well - especially after working closely with developers.

For example, sometimes what makes a sound designer or animator really good is being able to do little subtle sounds and animations that no one ever notices - but if they were not there it would look or sound 'off'

When playing games now, I do stop and smell the roses and appreciate the little things.

How did you get into this line of work?

How much focus is there on programming knowledge? Is the work mainly about discovering glitches and bugs, or are you also supposed to judge the general "feel" of gameplay, level design, and the like?

For a low level QA job, there are no real requirements besides from being able to communicate in the required language (honestly, I have worked with people who could hardly write in English - I even question this requirement.

Understanding basic programming logic can be helpful however.

For example: if I hit this button, it will cause this object to float. What happens if I first pick up the object and then click the button?

I was in college for a subject that I thought was interesting (still do, just not for a job)

I started losing interest and started hanging around the school's 'geeky' club rooms and met a few people who did QA in the summer.

I figured I would take some time off school and do QA for a bit until I figured out what I wanted to 'do with my life'. A few years later I thought to myself 'I could do this for a living' so I never left.

Edit: Spelling

collage

Hmm

Eh you caught me. I would do collages, got sick of that after a while and started testing games for a living.

The main goal of a Quality Assurance Tester is to assure the quality of the product.

The most common job (Functionality Quality Assurance) is to test the game, find issues and then report them to the developers. When the issue is fixed, we go back and make sure that it is working as intended and has not caused any other issues in the process.

Sometimes you may be asked to do something called 'Focus Testing' or 'Play testing' which is usually done the first time you are handed the game. Depending on what the developers want, this is usually the time that you tell them what you liked/did not like, what you found confusing, what you found fun/not fun, what you would like to see more/less of in the game ect. Some developers are open to hearing this information at any point during development though it is not usually a main focus.

When testing a game, is your number one priority finding bugs and/or glitches? Or do you test a mix of things?

For the average QA job that is one of the main tasks, though it really depends on the needs of the developer and project.

There are so many types of QA jobs that I have done, it really is a mix.

Just to name a few w/ basic description:

• Hardware Compatibility testing (Video cards, memory ect)
• Peripheral testing (controllers, mics, headphones ect)
• General Functionally testing (find the bug, write the bug)
• Compliance testing (Each platform has requirements before they allow a game on their system)
• Live QA (Testing a game that is releaced to the public, reproducing the bugs players find)
• Localization testing (Languages)
• Network testing (Multiplayer connections, different internet configurations)
• Save state persistence testing (save everywhere after every little thing you do)
• Soak testing (You leave the game running overnight/lunch hour to see if something breaks)

How soul crushing is Save State Persistence testing?

I have weirdly started to love it.

This may also be an early onset of stockholm syndrome however.

imagine the amount of loading screens q_q

Imgur is my BFF.

Also, loading times tend to be worse in development than after the game is released.

Any time you tested a game and knew immediately it was going to be a massive hit?

I have worked on a bunch of AAA games, and even if they were 'just ok' they would tend to be a hit anyways.

As for indie games, a few times - though they usually ended up more like a cult classic for a niche group.

Does Bethesda have any QA whatsoever before they ship a game?

They would (either in house or 3rd party), but I have never worked with them myself so I have no idea how they work as a studio.

My guess is that they have a small QA team who is overwhelmed with work and developers who choose to ignore issues.

What is your favorite game that you tested but never got released? (I'm assumeing ndas don't apply to things that never got released but they probably do for some reason)

In all honesty, any game that never got released that I worked on was either a port that did not work out or something that was reeeeealy bad.

Cant say due NDAs as the game was never announced (on said platform)

Blink once if the game was red dead redemption

*Dead stare

Cant say due NDAs as the game was never announced (on said platform)

HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED FOLKS.

Next week on IAmA:

IAmA former video game tester who got fired from Valve, AMA

Also send gold, legal fees are not going to pay themselves.

Where can I apply?

It really depends where you live. Some cities are massive hubs for game development, others the game development scene is pretty lacking.

Usually you apply online.

