Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

How Does One Become a Game Tester? 51

Posted by Cliff from the a-want-ad-with-serious-wang dept.
Rick the Red asks: "This is similar to other stories about game development. I'm a software tester, and I just saw this job posting: 'Jobs just do NOT get any better than this! We have multiple openings at one of the world's most successful software companies for experienced game testers of varying skill levels! Platforms and tools are not important. If you love video games and have at least 6 months experience you CANNOT miss this awesome opportunity!' OK, I'm an experienced software tester, and I have video game experience of varying skill levels, but I have zero professional game tester experience. Damn! So, how does one get experience if the jobs all require experience? I know, it's the age-old question, but are there any game-testing-specific answers?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

How Does One Become a Game Tester? More

How Does One Become a Game Tester?

Comments Filter:
  • ...and you can have my experience (about 5 mo.). It isn't what you think it is going to be. :-(

    -Derek
  • - 6 months to 5 years experience as a professional video game tester REQUIRED!

    Platforms and tools are not important. If you love video games and have at least 6 months experience you CANNOT miss this awesome opportunity!

    Gee, 6 months to 5 years, that's quite the discrepancy. "Tools not important". I find the scattering of words like "awesome" and "hottest" pretty entertaining. With those strict requirements, I bet it pays a pretty low wage.

    I'd be suspicious of this job: some things are too good to be t

  • I write games for a living. (Score:3, Informative)

    by mcgroarty ( 633843 ) <brian DOT mcgroarty AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @12:36AM (#5603658) Homepage
    I write games for a living. And let me tell you... when we're bearing down on release, and you're the dude who's making the lists that keep me from going home nights, you don't want to be a game tester. What you do may well be important, but I'm still going to hate you for it. And I'm going to let you know. Loudly. :-)

    Seriously, though. It's one of those positions where the best thing you can do is find a friend who's already connected with the company, however remotely. You need good written English skills, to be able to play through a few well-known games and talk about them, and sometimes you'll need to pass a drug test. If you've got those three covered, you just need to know somebody (anybody!) or be in the right place at the right time. No other magic required.

    • And let me tell you... when we're bearing down on release, and you're the dude who's making the lists that keep me from going home nights, you don't want to be a game tester. What you do may well be important, but I'm still going to hate you for it. And I'm going to let you know. Loudly. :-)

      [mode person=gametester_from_hell]
      Well.. I HATE your current game. And I'm going to keep bothering you until I have no reason anymore to think why it sucks. Oh, and there's that annoying bug in that scene that has a

      • Half way through "HATE" I would've grabbed your list and stormed off. You'd be inverted in a trash can with said coffee on top.
        • Heh, I sympathise, even though I brought up the character :-) I actually knew a QA person who was almost exactly like that (tester from hell). I never developed games, but that person worked at a project involving boring database/web/cgi stuff in perl and C. Needless to say, that girl hated the product. I got my best bugreports from her though :)

          It seems that games and application development have their parralels :)

    • ...and sometimes you'll need to pass a drug test

      Oh no! I don't want to have to start taking drugs to get a game tester job! Guess I'll have to pick something else.
  • This job was submitted by Excell Data, which describes itself as providing "information technology consulting and systems integration services providing a broad portfolio of service offerings to Global 1000, high velocity middle market and dot-com startups." In other words, they're headhunters. The person who wrote this listing probably knows jack about what the job actually involves, and is just trying to get in as many resumes as possible. So they wrote the sexiest blub they could think of.

    Sounds to me

    • This job was submitted by Excell Data, which describes itself as providing "information technology consulting and systems integration services providing a broad portfolio of service offerings to Global 1000, high velocity middle market and dot-com startups." In other words, they're headhunters. The person who wrote this listing probably knows jack about what the job actually involves, and is just trying to get in as many resumes as possible. So they wrote the sexiest blub they could think of.

      True. Or the

      • It is common practice among recruiters to post ficticious jobs just to harvest resumes.

        Actually it doesn't matter if the job exists. The big danger with most recruiting firms is that they spam every company with every resume they can get their hands on. Which means you're likely to get multiple submission to a given company, ruining your chances for any job with that company.

