On June 08 2010 00:02 Chill wrote:
This is the worst thread. There's no alternative. It's like "Should I have sex with this girl?" There is seemingly no downside so the answer is yes.

I've made the thread because I know it looks like the perfect job until you actually get it. I wanted to know the opinions of others, if they had that job once, how it really was etc.

Saturnize

United States2473 Posts

June 07 2010 15:21 GMT

#25

i hear they don't pay very well

Its not like every game is great... there is a reason they have video game testers

huameng

United States1133 Posts

June 07 2010 15:49 GMT

#26

On June 08 2010 00:11 Zhek wrote:

Show nested quote +

I've made the thread because I know it looks like the perfect job until you actually get it. I wanted to know the opinions of others, if they had that job once, how it really was etc.

I think the idea is... if you aren't gonna be a game tester, what are you gonna do? Sit on your ass all day? Clearly being a game tester is a better job than no job.

It's a pretty shitty job though.

Excalibur_Z

United States12278 Posts

June 07 2010 15:51 GMT

#27

I don't see what's so bad about the thread. There are two opposing camps when it comes to game testing: those who view it through the eyes of an avid game player, and those who envision a sweatshop. Neither are true, really, but of course it depends on the company who would be employing you.

I did QA at various companies, paid (EA, Namco) and unpaid (every Blizzard beta since Diablo2 [I consider this to be unpaid testing considering I've sent hundreds of formal bug and error reports to Blizzard for all those games]), for about 6-7 years. How much enjoyment you'll get out of it is completely dependent upon your state of mind and your passion for helping to develop a quality game. I viewed testing through the fairly uncommon lens of promotion to the design or production team, but that's not always a possibility depending on your employer. That said, I did get promoted through QA tester to QA lead to Producer, so it's not impossible and your experiences may vary. Your chances of being promoted depend heavily on your personal drive and the size of the company, though that naturally applies to just about every job.

One big downside to testing is you have to be willing to work potentially a lot of hours. At EA it was common for us to work 60-80 hours during crunch time, and a couple of weeks at Namco I racked up 100 hours. Let me tell you that it can be really annoying if you ordinarily have plans to go home and play Starcraft (which I did) or, even worse, if you have a girlfriend that demands your attention (which I did toward the latter half of my testing job). You're basically not going to have much of a social life in the event that you need to be at work for 16 hours a day, or some days even 24-hour shifts. I've only done about 6 24-hour shifts throughout testing, and while you get really tired really fast, it's sort of an oddly exhilarating experience. When you're working with the rest of your testing team, things can be a lot of fun. You can have competitions and bets to see who can beat the level or game the fastest, losers chip into a pot for food on the next overtime shift. My personal experience is that your team almost becomes comic caricatures of themselves, which is weird: at EA my team was a guy who tried to get away with sleeping most of the day, an aspiring modeler/animator guy who snapped his fingers and pointed at the screen whenever he found a crash bug, an aspiring CS1.6 CAL-M player, a dbag who thought he was better than everyone, and a really soft-spoken guy. My lead was a Korean who was learning to play War3, and I remember I asked him to translate some SC VODs but he couldn't recognize what the announcers were saying because of their accents. Fun times.

The upside is testing rewards creativity. Some companies require you to adhere strictly to test plan documents, and having to sit there and mark checkboxes all day is naturally the antithesis of fun, but there's always plenty of time for "free testing". If you have a creative and analytical mind, it can be fun trying to look at the game from a developer's perspective and thinking how a level or feature is put together. For example, if you see 5 bridges in a platformer game and they all look identical, chances are it's the same asset used 5 times, so if you jump in between the seam where the bridge meets the land and fall through it, that may happen on all of them. I found stuff like that to be interesting. Some of the bugs you find you will invariably be proud of, too. I found one bug in Medal of Honor: Frontline that I believe is still in the game because it occurred even in the retail PS2 version (my team was doing Gamecube localization) where if you use a rocket or grenade to kill yourself while propelling your corpse over the finish line of a stage, you'll start the next stage with 0 hp and enemies won't attack you unless you attack them first.

If it sounds like something that interests you, then go for it. It's not a sweatshop but you can't always keep the schedule you want (again depending on the company), and it's not a ticket to be a designer but it's not impossible either.

Ragnorak

Australia54 Posts

June 07 2010 15:51 GMT

#28

Zhek

Canada342 Posts

June 07 2010 15:56 GMT

#29

Wow, thanks Excalibur_Z! That's pretty much exactly what I wanted to know :D Now I'm a bit more excited about the job, to be honest. I don't have much of a social life (and won't have one anyway, I have to move to get to the job) and I'm fairly creative. I'm currently working on a 3d animation portfolio, so having a job as a QA Tester helps me to see how things work and how I should modify my workflow to fit with a game develloping environment.

Chill

Calgary26004 Posts

June 07 2010 16:31 GMT

#30

On June 08 2010 00:11 Zhek wrote:

Show nested quote +

I've made the thread because I know it looks like the perfect job until you actually get it. I wanted to know the opinions of others, if they had that job once, how it really was etc.

Well, how about some insight. Do you have a job now? Do you have any prospects? It's like I can boil this thread down to "Should I get a job?" to which the answer is yes.

Chill

Calgary26004 Posts

June 07 2010 16:34 GMT

#31

On June 08 2010 00:11 sybris wrote:
what? are you seriously saying they're seemingly no downsides to being a game tester? come on..

Given the alternative is 'do nothing' then yes, there is no downside.

Helium

59 Posts

June 07 2010 17:01 GMT

#32

I don't get it, where does he say he's going to 'do nothing' as alternative? I'm pretty sure he's just asking if this is a good choice, or whether he should some more time into looking for something else

Game testing does sound really really drab from what I've heard too

Hidden_MotiveS

Canada2562 Posts

June 07 2010 17:03 GMT

#33

No
Read the old threads about people on TL who were game testers, and their recommendations and experiences.
Here's a more recent one, though I recall a ton more.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=72628

EvilTeletubby

Baltimore, USA22261 Posts

June 07 2010 17:20 GMT

#34

Locking this... it's a pretty horrible thread as Chill pointed out.

Being a QA tester is pretty horrible from the second hand stories I've heard about it. But yeah, if you need a job you need a job... in this economy if you can't find anything else go for it. You really didn't give us anything to discuss.