Any website or job code to search for or just "qa" Orr "game tester"

https://www.gamedevmap.com/

Searching for Quality Assurance and QA are the big ones. May find stuff under 'Video Game Tester' (not usually used, just easier to tell people that is what you do)

I also highly recommend Linkedin - I get job offers on there from time to time.

1. At what stage of development do you typically test a game? I assume it's before the public/closed beta.

2. What is your opinion on early access programs, where the public is essentially paying to beta test the game? Do you think that early access is fine, or are you a critic?

3. Does the recent surge of early access and public beta tests affect your job in any way? Do game developers utilize professional game testers like you as much as they used to?

Early Access is fantastic if done right. If done wrong, it can be a total car wreck.

Not everyone, but some people like to be a part of the development process and like to see the 'behind the scenes' of a game in the making. Some people want to support the developer as they are making the game and feel like their game is worth taking a risk for. I think most people want to play a finished game - and that is 100% ok, Early Access is not for everyone.

I think participating in Early Access is also a good way to test out if you would enjoy doing QA work or not. QA, like Early Access is another thing that not everyone will enjoy.

Most early access titles are done by indie developers who in all honesty, cant afford large QA teams. Though QA tends to be under paid, we cost a lot in the end! just a tiny team of 5 basic functionality testers for a year will cost over 160,000 USD alone (not including overtime, the likely need of more testers and more time, management costs or specialized testing)

The surge of Early Access titles does not effect my job per say - it just changes the needs of the developer.

For example, a regular game will require us to test the game and report bugs on early versions of the game until the game is finished and sent to the public.

An Early Access title and games with constant patches and content updates require what we call Live QA. Live QA involves testing the same game that everyone else is playing. They look for issues the community may find or have found and send issues to the devs to fix. Good developers will have people supporting players with their issues on forums and social media. When issues are fixed, the Functionality QA team will test these fixes and the live version of the game will get an update once it is ready. From here, the circle of QA life continues.

For outsourced QA, usually between Late Alpha and Beta. If you are working directly with the developer, you will receive a build (version of the game) as soon as there is one built. The job of Dev QA is to make sure that the game functions enough for other testers (3rd party and Pub QA) to test it in deeper detail.

Hi fellow tester! In my experiences, the male to female ratio of testing staff has been 98% male. Has that changed over the years?

Oohhh, this was a question I was hoping someone would ask!

Your stats are just about right. I am usually outnumbered about 10/1. In quiet months where there is little QA work, I have been the only girl on the testing floor.

And here comes the flood of creepy PMs.

Jokes on them, I am a catfish-whale hybrid.

Girl who plays video games for a living. Get in line boys!

Pretty sure you are joking - but I kid you not, I have had 2-3 confused guys in the past legit go "I have never met a girl who liked games before" o.O

What do you hope to be doing in 5 years?

I really enjoy what I do and I love the company I work for - I would love to stay with them forever if I can.

I have wanted to go back to school to enhance my craft - with the experience that I have, I could easily go into business, marketing, computer science (and perhaps a minor in psychology) and end up with a job right away in the same industry. (I am not an artistic person in the least)

It sounds like your experience would carry over well into software testing in general too. It might not be as fun but the ceiling is a bit higher.

Most likely, and I would be open to give it a shot if I find something interesting.

Hello fellow QA tester! I've just been let go after a big triple A launch along with a lot of other testers (along with op, I'm also under NDA even after my departure)

This unfortunately is common practice in the industry.

What are your experiences/thoughts on temporary contracts and the use/abuse of them to get a title shipped?

Edit: I did a blasphemy and used the word 'game' instead of 'title'

Hey! Love hearing from other QA people :D Sorry to hear about the project :C 3rd party or pub? (also, I use game, title and project interchangeably - no shame there)

I have mixed feelings on temporary contracts, even though I have been on them for the majority of my career.

1) Contracts allow companies to avoid giving you benefits. Usually, you pay part and they pay the other part. We are considered to be costing them too much.

2) Contracts make it easier for companies to let you go once a project is done or if they do not like your work (Crummy worker part is fair mind you)

Contracts are generally scummy and hurt team moral, cause fights between those who get their contracts resigned/not and leave everyone with the impending doom that they could be let go. It hurts when you work your ass off and they keep the lead's lazy friend over you.

