22
Jan
2010
Being a Game’s Tester?
I just stumpled upon this new show that will be aired on PlayStation Network called “The Tester” and it is basically a competition in which the winner lands a job as a video game tester for Sony.
After watching some of the auditions I can’t help but being reminded of the number 1 misconception from people not in the video games industry … and that is that we get to play games for a living.
The truth is that you will be working on the same game day in and day out for about 2 - 3 years (if we are talking about a AAA title) and not only that, but you will be working on a project that won’t even resemble the game until about a year later.
A lot of people think that being a game tester is cool and fun just based on the idea that you will be playing games the whole day. What you got to ask your self is “Am I the type of person that would love to TEST the same level, same BUGS, and then REPORT on my findings OVER and OVER and OVER again?”.
In the industry testers are also known as QA (Quality Assurance) and just like the QA department in a software house, the testers are responsible for testing every little feature every time a change is made. So in a nutshell you will be testing a certain set of features for every build being generated.
Majority of testers in the industry (at least the ones I have worked with) became testers just so that they can move into other areas of game development later in their careers. Testers seem to move into Production or Design later down the line.
On every project I have worked at in the various game studios there is one thing I have noticed that seem constant, re-design. The game will be re-designed at least once during its life time. So if you are the type of person that would hate to see all of the work you did over the last couple of months just get “shelfed”, then the games industry is not for you, doesn’t matter what discipline you are in (code, art, design)
PS. I can honestly say that I am playing less games now then when I was not in the industry. Same for most of my colleagues. Now it might just be because you get older and get more responsibilities or that after a whole day of working on games, last thing you want to do is play some more at home.
The moral of this post is: Don’t be ignorant (grass is greener), do you research first!
