Career Selections As A Games Tester: The Perfect Role For Geeks
Posted on July 8, 2010
Filed Under Jobs and Careers |
So you love playing computer and video games? So do I. Ever since I was a kid, I have played games, starting with my dad’s Amiga system with games saved on floppy disks. From there I advanced onto the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis for the US) and since then I’ve been hooked. Most of my spare time was spent playing games and I had always dreamed of finding Careers creating games. As time passed by that dream faded, sadly I realised I wasn’t going to attain this goal, programming games requires a lot of mathematical work, and although I was top grades at math, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. So I don’t create games, but still play them like there’s no tomorrow but there are still Career Choices on offer to me that permit me to take my obsession further, and that is games testing.
Someone who doesn’t play games may believe Careers as a games tester is childish, or not feasible. Truth is though, games testing is an incredibly important part of games development and quality assurance and for anyone with a craze for gaming and looking for New Careers, this option is great as there are no official qualifications needed. Standard qualifications such as GCSE or A-Level are fine, the key skills that are essential are things like an eye for detail and excellent communication skills. Even though the pay can often be fairly low for these Careers, the job itself can be quite a satisfying experience and for those with the necessary skills, the job may develop new Career Choices by progressing within the studio and development team.
If you’re interested in looking for New Careers in games testing, you may be questioning what exactly is involved. From what has been written so far, it’s surely a dream career for geeks. Rest assured, it’s not all fun and games and there is loads of hard work involved. Obviously, the job begins with you having to play through a given game, now keep in mind here, the game is not of your selection, sometimes you will be needed to test games of genres you would not normally play, it all depends on what the studio is presently developing. You will be asked to play the game over numerous times, often for many hours of the day. Your objective here is to pick up any flaws and bugs in the game and then write a detailed report of the issue, how you came across the issue, details of replicating the issue and the frequency of occurrence. You are also tasked with making sure the game plays OK, and point out any enhancements that may be made, after all, the developers may anticipate the game to be played one way, but actual customers may go about it differently.
Games testing certainly isn’t a walk in the park, deadlines are strict and playing the same game over and over can get a bit tedious, particularly if it’s of a genre you normally wouldn’t play. That being said, as far as Career Choices go, you couldn’t ask for anything better as a gamer. There are dedicated websites setup to help people get into Careers in games design and testing, so check them out if you’re interested.
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