My opinion: Do not play their manipulative game. Always keep your resume up to date. Always look for better. Always have plan B ready, never burn bridges.

Have you seen the Black Mirror episode "PlayTest"? If you have what's your perspective on it?

ohh not yet! I think I just stopped watching before that episode (or that was when I realized I started watching form the wrong season lol)

Ill have to watch it and try and remember to come back and comment. *Pinned for future

Great show

Is it frustrating when you point out an obvious mistake/flaw/bug/QoL issue and the Devs or coders ignore your feedback and the game publishes with the flaw?

Have you ever tested a game that was so frakked, you told them to scrap it and start over?

Have you ever been pressured to ignore or overlook clear problems with a game by your bosses or the games designers?

Sometimes, but there is usually a good reason why.

I often see testers get upset when their bug is set as WNF (will not fix), As Designed, Invalid or shipable. Unfortunately, it is impossible to 'fix all the bugs' due to time restraints and fix risk factor. For example, what might appear as a trivial issue to fix may cause other things to break or require a redesign of a system or is actually quite complicated to fix and would require too much time on an already tight schedule. Being able to not take decisions personally is a good trait to have.

I have tested games that were pretty terrible but we do not usually have the power to tell them to 'go back to the drawing board'

Usually what happens there is that you raise your concerns and the developers or publishers will pull the plug accordingly. I have seen games scrapped and redone and I have seen games canceled.

As for ignoring issues, yes. Sometimes there will be features in the game that are either placeholder or there are tasks to fix area in question. These things that need to be ignored may need to be ignored for months sometimes.

Other times, we will be told something like 'we will not be fixing issues of hair clipping into things, do not bug' - and we do not report these issues, for reasons like I mentioned above.

Im studying to be a game developer, any tips to do your work easier? What is the thing that you hate the most from developers?

I would say developers being under the impression that QA is at their knowledge level. This can be particularly hard when working with programmers or level designers. Not that we need to be spoken down to, but understanding that we know what you teach us about deeper elements of the game is appreciated.

Couple questions do you like Grandmas Boy? Do you and other workers ever get into big lan fights to "QA a new game"? Are you trying to make it on to a big developer for a AAA franchise or is that like a lottery win tomget there?

When testing multiplayer games, 'LAN parties' are a part of the job and can be a lot of fun when you get a chance to just 'play'.

In all honesty, testing multiplayer is not as fun as it sounds. A good chuck of it is network testing - it is soul destroying.

Also, depending on a bunch of people to work as one can be super frustrating. Your coworkers being AFK (bug writing, bathroom/coffee breaks ect) ughh. It's the worst.

"Okay, I'm shooting the gun on my screen. Do you see the bullet holes on your screen?"

"All right, I'm disconnecting. Is the character still there for you?"

Pretty much.

Do you and other workers ever get into big lan fights to "QA a new game"?

When working in a studio that has multiple games in development, it is very rare that you can choose which game you get to work on (not sure if that was what you were asking? Or is this for 'everyone LAN on a project they are testing?. Ill answer both lol)

Usually you end up on a project in a few ways:

a) There was a seat that needed to be filled and you won the lottery.

b) Management liked you and you were requested.

c) You are really good friends with management.

b) You managed to talk your way on to the project. There is a right and a wrong way of doing this. Can come back to bite you in the end.

Ah Grandma's Boy - Classic. It's been a while, I'll need to rewatch it.

Sometimes it's a bit far fetched - but it's fun to pick apart it's flaws.

When testing is it true you don't actually get to do the fun part of the game, like your main goal is to find the things that are broken?

And what's your favorite development team you've game tested for

You have to redefine 'fun' I guess is what it comes down to.

Say if you are working on a puzzle game. It is only really fun when you solve every puzzle once - where you find your fun is trying to find ways of breaking it, comparing your bug stats to other testers like a leaderboard, and finding the funniest or most interesting bugs.

I imagine you job consists of trying to expose glitches as quickly as possible (among other things) what's the first thing to do when trying to 'break' a game?

