Man when I was a kid, all I wanted to be in life was a game tester.
Then I grew up and found out what being a game tester entailed.
Now when I look back at myself as a kid, it’s like I grew up wanting to be a crash test dummy or something.
^_-;
I tested for 9 months at EA in 2005. I was lucky in that I worked with awesome people, and while they were able to make the job more enjoyable the job still sucked overall. I’d only do it again as a foot in the door kind of thing.
I think everybody at one point says “I want to grow up and be a video game tester!”. I’ve never done it, but I had visions of grandeur at the time. I’d still like to do it if I had the chance.
I don’t think I’d ever want to be a game tester. If my job involved playing video games, I’d probably end up hating them.
I want to see what kinds of weird stuff was discovered while testing a fighting game.
Testing is not the awesome job you would think it is. As previously stating, say goodbye to your life and hello to 10-16 hour work days.
I’m so happy to be out of that shit, now I’m a Community Manager and get to troll our company forums all day!
Damn, getting paid to be a forum troll? Nice.
Depends on the studio. Where I’m at, most people here actually enjoy coming into work, because the environment is much more lax compared to other studios (via word of mouth from some producers who transfer here, etc.). But as with any job, the environment, and your co-workers, definitely make or break the experience.
What other’s have said though, there are lots of hours to be had, and generally the game you’re on probably won’t seem like a game after the first 2-3 days.
Surprisingly, despite the job seemingly being accessible to anyone with a brain, there are tons of people each year that come through, and just have no idea how to do this shit right. They either cannot write bugs to save their life, don’t know how to find important issues, or think that they’re there to insert gameplay design changes 1 week before the game is scheduled to be finished.
I enjoyed it when I was there. yes for the first few weeks it was hell but when you enter a project during crunch time they tell you what will happen so I had no reason to complain. I moved up to Standards over time and that was a far better fit for me in the realm of testing. I was unhappy to be let go but I was still a temp in a prem position so nothing i could do. That was a year ago but I did learn a lot doing it. I have a new respect for games being made good and bad as well as the Developers and Production teams and loathe at so many of the idiot comments from people who will just never know what it’s like.
The people I worked with were all cool so even at the worst the games I tested then were still tolerable due to the great co-workers around me. Good times I will miss but life goes on…
Yup, basically. But it is a lot of fun, at least it was over at THQ where Infini and I tested.
People acting like it sucks are full of shit, If you enjoy gaming you should enjoy it. My experience was like this. Every week or so the programmers and designers would have some new content that was worked on (maybe a level) and it was our job to play through it. Any thing glitchy or strange we would go onto a forum like this and report. As for the interview, I would just expect a lot of questions regarding your ability to identify issues.
How well has QA worked for anyone in this thread in getting their foot in the door? I’m interested myself but aren’t most of these jobs only temporary?
That sounds fucking awful. Playing games all day sounds fun but if you’re playing to find all the bugs and problems then you’re basically actively searching for everything in games that you hate. Don’t think I could do that.
I know a couple of people who did QA for a bit while they finished their degree in programming or what-have-you. I don’t know of anyone who started with QA and climbed the ladder from there without any additional schooling or certifications. You can get to be QA Lead, but that’s about as far as it’ll take you, unless you’re Mythic?
I got my best friend a testing gig, and now he’s a technical director with absolutely no formal training. Work hard, show a willingness to learn and to adapt and you never know.
If I could give you one advice for writting bugs, it would be that you must fine a nice balance between giving information and being concise. I go through so many bugs in a day that I’m in no mood to read a novel.
To paraphrase the Great Dr Sub-Zero:
My friend liked it so much he needed to get shot at instead.