        Of course. an obviously fictitious job is a strong indicator that the headhunter pulls crap like that. But it can happen even if t

        • News to me. I've been in the industry for longer than I care to think about, and everyone I've known has used "headhunter" just to mean "recruiter". I've even heard it used that way in other industries.

          I don't have a slang dictionary from 20 years ago to look it up in but that was how it was explained to me. Since you have been 'in the industry' for a long time could you tell me the origin of the term? And is there another term currently in use to describe an recruiter who contacts executives and profess

          • Here we go again. I hear this argument at least once a week. People are trained to treat dictionaries as the ultimate authority on language. I call this the Dictionary Fallacy. Dictionaries are not issued by the Language Gods. They're just somebody's attempt to describe the way words are used. Referring to a dictionary to the exclusion of what people actually say is absurd. That's especially true for slang!

            As with all slang, "headhunter" is used informally by loosely affiliated groups of people. Different

            • Here we go again. I hear this argument at least once a week. People are trained to treat dictionaries as the ultimate authority on language. I call this the Dictionary Fallacy. Dictionaries are not issued by the Language Gods. They're just somebody's attempt to describe the way words are used. Referring to a dictionary to the exclusion of what people actually say is absurd. That's especially true for slang!

              That is true for slang... only because it is slang. But to extend your reasoning to the entire Eng

  • I know several game testers, and none of them had any testing (game or software) experience - they walked in and demonstrated that they loved games, and had the patience to sit through test after test after test. I do hear that play-testing is an infinitely better job than straight bug testing, as you're more there to offer feedback on the gameplay and balance, but it's also a position that's usually filled these days by the customers inbetween release and the first patch :D
  • Some of the recent game tests that didn't require experience were Earth and Beyond (for which i got in, downloaded the thing and forgot all about it), The War Craft III expansion, and prior to that War Craft III itself. For some experience i would try going around the websites of othe various well known gaming companys such as blizzard, EA and westwood (westwood no longer exists, but just as an example).
    • There's a big difference between game testing and participating in an open beta.

      QA folk have to mercilessly replay every nook & cranny of the game looking for buggies. Worse yet, when found the next step: Play the buggy area over & over until you can provide a "recipie" for recreating the bug.

  • Hmmm (Score:2)

    by zulux ( 112259 )
    Find a defunct, small, game company that use to exist on the opposite side of the country. You suddenly rememeber that you use to work for them. Congratulations, you now found some experience.

    And yes, people pull crap like this all the time.

    • What bugs me is how easy it is to get away with this. Knew a guy who got a Director-level job based partly on a bogus PhD. When his company folded, he asked me to hand his resume around. He misspelled the name of the University he was supposed to have graduated from! The mind boggles.
    • Yeah, we had a guy try to do this once. Said he worked over at Westwood. Just so happened our boss' brother and uncle were ex-bigwigs over at Virgin/Mastertronic, which Interplay had a stake in, so he knew the QA Manager over at Westwood, too. (Remember when Interplay had its fingers in every pie?) Started asking him questions about Westwood. Guy didn't get the job. Key words in the above post..."small" and "defunct".

  • Simple steps to game testing (Score:3, Funny)

    by alannon ( 54117 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @01:45AM (#5604230)
    Step 1: Remove pants
    Step 2: Bend WAY over
    Step 3: Bite down on something sturdy
    Step 4: Squeeze your eyes shut

    Congrads! You're now a game tester!

    Seriously. Actually talk to someone that's DONE it. Never, ever take a job like that is you actually enjoy playing games as it will kill your love for them forever. Perhaps it would make a good cure for a game addict, however...
  • Game testers get paid low wages for the often frustrating and mind-numbing work they do on pre-alpha through beta quality "games," and put in horrendous hours during the crunch times before certain deadlines (before demo releases, be it for online or a show like e3, or for milestones or gold master).

    Game programming (software development) is where the good pay is at for the same hours.
  • 1. Make a website with a gaming aspect (comic, review, etc.)

    2. As it becomes popular (this might take several years)--you will become a blip on the game companies' radar.

    3. Remember to rip/praise the game on your website.

  • To get your 6 months experience, do like I have been doing since late 1997. I have written my own video games [pineight.com], acting as lead coder and lead tester.