Breaking a game is usually about being creative.

You have an objective to click a button and then pickup a ball. This is what players are more apt to do.

But what happens if you first pick up the ball and then press the button? If something unintended happens, especially if it breaks progression or causes the game to crash - this is considered breaking the game.

Favorite game system PC included?

For personal use, PC all the way. Having to buy a whole new console every few years really bugs me (my Wii U is my #1 purchase regret)

For testing:

PC > Xbox > Play Station > Mobile > Nintendo

Would you mind going into a little detail as to why you dislike testing for Nintendo?

Nintendo is hard to work with and their development kits are not as flexible as other consoles/PC (may have gotten better, its been a few years since I last worked on Wii U, have not worked on the switch yet)

Also, if the game is cross platform - it never runs as well as the other consoles partly due to console power.

Hell yes. What setup do you run?

Nothing very impressive, I actually need to upgrade my graphics card - I must have been drunk when I thought a GTX 650 would be enough for my humble gaming preferences :/

What's your favorite gaming platform (PC, Xbox, PlayStation, etc)?

For personal use, PC all the way. Having to buy a whole new console every few years really bugs me (my Wii U is my #1 purchase regret) For testing: PC > Xbox > Play Station > Mobile > Nintendo

(I answered this question above if you want to carry on the convo)

Hi Game Tester, thank you for doing an AMA with us today! My questions are: * What is the eeriest/scariest game you've ever tested? * What is your unpopular video game opinion?

Thank you

I am pretty lucky that I have never had to test a horror game - thank god. One of my number 1 fears doing QA (I don't do too well with that sort of stuff...)

Mind you, even if it was a horror game, it probably would not be too bad to test. In early stages you are missing some of the key assets that make scary games scary - and once you learn the maps and triggers - I suppose it would be a walk in the park.

Unpopular video game opinion? I think AAA games are over rated.

What companies would one apply for to become a video game tester?

Every one, even if it does not appear that they are looking.

With no experience, 3rd party is most likely BUT it is possible to go straight to a developer or publisher with no experience - requirements fluctuate depending on who is managing the place. (Hiring people with no experience = they are looking to save money, Hiring experienced people = they either value quality or they are lacking experienced testers for probably not good reasons)

What sort of mechanics do you enjoy testing most? Has this affected how you experience games you play for pleasure?

Good question.

I would say breaking quest logic. This can happen when doing something out of order from what you were expected to do or switching tasks and returning to what you were doing ect.

How has your job changed since the mid 2000s? When I was in high school only a few years ago, I heard a friend's friend was getting paid to test games and I wanted to do that. But a lot of games now are done with open/closed betas.

When I started, there was a heavy focus to finish the game and release it. Usually bugs are known and developers would release a day 1 patch to address issues that are on the disk. After the game was finished, everyone would be moved projects or let go.

Now, we see a lot more episodic games, season passes, Early Access titles and regular DLCs. There is more of a focus of the long term after the game is released then leading up to the release. Project ramp downs are a lot more gradual instead of massive layoffs and often a smaller team is left for new content coming and another small team for Live QA testing.

Hey, what games do you actually play for fun?

I am a big fan of indie titles personally. I am pretty open to types of games though I do have a kink for "pretentious experimental art games"

1-. How often does it happen that the developer team ignore the QA feedback? 2-. Does been a tester has an influence on your casual gaming life? if so, how so?

It really depends on the team. Some developers really care what we have to say - others could not care less and will not budge.

For my casual gaming life, it does.

1) I have this constant itch to see what happens if I do something the game is not expecting me to do.

2) Finding major issues in a game causes me to get pissed asking "WHO DID QA ON THIS?!?" and then text a friend I know who worked on it and poke fun at them

3) Knowing how some larger AAA studios function, I find them unethical and I do not want to buy or play their games.

Do you feel bad about masterbating to a Lara Croft doll and ejaculating onto Jeffs mom, while Jeff slept in a sweet race car bed in the next room?

If I had a penis, I would not feel bad in the slightest!

transgender gets me everytime

Female for the record lol