How to become a Game Tester
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys I want to become a game tester but don't know exactly where to start. I want to become a game tester because I want to get connections in the gaming industry. I feel that this would be a great stepping stone. I do know some companies will post beta's online and will give out their keys to a limited amount of people. I have seen more than a few of these but I don't see where we give feedback or how we can apply to become a professional game tester. I'm actually quite confused on how it all works.
If you guys know anything about how to get started on game testing please let me know.
If you guys know anything about how to get started on game testing please let me know.
Replies
If you show a keen interest in games in the cover letter/email and land the interview, its pretty much sorted from there.
You like breaking video games. Breaking, not playing.
You won't like QA if:
You like playing video games.
Honestly, it might be better to get a different, light job and spend the time doing work for indie developers or freelance contract.
I'd say just apply. But usually only the guys who stand out make an impression and move on.
QA is a crucial part of game dev, and I respect the hell out of people that do it well, but it scrapes off pieces of your soul and leaves you an empty husk of a jaded, cynical human being.
Although testing Eyepet and Friends was a dark time =/
There wasn't much progression there as the devs we worked with were in a separate building to us - some studios might have development and QA in the same building which is handy as you can speak with them and make contacts more easily. I would probably say QA is a better choice than a menial shelf stacking job as you're less likely to go insane, plus if it starts to get tedious you're going to be more inclined to speed up updating your folio
The Trenches website features an anonymous submitted story of the horrors of working QA with every update. The comic itself is nothing special, but the stories make for some great reading and are a bit of a cautionary tale to anyone considering QA.
www.trenchescomic.com
We also had guys move up from QA to design positions, and working at a studio will definitely help you connect with other developers, and you'll probably be invited to launch parties and such which is an awesome way to met even more like-minded people.
It's not "fun". You're not playing games, you're tediously and meticulously testing them. Over and over and over and over ...
You'll hate the game you're working on by the time you ship.
However, if you enjoy working with developers to solve problems and are good at organizing yourself and tracking tasks ... it might be for you!
I personally wouldn't classify it as a "great" stepping stone but like others have mentioned it is possible to transition to another gamedev role IF you prove you have what it takes to do such role via the usual portfolio, skill and personality fit. Personality as in, if you're not a communicative person then Producer is not for you.
Check out this guy's old blog posts. He was a bioware qa contractor. Contract wasn't renewed so me moved to another part of the country to where there was an opening. Got a lead role (small studio). After maybe a cycle or two he got promoted to Design 'cuz he took the initiative before to learn UDK and make something he could show as proof he knows more than QA duties.
http://notme2000.blogspot.ca/
Basically it's mindless repetition of the same level, area or whatever and you need to look over every inch to find a bug etc.
IF networking in commonly used washrooms...wash hands before handshakes. BUT if you're not feeling it but other dude wants to feel you...keep hands wet.
God was that job boring after a month. Same shit every day. If I had already started 3d modeling I would have rather just spent time on my folio than "use as a stepping stone" They make you work so many hours for so long and you dont get to interact with artists really so you dont have much chance to get on the art side. If you do its very difficult and would be easier to make a kick ass folio.
yup, the people who make it out of QA are the ones who stand out due to skill, enthusiasm and knowledge. i.e. the ones where you think "this guy could do much more with his skills. why is he in QA?"
In QA, your job isn't to give feedback...its to find bugs and report them. What you are describing is playtesting....its different.
I guess I'm in the minority here...I had fun in QA. I enjoyed breaking stuff. But yes, the hours will suck during crunch. And you will have virtually no time or brain capacity to do anything creative at home when your crunching.
Things to know about QA:
1. You are most likely getting hired on as a temp, to help finish a game when they need asses in seats. Its pretty hard to get a full time QA job at a studio.
2. You are going to need to be on-site. And its almost 100 percent certain you will not get paid relocation reimbursement. So if you aren't near a studio..you will have to move on your own dime..
3. You are not going to be making a lot of money. Testers usually get paid hourly, and its usually close to minimum wage...not much different than flipping burgers. However, you will probably get paid overtime, and with the crazy amount of hours you will work during crunch...you can definitely double the size of your paychecks.
It ended up working out for me in a roundabout way. I was a full-time tester, but still ended up being part of a layoff...however, I made friends with a handful of artists while I was there. Later on down the road, when an art gig opened up, I was recommended and got in.
I was also very lucky...so I won't tell you that doing QA is the right thing...but it *can* benefit you. You still need an awesome portfolio though...connections only put your work in front of the right people...if your work isn't up to snuff, your still not getting the job.
Many times you actually have to work at the location of the developer. I have a buddy that signed up for it and it was not quite what he expected but he is still working there. He originally read about it at www.videogametesting.org but I think there may be a lot of other informational sites you can find on the subject. Someone also mentioned in a previous reply that the work will make you hate games. I think there is probably a lot of truth in that as hard as it is for me to imagine. Hell, I've been playing Skyrim for like 3 years now and I'm still not sick of it, but I'm just a freak that way I guess.
i've been investigating for along time now and i find this site very interested to follow, maybe this could help to find the better guide to becoming a Game Tester
Its fine for people who want to get experience and get something into their portfolio before starting a full time QA job.
I have worked before in a corpo. It depends on a company, you may to work around devs and try to switch to game design position later on.
But there are companies which do pure QA and you won't get anywhere with it. The most you can get is to be a QA manager later on and thats it.
A lot of patience is needed. I've been working on Starcraft 2 (localisation) before it was released, that was cool! I got to play a few console games. Getting paid for multiplayer is fun
But then, there were projects like Tinkerbell adventures which is very girly, or a solitaire for new Windows
The bad thing is writing reports for all minor issues, but well, work is work:p
Soo linked previously http://bit.ly/game_testing is a good start to get some experience.
