So I hear that you’ve got it in your head that you’re going to
become a game tester? I just wanted to make sure that you know
exactly what kind of work it is and how you’re going to have to
prepare yourself for it if it really is your dream job? Not only is
game testing hard work – it requires a great deal of specific
skills and the competition is quite high for new positions in the
field. If you think you want to be a game tester, you will probably
not survive. You need to know that you can do it and that it is the
career path for you.

Game testing can go by a number of different names – from beta
testing to quality assurance – but it is all basically the same
work. You will work with not yet completed games to check and see
if all of the different aspects and systems of the games are
working properly. Alpha testing will start you out in early phases
for major systems testing, while beta testing is done to a game
that is missing things like graphics and textures. Quality
assurance is the stage of testing when the game is completed and
you are checking for any outstanding bugs. You might spend hours or
days running into walls in the same level to make sure they don’t
have holes in them.

You’re not going to need a degree to get a job as a tester, though
it can help if you have one. The real goal of most testers though
is to reach a higher position in the gaming industry. To get there,
you must do the grunt work of playing the game game over and over
again for hours each day. You must be constantly taking notes and
recording how you created problems in the game while in contact
with developers and programmers who can fix those problems.

Now, don’t let my realistic approach to this industry get you down
- if you truly love video games, you’re going to love this job no
matter what I say. I just want to make sure no one who doesn’t have
a passion for gaming tries to work as a tester. If you know what
you are going to be doing, you can properly prepare yourself for
what the job might bring in the future. To start with, you can work
from home – that is not a myth. You may not be able to do it all
the time, you may not be able to do it for every developer, but
there are probably a number of instances where you can work at home
just like you do on a saturday afternoon, playing your favorite
game.

In fact, you should start by working on your favorite games. Start
playing them in a different way – start operating them instead.
Look at the games as though they are problems and it is your job to
break them. Start in a specific level and explore every corner of
it, looking for bugs that you can exploit or use to break the game.
This not only helps you get into an analytical mode, it helps you
see just how long you can play a level over and over before you get
bored. You’d better be able to do this for 8 hours if you want to
be a game tester.

If you pulled this off, now try it again with a game that you just
plain hate – a game you’re not sure why you still own, possibly one
that belongs to a friend or sibling. Do the same things over and
over again, but make small changes to your behaviors to record
changes in how the game operates. If you can do this, and honestly
maintain a good eye for details, you may just be perfect for game
testing.

If you want to make video games and truly enjoy the task of testing
them for major developers, you have started down the right path -
this is the career for you and it is just waiting for keen eyes
like yours.

Check Gamestester.Org for the best resource for video game tester jobs

{ 5 comments }