How to Become a Game Tester
L.P.Klages
Smashwords Edition
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Copyright 2011 L.P.Klages
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover illustration by Hyun Kim (air0820@flickr).
Contents
What Does it Take to Be a Tester
Game Companies in the United States
Chapter 1:
Gaming isn’t the entertainment industry’s shy little brother at the back of the family picture any more: the industry has charged up to front and center, booming in popularity to such an extent that the Texas legislature declared February 3, 2009, as “Entertainment Software Day.” That’s according to the ESA, who also reported that the computer and game industries generated around 11.7 billion dollars in 2008. That means that every year, the average person in the United States forks over about $40 to the computer and gaming industry . The statistics don’t stop there: the ESA states that 60% of Americans over the age of 6 play video games. That’s more than the 56% of Americans who pay for cable TV . It’s no surprise then, that game testing is one of the most rapidly growing job markets in the country.
The games that you see on the shelves most likely took about two years to develop. As a game tester, you’ll step in toward the middle or end of that development process (because up until that point, there isn’t much to test). Once you’ve started testing the game and reporting bugs, you’ll get a new build to test from the development team on a regular basis and your job will be to test those versions and keep track of errors. While game testing can—at times—be a fun job and the envy of all your friends, it’s also an analytical, time consuming, and challenging position that requires you to carefully note any errors that you find. Once the errors have been fixed, you’ll be given a new build with which to perform regression testing.
One important fact about a game testing job that may (or may not) bother you is that you’re the “polisher:” the person who puts the final touches on the product before it gets sold. If you’re the kind of person who isn’t interested in being a polisher (maybe you see yourself as more of a designer or builder), then game testing might not be the right job for you. In huge conglomerations like Vivendi, game testing comes after almost every other phase of the project. The game has been designed, the code has been written, and the product is ready to enter the marketplace: but not before the bugs are worked out. In other words, any suggestions you make about added features or design improvements are going to fall by the wayside. If you can accept that fact, then game testing may be the job for you.
You can think of a game tester as the low man on the totem. There’s a similar position in programming, called a code monkey. “Code monkey” is a pejorative term for low level programmers who are perceived by the upper echelons of the programming ranks as being too green for the “real” jobs higher up the chain. Code monkeys are capable of churning out code (possibly not very good code), and they are perceived as being disposable. Game testers are perceived by some in the same way. Game testers test games, a job that nearly anyone can do. It isn’t hard. It doesn’t teach you valuable skills. It isn’t even necessarily well paid. But if, like a “code monkey,” you want a low stress, even enjoyable job that pays you a decent salary and is likely to be around in a few decades, then game testing might be right for you.
Sounds easy, right? Not necessarily. Even if you’re lucky enough to land your dream job, you’re going to have to work hard at keeping it. Submit enough bug reports that get rejected with a curt “No bug found,” and you can be sure you won’t be asked to test game #2. Don’t think that your day is going to be filled with pizza and soda, lounging back on a gaming chair while you mangle baddies. The likelihood is that a large percentage of your time is going to be made up of playing games that you simply don’t want to play. Ever picked up a game, disliked it for one reason or another (too easy, too hard, too cheesy), and took it back to the store for credit? Unlike beta testing, where you can throw in the towel and walk away with a free copy of the game, in regular game testing, it’s going to be your job to force yourself to play the game—even if it sucks. You might be asked to play the same level multiple times with different characters on different difficulty levels; your enthusiasm for the game will soon wear thin if you have to play the same level a dozen times. In fact, you might be called upon to perform a multitude of testing tasks: not all of them glamorous. Some examples of “non glamorous” testing include:
•Localization testing. As a localization tester, you’ll adapt a globalized application to a certain location or culture. This sounds easy, but in fact it can be a massive task, depending on regulatory requirements and other factors of the target country. For example, games using American English need to be tailored for use in the United Kingdom, which uses different punctuation, spelling, and words. Trunks had better be called boots, fannies had better be called bums, and for the culinary challenged, desserts and candy are both sweets. Anyone for a bevvie at the pub, mate?
•Regression testing. If you are a regression tester, after a bug has been fixed, you’ll need to go back and test the “fixed” part of the game to make sure no other new problems have been created by the bug fix. As a tester, your job during this stage will include having to investigate around that bug, playing all the different possibilities, and purposefully trying to uncover new bugs that might have been created. This stage is sometimes called "halo testing.”
•Compatibility testing. Compatibility testing is one of the last stages of game testing. You’ll be testing the game to make sure it’s compatible with all the components (software and hardware) that are likely to be found on a customer’s computer (or game system). These might include different drivers and peripherals or different browsers. You’ll likely be playing the game over and over again on different systems, checking that the game works for all users on a multitude of configurations.