How did I managed to get into QA? I applied three times, I got lucky that recruiter was playing WoW and we could talk about it
The job is nice when your team is nice, I just had a wonderful summer with my sku, while people on another sku wanted to kill themselves by the end of the summer.
It's nowhere near anything you can imagine, trust me. And it's not a career, trust me, there's a reason why the average age in QA is between 18-23, and that the crunch periods are always during summer, it's a student job. even huge company keep less than 100employes for the rest of the years, while there is more than 700 during summer.
It's really easy to work in Qa, just wait around may when mass recruitment is starting, and apply in time. They employed everyone, even more if you're willing to work during night.
It appears that some studios hire in bulk for crunch time testing on a project, don't pay all that well, and aren't very demanding. But there are definitely studios where QA is a full time, salaried position where you need to be more than a high school graduate with an interest in "games". Think of Facebook/mobile, or studios that focus on casual game projects to be released yearly, or even monthly - QA is a constant thing, as much a part of the dev cycle as anything else. In those instances, QA isn't a simple matter of playing a PS3/4 for hours trying to cause glitches, it's a matter of "If you don't catch this, that big ass sale we're about to go live with could completely bomb."
In either circumstance, though, I wouldn't look into it as a stepping stone. Unless it's a small studio and the testing is done among the rest of the dev team (in the same area/same building at least), you're generally focused on set tasks and your creative input isn't hugely relevant. Even if you are in the same area of the building, all that really gets you is the chance to chop it up with people on other teams, but that's not a guarantee of anything. Better than working at Target - maybe? But people's drastically different experiences, as reported in this thread, make me think it unwise to count on QA as anything more than a way to support yourself financially.
Some general pros about working on QA tasks, from my experience:
-Work doesn't follow you home. There are plenty of other "day job" types that can be much more stressful (anything phone/customer related) and will screw with your ability to focus when you go home for the day. QA is generally you show up, you test what you need to test, you go home.
-Heavily dependent on the studio, but it can be a good way to get some experience working with a team, and working in a production environment. This may not be the case at all if you're brought on towards the end of a project and are working in a different building.
Some general cons:
-Just because you find bugs, doesn't mean they'll get fixed. It's your job to test things, to complete assigned tasks, to log things appropriately - it's up to other people to determine if things are worth the manpower to resolve. (It is super annoying seeing reviewers go "How did this pass QA!?", chances are the QA team found the issues and logged them - someone else just decided they weren't worth the time.)
-How much crunch/overtime you have generally depends on other people. If someone more on the development side of things decides to show up late or drag their feet, that might mean you're staying late to test whatever they're dragging their feet on. If you're getting a salary rather than an hourly wage, calculate for some anticipated overtime hours as a result of things like this (and just unavoidable crunch in general).
-Because application requirements can be fairly lax, your coworkers can be all sorts. Some of them might be super ace, being organized and clear with their methods of testing/reporting information, some of them might be high school kids or recent college grads looking to "get their foot in the door", and aren't actually focusing at all on their jobs. But this is a potential con of any job, it doesn't happen strictly as a result of it being QA.
tl:dr - QA seems to be something that can be all over the place. Pay wise, job duty wise, location wise, etc. I wouldn't count on it as a stepping stone unless it's something permanent at a small studio, and even then - if it would come at the cost of you being able to continue working on your long-term dream job skills, it may not be worth it for you.
unless of course you are a smoker!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Super_Hero_Squad_(video_game)
Literally the worst 2 weeks of game development in my life. Monotonous, repetitive, boring. The lead developers were extremely rude and they seemed extremely proud of the titles they were developing. They were all hush hush with NDA stuff like it was the next big hit.
Talking with the other departments they seemed like they didn't like their jobs at all. Even the artists didn't seem like they were enjoying their job.
Imagine if you were the QA tester for the next barbie game or something? That would be absolutely mental.
If you QA at a big company like Sony or EA, you will almost certainly have ZERO developer contact. In fact, you can actually get in trouble/fired for attempting to talk to them. You'll work insane hours, be paid the absolute minimum possible, and probably be laid off after 6 months to a year.
They will in fact, encourage the cycle of in for 6 - 12 months, out for 3 months, dangling small raises over your head each time. I knew countless artists that got stuck in this cycle, only to realize that they'd been there so long, their art skills had deteriorated due to lack of motivation, and they were now basically stuck in QA.
It is extremely hard to stay motivated while working constant overtime, and the reality is that since you're using so many hours of the day on a dead end job, you're going to need to be working on art every possible second that you aren't on the clock. Gaming and any other hobby will probably have to take a back seat.
If you want to get a job as a tester, and move up that chain to become a producer (this is the most common path I see), then by all means, go for it. If you want to attempt to use QA as a springboard into an artist position, I would not recommend it.
If you need a job and feel you have no other choice, I would at least attempt to QA at a small company where you can have direct contact with developers.
lol that isnt even really a requirement to be a game tester
QA is a lot like being a dishwasher in a fancy restaurant. There's not really much of a path to become an actual chef from dishwasher. You never get to really work with the food, and you're pretty much spending all your time cleaning a never ending mess.
Does anyone have any tips for getting to know Devs? I realise this may be a case of just being confident but if anyone has had similar experiences I'd love to hear how you approached it, so I can use your example as a springboard for my own leap!
drinking beer...
I second that.
Show them some art you're working on, and ask for a completely brutally honest critique.
Easiest method is just post on polycount or similar forum.
Good luck.
£150+ an hour? Sign me up!
guy has 2 posts to his name, and the link requires a $20 sign up.... yea that's not sketch at all : /
i want to be a video game tester but i don't know anything about testing but love playing video games . been trying to get hire no luck no dice. do not know anyone in the video game industry .?? looking a new job