Randmness

In my last post I explained the requirements for game testing and where to look for a job as a game tester. In this post I’ll focus on the Downs to game testing because I think it makes sense to explain the bad stuff before getting into the good parts to the job. Before diving into this post I’ve got another video for you to watch. This is from X-Play and was a feature from a few months ago.

Before you apply for a testing job there are some things to keep in mind. I’m going to start of with the Downs to Game Testing.

First off you have to realize that most Publishers or Developers usually hire testers on a project basis. This means that once a person is hired they’ll be around for the test cycle of a game; once the project is over it’s up to the Publisher or Developer to keep that person on for another game or ‘release’ them. This can be a good thing because it gives people the chance to go around and try out other companies to see how they do things. It can be a bad thing if a person like the company that they’re working for.

The second thing is that usually Publishers and Developers will hire the testers through a Temp Agency. This allows them to release testers after a project and avoid any legal action. If a person is messing up on the job there could be a warning but because they work for the Temp Agency they can be let go at any time. Usually if a person does well they will be asked to leave the Temp Agency to work for the actual company.

The third thing is that a person will usually be working for a project throughout it’s life span. This means if you get hired at the start of a game’s development cycle you’ll be attached to that game until it is in stores. It can get VERY repetitive after a while. It’s especially frustrating at the start of a project because most of the game is still being programmed and a lot of things will not work. It’s hard to sit there for 8 hours and try to test a game where it’s impossible to get to a certain level or get something that is needed for the game. But that’s how things go; eventually everything starts to work and things get fun again.

The last thing is that the hours will be long, especially as the project gets close to finishing. When a game is still in the concept stage time lines are set to make sure that it can be marketed and released within a certain amount of time. As the final deadline gets closer the hours for a tester will start to get longer to meet the deadline. Depending on the size of the game and the market it’s targeting there could even be 2 shifts of people coming in to get the thing ready for release. Even after the game is released people might be needed to test patches that will be applied to fix things that didn’t quite work when the game hit the shelves.

Here’s an example of how a usual week goes for a game tester.

Monday - Get a new version (or build as it’s called in the industry) of the game and test it, reporting any bugs that are seen.

Tuesday - Continue testing the build and reporting any bugs that are seen.

Wednesday - Get a new build and look to see if any of the bugs reported in the previous build are still in the new one.

Thursday - Continue to go through the new build to see if the old bugs are in the new build. Once that’s finished start testing the new build.

Friday - Get a new build and start all over again.

Now at the start of a project a new build may not come for a week or two which creates long lists of bugs to look for when a new build comes in. Closer to the end of the project a new build may come in daily or even a few times a day; making it hard to finish looking for previous bugs in a new build before having to start all over again.

After reading all of that are you still interested in testing games for a living? Well in the next post I’ll explain the Ups to working as a Game Tester.

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