Anonymous

How to Get a Job as a Game Tester (Switched)

Feb 23rd 2010 3:29AM Well written!
I was once an employee at VMC in Montreal. While most of this article is spot on, I do have to say the salary is more around 15,000$ a year-starting.
Also, what a job like this does is ruin gaming as you once knew it. Every time I pick up a game now, I notice all of its imperfections. To the point where I have an entire new standard for games. Ignorance can be a bliss on occasion.
QA jobs can also impose a type of clockwork when it comes to going through a game. Rather then enjoy it and have fun, I sometimes find myself running through a game like tasks at hand that need to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The "Detail" section of the article forgets to mention that not only do you have to view errors on the game, you have to produce them. You must manipulate the game in a way that would replicate what COULD happen when the game releases. So not only do you HAVE to run through every single executable the game has been programmed for, but also, the ones not.
"Play the game like a f*ucking retard would.". While that quote isn't the most politically correct, it's exactly what the job entails. Of course, if you come across an error, you also have to reproduce it more than once to actually qualify it as an issue for the developer to address. With the addition of online multiplayer to many of today's games these reproducible issues become ten times more difficult to come across, let alone figure out how it occurred.
OH and don't be fooled by all the pretty images you may see laying around the internet. Most the labs you work at when testing video games are not so glamorous.
I could sit here and write for hours on how this job is, but I'll leave it at that.

p.s. The photo at the top of the article is so so wrong. God of War 3 can't be played on anything other than a PS3 due to concerns of self-destructing laptop/Xbox360/PC's.

...even though Xbox360's explode on their own anyways...