  • If there are no actual job listing on the game company's web site for testers, you can easily write a letter to the QA lead and/or HR department you found in the credits of some game from that company with an introduction of yourself and requesting to be notified next time there is a need for new testers (either when a bunch of the current ones quit or there is a major title going beta).

  • Insider's opinion. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've been in the games industry for little bit (6 years) and have worked with various QA departments over the years. Beware I'm a programmer and those actually in QA may think I have a distorted view of reality. There are several distinct breeds (or "pockets") of QA:

    (1) Developer QA teams - in-house at the company making the game. Often in the same building, maybe just the next cubicals over from the development team. Mostly makes sure the game is fun and that the design worked.

    (2) Publisher QA teams - A

  • Are you sure you want to be a tester? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @04:31AM (#5604969) Journal
    I'd suggest you do the following first:

    1. lock yourself up in the broomcloset until the urge to become a game tester subsides. If that doesn't help:
    2. run into a wall several times until the urge to become a game tester subsides. Oh, you're still game for the job? Well:
    3. have your dog sick you in the genitals until the urge subsides. Hmm you don't have a dog huh? Oh well...

    If you can stand that, _AND_ still want to be a game tester, you might be the right man/woman for the job.

    Seriously, being a game tester will totally _spoil_ the games you are testing for yourself. You have to HATE the game to find the smalles bugs in it. The game is done when there's no reason for the game testers to hate it anymore. Oh, and when they can stand playing it several _more_ times.

    It's not at all a glamorous job, and the beginning stages of development of a game is usually painful (for you, blech, lotsa bugreports). pre-pre-pre-alpha-tests are not end-user quality.

    You have been warned :)

    • Seriously, being a game tester will totally _spoil_ the games you are testing for yourself. You have to HATE the game to find the smalles bugs in it. The game is done when there's no reason for the game testers to hate it anymore. Oh, and when they can stand playing it several _more_ times.

      Well, not necessarily. When I was coding pinball machines we had one hardcore tester. Loved pinball, and loved finding bugs in the games. What's more, he could reproduce those bugs when someone else was watching!

  • You make the mistake a lot of job seekers make - Assuming that you have to be a perfect match for the requirements

    You don't. They just give an indication of the sort of skills the company is looking for. You say you have software test experience. That's great! You say you love playing games. That's great! You have qualities that are clearly relevent, and can obviously be presented in a way that show that you are suitable for this career.
  • (Disclaimer: I do not work in games, but I know loads of people who do).

    just do NOT get any better than this! We have multiple openings at one of the world's most successful software companies for experienced game testers of varying skill levels! Platforms and tools are not important. If you love video games and have at least 6 months experience you CANNOT miss this awesome opportunity!

    OK, the idea that you will get paid to play games is misleading. This is not gameplaying for fun. This is running throu
  • So, how does one get experience if the jobs all require experience?

    Three words: Lie on Resume

    During College I had about 2 years of "play-testing" NCAA Football on the PS2, with multiple bug reports and cheats the computer exploited.
  • I once heard being a game tester described as:

    "They put you in a room full of broken toys. As each toy gets fixed, they take it away from you and replace it with another broken toy."

    But seriously - getting a game tester job is a common way into the games industry, especially if you are short on experience. It's long hours and a lot of work, but if you're really wanting to make games for a living it's a way in.
  • Jumpman Zero [jumpmanzero.com] is currently in testing. Sure it's a free game. And sure you'll have to bring your own test equipment....

    But at least you're not stuck play-testing "Elevator Tycoon: The Revenge" for 8 hour stretches.

  • Voice Of Experience. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by immanis ( 557955 ) <immanis.sfgoth@com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @11:48AM (#5607403) Homepage Journal

    I was a game tester for Sony Computer Entertainment of America (989 Studios). My work credits included Crash Bandicoot Warped, Spyro the Dragon, Medevil, and Syphon Filter, among endless counts of PlayStation Underground and Pack-In disks.

    Being a game tester is a great job if you are single, or if you have no bills, or if you have no ambition to be financially successful. We got paid $10.00 an hour (in the San Francisco Bay Area, that amounts to jack and squat), and we worked anything between 40 and 80 hours a week. If we did not like the hours, or the work, or the way we were treated, tough luck, because there were a hundred people waiting at the door to take our place.

