• Video Gamer Testers
    39 replies, posted
Is video game testing dying? I didn't think about it until a co-worker brought it up mentioning how the new norm for game developers is to release their unfinished games as "early access" and charge you for it. You as the consumer are essentially testing their game for them that you paid for. That is, if you're one of the people who actually discuss the game in-progress with them on the community forum reporting issues and such. There has been a decrease in free downloadable demos too which strengthens this opinion. Plus, either this theory is correct or there are just more scams out. I can never find a 100% legit game tester job online. The ones that seem actually believable require a degree, but most seem too good to be true. Opinions?
It might be dying for indie games whose budget is $50 and a couple of cans of red bull but it's certainly still alive in the AAA world. I find it hard to believe that you can't find any game tester jobs online. For starters, here's some from EA: [url]http://careersearch.ea.com/careers/qa-%EF%B9%A0-testing-jobs[/url] You want to be looking for quality assurance by the way, that's the professional term for it.
Why do you want to work in QA, it's notoriously underpaid with criminally long hours and is generally pretty unenjoyable from what I understand [editline]16th February 2014[/editline] Also you would never see early access games without any testing behind them. I imagine it's just a way to alleviate the crunch and the terror of deadlines to ship the game, instead releasing a beta which generates funds to fuel continued development.
[QUOTE=Blackety;43928860]Is video game testing dying? I didn't think about it until a co-worker brought it up mentioning how the new norm for game developers is to release their unfinished games as "early access" and charge you for it. You as the consumer are essentially testing their game for them that you paid for. That is, if you're one of the people who actually discuss the game in-progress with them on the community forum reporting issues and such. There has been a decrease in free downloadable demos too which strengthens this opinion. Plus, either this theory is correct or there are just more scams out. I can never find a 100% legit game tester job online. The ones that seem actually believable require a degree, but most seem too good to be true. Opinions?[/QUOTE] Well first of all, it's rare to find a testing job that has good working conditions. It is an underrepresented part of the industry, and it isn't exactly fun either. Game testing will never die, it's just that early access games are used by indie studios to rake in early profits which is important considering the risk involved. Betas and such from triple AAA studios aren't really for player feedback but for stress testing and more time for the internal testers to find and fix the big bugs. They act as marketing ploys rather than to help the development team.
I kinda miss the days where we got demos that were like half an hour or less of the full game. I used to play the hell out of demos for games I couldn't buy.
QA testing, despite what some people may think, isn't playing videogames all day long as a job, quite often QA testers are given a very small, particular part of a game to play through, often with very specific instructions as to what to do and how to do it, which they have to do over and over and over countless times, and then mov on to the next small area of the game. People think it's also finding way to break the game, when, in reality, you're honing in on known bugs, going over them over and over and over, refining down what the exact problem is so that the programmers can fix it. It's also a shit load of highly detailed paperwork too, what you did, how you did it, how long you did it for etc etc.
[QUOTE=RayvenQ;43930277]QA testing, despite what some people may think, isn't playing videogames all day long as a job, quite often QA testers are given a very small, particular part of a game to play through, often with very specific instructions as to what to do and how to do it, which they have to do over and over and over countless times, and then mov on to the next small area of the game. People think it's also finding way to break the game, when, in reality, you're honing in on known bugs, going over them over and over and over, refining down what the exact problem is so that the programmers can fix it. It's also a shit load of highly detailed paperwork too, what you did, how you did it, how long you did it for etc etc.[/QUOTE] oh :(
When people play a big budget game they expect a more expensive high quality product made by professionals, and will react very negatively to bad optimization. When people play a low budget game they expect a cheaper game usually made by a lot less people with more restraints on their abilities, and therefor are more lenient on coming across bad optimization. For big budget titles and large companies, game testers are probably still the preferred method since it means that they won't release an unfinished version of their game to the market and potentially lose sales because of bad feedback. For smaller companies with lower budget games, releasing the game for the community to playtest is both less likely to cause massively bad feedback unless the core game is bad, saves them spending money hiring people to playtest their games, and can help prevent them running out of funds during the development of the game.
are there even game tester 'jobs' that you could land online? it seems like the whole nda thing would be pointless if any game tester ever could just hit printscreen on their home pc's and upload it through tor or something
[QUOTE=innerfire34;43932124]are there even game tester 'jobs' that you could land online? it seems like the whole nda thing would be pointless if any game tester ever could just hit printscreen on their home pc's and upload it through tor or something[/QUOTE] as rayvenq said, it's far more complex than that. that's why a lot of tester jobs now require a game design degree or similar - it's not just about playing video games and then going "oh shit a bug. better screencap this and send an auto-generated bug report", there's a lot of knowledge that you have to have in order to be a useful tester to the development team as such, being a tester is often a foot in the door for junior design/programming roles
It's also easier to co-ordinate QA testers in house. Also, QA Testing and Alpha/Beta testing (whether open, private or in house) are vastly different things. Alphas/Beta's find or try to find bugs, QA testers nail down and localise what causes the bugs to a very fine degree, in order for the programmers to test them. Even Beta releases of games have often had extensive QA done to them before release as even Alpha or Beta, and that QA is ongoing throughout the further development. As said, smaller indie developers can often use Beta and Alpha tests as QA testing, simply because they haven't got the budget for a dedicated QA team, but with AAA titles, even if they are given early access, that's far from the truth.