•Unit testing. Unit testing is just like the name sounds—a test on a small piece of software (a “unit”) to make sure it does what it’s supposed to. For example, if you are playing an online game and have to sign up for an account, there’s a piece of code that will check to make sure no other user is associated with the email account you enter. In unit testing, a programmer or QA department will set up a secondary piece of software to automatically enter a wide range of possible data to trip up the code that checks for the e-mail. Most often, this stage of development is done by the programming team before the game is even off of the starting block, but QA might be part of this type of testing.
•Soak testing. Soak testing is like clicking the mouse button continuously on your computer to see how long before your computer crashes. In a regular alpha or beta test, a game tester plays for a few minutes on each spot, moving through levels and switching behaviors, gear, and challenges. However, it’s sometimes useful to know how long you can stay in one spot, hammering the controller, before the system crashes. The test is usually automated and simulates mouse or controller clicks or other mundane actions (who really wants to sit there and hit a mouse a hundred thousand times until the system crashes?), but in smaller game dev companies, you might be the person allocated to soak test the game manually. The test makes sure that a user can bash the mouse key a few dozen times in frustration without the worry of the game freezing up.
•Beta testing is an entirely different kettle of fish. It’s more fun than the non-glamorous kinds of tests, but it’s also usually not paid work. In beta testing the game is released for testing to a wider audience than the initial team. The audience might be a select group of testers, or it might be a wide public release. For example, when World of Warcraft was tested in 2004, about 10,000 beta testers were invited from each region to test the game. Bear in mind these weren’t paid positions: all you got was access to the game, and if you were participating in the stress test, you likely experienced major performance issues as well. Beta testers might also be called upon for load (stress) testing. When World of Warcraft tested the capacity of their system in 2004, a whopping 100,000 users signed up to assault the servers and test the maximum capacity of the system and help Blizzard analyze the types of performance issues that might happen at heavy load times. The pay? Zero, but 720 people were chosen from the pool of 100,000 to continue on to a prized (but still unpaid) closed beta test where they could continue to play the game until release.
If you want to become a beta tester, that can be a bonus point on your resume, especially if you put your full effort into the task. There are two types of beta testers: those that just play the game, and those that give helpful feedback.
If a game development company releases the beta version to 100,000 people, then the company expects that the vast majority of testers will just play the game. Bugs are reported back automatically and the company uses that data to improve the game. However, a good beta tester will carefully look for bugs and balance issues and explain to the game company what they found with frequent reports. If you do that, you’ll be passing on valuable information to the game company.
Of course, you’ll get nothing more than a free game for your trouble. However, you can put it on your resume. You can mention how helpful you were in your interview—how you went the extra mile and found a series of bugs. You can find beta testing opportunities at Blues News (http://www.bluesnews.com) which carries public beta testing announcements. You’ll have to apply, just like everyone else, and it works more like a lottery than a job application. There’s no guarantee you can get in, and there’s little you can do to improve your chances.
If you do decide to try out for some beta testing jobs to pad your resume, beware of the Online Sharks. Many companies on the internet will try to fool you into parting with cash for the opportunity to make hundreds or thousands of dollars as a part time game tester. Unfortunately the majority of these are scams. Watch out for the tired old sales tactics:
•There’s a lengthy sales letter to convince you to sign up to join a discussion board, download an e-book, or obtain some other “secret” information. Nothing on the internet is secret. If it really worked, it would be spread all over the web faster than you can say peanut butter.
•The price is dropped as a “special,” usually from something ridiculous (for example, $99 or $149) to a “low” price. $37 seems to be the magic number.
•An acquaintance of mine, Julie, signed up for one of these online programs, after she found a Craigslist ad promising her that she could get paid to beta test unreleased video games. The program she signed up for cost her eighty dollars over the course of four months, and at the end she had zero offers. Here’s what Julie had to say:
“The ad said ‘Get Paid to Test Video Games!’ and sounded too good to be true. I should have listened to my instincts. The website looked really professional, with free guides to get started and the promise of a constant stream of beta testing jobs. In four months, the online “job” I was offered was to test one site’s slot machine software…all for the privilege of being “paid” with a free account and a hundred free poker chips—I could have gotten the exact same deal by signing up for an account with that website as a customer.”
To add to the insult, Julie couldn’t get her money back: the fine print said that job offers weren’t guaranteed and that she was paying for expert advice and access to the discussion boards. Period.
I just recently stumbled across a blog post by another “Julie” who lamented about how a beta test scam had eaten up her cash and gave her nothing in return. After a lengthy diatribe she said that miraculously she had found a site that actually worked, and gave out a link to another scam testing site. Don’t believe a word of these sites—never part with a penny for something you can get elsewhere for free.
So, aside from beta testing, what other kids of testing jobs are out there? If you want to be paid for game testing, you need to get a full-time job as a tester for a gaming company or temp for a company through a temp agency (not an online one—make sure you have read the warning above about online game dev scams).