    I got in because I knew someone on the inside who put my name on the top. This was how most people who worked there got their jobs. I had an interview, in which I was advised by my insider friend not to wear a "Dope" t-shirt like the previous candidate. The interview was simple, so I thought until I worked there for a while.

    I had the pleasure of working with some of the most unbelievable human beings on the planet. You prolly think I mean that in a good way. But between the guy who fell asleep at his console every day, the guy with mysterious scalp problems, the racist, the interestingly unstable 'nam vet, the people who could not find their asses with both hands and a map, and of course, the guy whose young life was forever changed (arguably ruined) by a 6 year old who had beat him at Street Fighter 8 years earlier (he dedicated his life to being the best Street Fighter player there was. He was a ranked California champion - do they have such things???) - well, these people were unbeleivable. Not that they were all insane. I met some great people, and have some very fond memories of that time.

    We had a bomb threat my very first day. One day, someone fired a shot through one of the windows at us.

    Now, most people have said "For the love of god, don't do it!" I think I can temper my response somewhat. It's a fun job that has it's down times. People think it's all about playing. Sometimes it is. Sometimes, you spend the day plugging in every joystick you have in the house and pressing X-O-UP rapidly because someone yesterday got it to crash that way but they don't remember which controller it was. Sometimes you get to see games pre-alpha before the world. Sometimes you spend a whole weekend with nothing to test other than a PSU disk with nothing but video. Sometimes you test games like Jersey Devil, which make the bile raise up to your throat every time you see the damn main character. And then sometimes, you play through a game so much, that by the time it comes out on the market, you can visit a friend's house and kick their arse without looking.

    To sum up - you get in by knowing someone (or getting very lucky). You stay in by enduring the sweatshop mentality and living with the crazies. And if you hang in there for a long time, put in your due, get a sharp head about you, you might just land the coveted Perm Tester position and the 36k yearly that comes with it.

    • "And if you hang in there for a long time, put in your due, get a sharp head about you, you might just land the coveted Perm Tester position and the 36k yearly that comes with it."

      $36K...gee, if I didn't have to relocate, that would be good (more than I make now.) But since nobody but me lives here (not true, but it sometimes feels like it) I'd be doomed. For all the abuse, that $10 and hour just ain't worth it--and I know what I'm talking about, 'cuz I was telemarketer for 2 years..and I'm still filled w
  • I would suggest finding a small studio and asking if you can test their games part-time without pay. You'll gain experience and you'll find out if you like testing.

    The risk to the company is that you'll tell people about their game, or that you'll quit quickly, so you'll have to convince them otherwise somehow.

    When the game is finished, you'll have a game on your resume and if the company likes you, you might have a job.

    (And when you find bugs, say something like "I was in this awesome firefight which lo
  • Firstly get rid of any ideas that game testing is as fun as enthusiasts believe it is, it will probably be mind-numbingly dull for you. As other posters have pointed out it will pay a low wage (I saw figures from the UK of around 8,000-10,000 GBP, roughly 12,000-15,000 US dollars iirc) and involve poor hours because everyone wants to do it so there's no shortage of replacements. If you do want to get involved with games though I'd suggest other, more skilled, positions. Or maybe lead QA or something rath
    • Testing is a shitty job, but it's also got THE lowest threshold of entry in the game biz. Do well as a tester (hint: know how to communicate well, be enthusiastic, and be willing to work hard) and you'll be promoted to Test Lead, then eventually you can make the jump from testing to development as an assistant or associate producer.

      The sad reality is that a lot of game testers are really lacking in the professional skills they need to leave Test; if you have previous experience as a tester, you should be a

  • Does purchasing Master of Orion III count as game testing?
  • Check out Nintendo's developer site [noa-engineering.com]
  • Game testing is a lot more fun than many other jobs out there, but you have to enjoy bug hunting more than playing games. You have to have a sadistic desire to bring the whole project to a hault for a day during crunch time, and make everyone pissed at you, or you won't do any good.

    The best thing to do if you are having trouble getting in, is to beta test as much as possible, and put that on your resume. Keep your resume concise and to the point, showing efficient literacy. And let them know how much yo
  • ... the same way you'd go about becoming an astronaut!

Slashdot Top Deals

The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst

Close