to add to that, i know a few people who have or are currently working for traveller's tales in QA so yeh even a series such as the lego games, that are made by a fairly small studio, and have been in production on the same engine for nearly a decade, has a sizeable dedicated QA team
There were a bunch of videos that came with the halo 3 bonus editions and one of them talked about playtesting halo 3 and testing in general. It's a really neat watch [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b9tOnJn6Q4[/media]
[QUOTE=elitehakor;43933309]There were a bunch of videos that came with the halo 3 bonus editions and one of them talked about playtesting halo 3 and testing in general. It's a really neat watch [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b9tOnJn6Q4[/media][/QUOTE] Yeah... that actually seems like something I might be able to do after watching that. I probably would want to eventually move onto a design job though. Right now it's way above my head, I don't have the patience or work ethic for a job like that yet.
[QUOTE=elitehakor;43933309]There were a bunch of videos that came with the halo 3 bonus editions and one of them talked about playtesting halo 3 and testing in general. It's a really neat watch [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b9tOnJn6Q4[/media][/QUOTE] They all look so unhealthy.
For those wondering, don't ever consider game testing as a good way to get into a higher position in the game industry. The chances of the development team recruiting from their testers is very low, and the success stories are generally from the rare studios that aren't big enough to hire whenever they want, but still big enough to have their own testing team. You will often be looked down upon by your superiors and because you are a tester, they have no reason to believe you are going to do anything else outside of testing. You can't demonstrate your ability nor build a portfolio simply by doing the things QA testers do. Yes your job is important, but most of it doesn't apply to what it means to design games. You have to have a portfolio and connections with the company, and even then, it would be better to go into an interview for a designer rather than waste your time with QA.
Ever see one of these shitty commercials? [video=youtube;BRWvfMLl4ho]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho[/video] Yeah it's nothing like that at all, not saying you were thinking that of course, but still.
I'm looking for a testing job because it's a entry level job in the industry after finishing my Games Design degree. Though it's more of something to put on the CV while I work on a level design portfolio to help me in the future.
[QUOTE=Killer900;43949468]Ever see one of these shitty commercials? [video=youtube;BRWvfMLl4ho]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRWvfMLl4ho[/video] Yeah it's nothing like that at all, not saying you were thinking that of course, but still.[/QUOTE] [i]"Gonna need to tighten up the graphics a bit."[/i] Sure, I'll let the team know to double the texture resolution, redo the UI, smooth out the models and increase environment detail.
no need to take a shitty old commercial seriously
Gam testing will always exist but it simply changes now. The developers will be hiring the testers in most cases.
There's an EA quality assurance building in Baton Rouge near LSU - I hear it is hell.
[QUOTE=bord2tears;43999397]There's an EA quality assurance building in Baton Rouge near LSU - I hear it is hell.[/QUOTE] >EA >Hell
I've always wanted to try video game testing, but everything is always skewed on what it's really like so I'm never sure if I would actually be able to get into it or even like it.
From what I hear, profession playtesting isn't all as great as it might sound. If you're near enough any big companies, you can always see if they have periodic playtests. Speaking from personal experience (EA and nvidia), getting payed $100 for three hours of my time (time/pay vary accordingly) is pretty awesome.
[QUOTE=usaokay;44015698]I remember watching a small Behind the Scenes footage for TES4 Oblivion (or some other Bethesda game, I forgot). A play tester had to use every spell in every spot in every dungeon. That's hell for me.[/QUOTE] That sounds like the main cause of Bethesda's glitchy fucked up games is misplaced priorities. "Try every spell in every spot in every dungeon. Oh you know that quest where you have to get the ring of burden from that guy in the well? Don't bother testing to see what happens if you put the ring back in his pocket and leave for three days, which is extremely likely for a large amount of players to do because the ring is likely to make you overencumbered and unable to leave the well. It's not like dead bodies are programmed to disappear after three days making the ring lost forever and one of the main quest lines in the game completely unfinishable unless specifically programmed otherwise. Clearly trying all of the spells in all of the dungeons, something we have no reason to believe would cause problems, is a better use of your week." Up until this point I thought that Bethesda didn't even do QA but I guess their QA directors are just really, really shitty.
I always wanted to be a game tester until I realized you would have to test games you dont even like too.
[QUOTE=Codeviper;44025661]I always wanted to be a game tester until I realized you would have to test games you dont even like too.[/QUOTE] No matter how much you like your job, there is always something about it you will dislike. Also, a job isn't always going to be fun regardless of what you do.
[QUOTE=G3rman;44026825]No matter how much you like your job, there is always something about it you will dislike. Also, a job isn't always going to be fun regardless of what you do.[/QUOTE] I'd say there are some lucky people whose jobs are always fun. Some Youtube content creators, for instance.
[QUOTE=Helix Snake;44026831]I'd say there are some lucky people whose jobs are always fun. Some Youtube content creators, for instance.[/QUOTE] I'd disagree. No matter how much you love your job, if you do anything long enough it is going to become work (as in not fun). There is no avoiding it. A lot of Youtube content creators who are successful have things they hate about it, editing for example. It becomes a chore after a while. If you love it though, it won't permanently wear you down.
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