letsqatest

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.