Game testing as the entry level position?
polycounter lvl 7
I entered a debate with a friend about what the entry level position was in the game industry. Until recently, my focus was mainly on film, so my work was all sub-d's and I was taught that the runner was the typical entry level position.
It made sense to me, and I figured every studio had that kind of position available for people just starting out in the overall 3D industry. It also appealed to me, because the runner is shown the ropes of the studio and informally trained before he's actually allowed to do anything serious.
However, my friend asserted quite strongly that the game testing position was the near-official entry level job for almost every game studio, and that new artists were expected to work their way up from there. (though his focus is on programming - so he may have been seeing things from his point of view and thus different for artists)
This idea bothered me quite a bit. I don't really know much about game testers, but I had assumed they were people studios hired to find holes in their software by doing their very best to break the game. I imagine this can involve repetitive movements and no doubt careful note taking. I also imagine that the game tester is ideally someone who plays games a lot anyway - and is thus a good player who won't be crushed along the road to the end as the difficulty increases. What bothers me specifically is the fear that I'd be tasked with working alone, or even at home, and learning very little.
His response to that was that I should just ask and see for myself.
Sooo... is he right? When I apply for the first time to various studios, what kind of job should I expect?
I don't want to seem overly presumptuous - but I want to model characters and creatures. If it's standard procedure to hire new comers only as game testers, I'd like to know so I don't expect too much.
It made sense to me, and I figured every studio had that kind of position available for people just starting out in the overall 3D industry. It also appealed to me, because the runner is shown the ropes of the studio and informally trained before he's actually allowed to do anything serious.
However, my friend asserted quite strongly that the game testing position was the near-official entry level job for almost every game studio, and that new artists were expected to work their way up from there. (though his focus is on programming - so he may have been seeing things from his point of view and thus different for artists)
This idea bothered me quite a bit. I don't really know much about game testers, but I had assumed they were people studios hired to find holes in their software by doing their very best to break the game. I imagine this can involve repetitive movements and no doubt careful note taking. I also imagine that the game tester is ideally someone who plays games a lot anyway - and is thus a good player who won't be crushed along the road to the end as the difficulty increases. What bothers me specifically is the fear that I'd be tasked with working alone, or even at home, and learning very little.
His response to that was that I should just ask and see for myself.
Sooo... is he right? When I apply for the first time to various studios, what kind of job should I expect?
I don't want to seem overly presumptuous - but I want to model characters and creatures. If it's standard procedure to hire new comers only as game testers, I'd like to know so I don't expect too much.
Replies
being a game tester and an artist isnt generally conducive I would say, usually you will be working crazy overtime and that leaves no time for art for your folio. plus most testers tend to get burnt out, hence the insane turnover rate.
if you are looking to get into an art position just keep working on your portfolio until you manage to snag a jr artist position.
Whereas with VFX you can start at that "runner" position which basically consists of said person running around making cups of tea and making sure the place looks nice and tidy. I would agree with Pixelmasher's sentiment.
isn't runner a foot-in-the-door position from back in the day when you had absolutely no opportunity to learning to use a high-end CG software any other way than to play with it after the artists had gone home?
why would studios these days require an aspiring artist to make coffee or distribute the mail when you can gain the skills and prove them by creating a demo reel on a student budget?
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76188
Most people who say you can get into a game studio through QA are old and are talking about the industry 10-20 years ago, or are listening to old people talking about the industry 10-20 years ago.
It goes as far as the fact that I am not employed by the studio I work for, I am hired through another company that exists to contract testers. We have a separate office from dev (same building different floor), a separate tech support and HR. We still work on their games, though. We still communicate with dev through emails and bug write-ups, but in most cases you don't meet each other. It's like you work at the studio, for the studio but you are not considered an employee of the studio. There's a target here to promote 2-4 people every fiscal year to working at the studio. It's almost always as QA, a producer or most rarely, a programmer.
Probably unique to this studio, even the art department is pretty separate. I know almost every producer, QA and programmer on the game but I've never met an artist in a year of working here. I don't even know where I would look.
Even if I am not appreciated like part of development all the time, I know I have made many contributions of the development of these games. In my case I've been promoted to working directly with the dev team, but this is not the case for most people. Even still, there was one project that I worked on where I was on it for 2 months and didn't get into the credits. I didn't meet the arbitrary time on a project necessary to be included.
For me, I've been doing this for a year (the first 8 months off and on) it's kept me having money and I do enjoy working here. The downside is having it deeply cut into the time you have to work on your portfolio. During the TF2 comp I was extremely burnt out and on little sleep trying to work toward a deadline in my art after working all day. It really wore me out and I haven't been able to do any art since. It was partly because my computer was broken for nearly a month while I waited for a part to ship, and partly because I couldn't handle it in the time I've had. In the past month trying to get a game out the door, I've been doing "non-mandatory" overtime for the last month working 3 days a week overtime, including a weekend day. No time to do art and not a lot of time off in general.
Everyone who works here is a game art school graduate or drop out, accepted easily because there are so many people coming from those places and it's tangentially more related educational experience than people in high school or university.
If you need a job to pay rent or loans, this is not the worst job you could have. It's not extremely difficult, but it can demand a lot of your time and energy. It's better than any non-industry dead-end job and honestly there's a lot about it that is positive. While working here I've made A LOT of contacts. People who will probably not always work here. This has been one of the greatest benefits, meeting other up and coming modelers, animators and game designers. They're all good people and bureaucracy aside, the people is what makes the job good. In my case I've worked with a lot of cool people. I went to school with a lot of them and some of my best friends work here too. It is related experience for this industry, it shows that you've been some part of development and you can get your name on the credits of a game or two.
I hope this doesn't come off as whiny or negative, it's not meant to be. I've wanted to share my experience with this for a while, hopefully to inform other people looking to go into QA. I wouldn't say, "don't do it", but at least weight the pros, cons and research the studio you'd be working for. Through the ups and downs, I am pretty happy with how things are now, but I'm not stopping working on my portfolio or applying at other places.
tl;dr
I confirm what everyone else has said with personal experience. It's not a great stepping stone into the industry but can provide you with some experience. I have had a generally positive time working here despite some ups and downs.
It's not the worst job you could have, but if you have the opportunity to just take a while and work on your portfolio or pursue art jobs elsewhere, do that instead.
New artists didn't need to go through this phase, they went straight into junior artist roles. Maybe this was because their education was well aligned with the tools and processes they'd use as junior artists, whereas a designer might really benefit from some time in QA to give them time to study the game, learn the mechanics.
It would make sense the look for talent internally first - but my feeling is that this just isn't the way it works in the real world when HR is looking to fill art positions. It seems to work for filling some designer and customer-support roles though.
in one project we had 'embedded' QA people in the dev team for extended periods of time. they certainly had the interest in and the opportunity to selling themselves for design and art positions.
but yeah, i guess in most cases all a QA person does is work out of sight of the dev team in some faraway corner of the campus and annoy them with bug reports. part of the job but certainly not a good way to get your name out there.