The organization of the QA department is going to vary wildly depending on what size company you’re going to work for, where the company is located, what kind of company it is (for example, a game development company is going to have a different internal structure than a company whose sole purpose is testing). Your average game development company is most likely going to have the following positions:
Game Tester: As a game tester, you’re going to be responsible for some (or all) of the tests I mentioned in chapter one, with the exception of beta tests and stress tests (although in some situations, you may be involved in beta tests too—it really depends upon the individual company as to how widely they use beta testing and if that beta testing involves in house testers as well).
Lead Tester: The lead tester is just what the title implies: you’re the team leader. You’ll likely be a bridge between the testers and the producers and designers. You’ll be responsible for developing and implementing testing plans, and you might be included in the hiring process for new testers. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to jump into a lead tester role without experience, but you may be able to get a lead testing job with no experience if you have a relevant college degree.
Assistant Lead Tester: Think of an assistant lead as a team leader, who reports to a supervisor. It’s basically the same job and same pay as a lead tester (with some exceptions), but with a little less responsibility. As an assistant lead, you might have more authority in the bug database and thus might have better, more interesting opportunities for testing.
Game Producer: Don’t let the title for you. Game producers are generally responsible for entire game from start to finish. They may also test the games—especially in smaller companies where the lines between jobs aren’t marked in the sand. In larger companies, game testers will work hand in hand with producers, who get the final say when the game is released to the general public (or “goes gold”).
So What Exactly Does a Game Tester Do?
A video game tester's job would be to find the glitches or problems with the gameplay, the music, graphics, or other areas of the game. Once they uncover these errors, they write a report about them and detail the problem and tell the game designers how to reproduce it exactly. Then, they turn in the report and the programmers discover the issue and use the tester's report to fix it. Testers will also devote tons of time talking with the developers along with the programmers to help them sort out diverse problems with the game as well.
If you know something at all about programming, then you realize that the code it takes to create contemporary video games is super long. Along all of these thousands of pages of code, you can find sure to become errors - and it is your job to find them as a video game tester. Whilst each and every gaming organization will have a distinctive way that you simply will likely be expected to find these errors, probably the most frequent way is to go by way of the entire game and make certain that each and every single item, weapon, NPC and object, works appropriately. And, in case you take into account all of the newest MMO games, using the thousands of combinations of weapons and expertise, then this job can get extremely tedious.
Video game testers also must test the limitations in the game. For instance, a lot of players will experiment with doing diverse points that the game was not seriously developed for - like creating the largest army, or finding the highest mountain and jumping off. The video game tester has to actually anticipate these factors and test the game for them to ensure that they can tell the programmers what happens when they do that precise action. In other words, you attempt to break the game prior to the public gets to do it. It's going to also be your job to make sure that the game can in fact be beaten in all of the attainable ways. So, for those games that allow you to take various paths to the end of the game - the testers have to be in a position to beat the game on every single one. And, if there's a problem or error along the way - you must report that. Testers are also responsible for generating confident that the game works effectively on the created method. So, inside the case of PC games, the tester has to be certain that the game will function with a combination of distinctive hardware and list the ones that it's not compatible with too as method needs and more.
What Hours Can I Expect?
Lots of people assume that video game testers just work about 15 to 20 hours per week and pull in a massive income. Or, they see a video game tester job as a job that will enable them to work from home, in their pajamas, from their bean bag chair, and play whenever they feel like it. In reality, video game testers function as a team in an office atmosphere and function a 40+ hour function week. In the course of crunch times, you are going to find yourself operating up to 80 hours or more a week to obtain a game prepared for launch. All gaming organizations are various, but most are pretty lenient with the times that you get to work and leave - inside reason certainly.
As an example, they could be flexible for those who need to work at 8 am instead of 7 am, or they may perhaps be content with you taking a working lunch and leaving an hour early. As the game that you simply are testing goes via unique phases, your operating hours each and every day and week will adjust. You should generally be ready for your schedule to fluctuate throughout distinct times in the year.
Getting started in the gaming business as a tester is both easy and hard. It’s easy because you don’t necessarily have to have a programming or game design degree (although one will come in handy—see Chapter 4), but it’s hard because the competition is fierce. After all, working in the Quality Assurance (QA) department (a.k.a. the game testing department) is a job most gamers dream of. With a little perseverance and knowledge, you’ll be able to walk right into that dream job you’ve been angling for.
Chapter 2:
What Does it Take to Be a Tester?
Don’t think that testing is an unskilled job where you can just waltz in through the door and get paid. A tester must have a diverse set of skills, many of which you can obtain without the need for a college degree. One of the most important things to consider is experience.
There are lots of ways that you can acquire skills for becoming a video game tester. One terrific way is to generate your own mini game. This can automatically show a perspective employer which you aren't only thinking about the field, but that you know exactly what it takes to produce a game.
One more strategy to show off your skills is to produce game mods. You'll be able to effortlessly understand on the internet how you can develop these gaming mods, after which build a number of that can allow you to do unique issues - including map coordinates, lower gravity, or even build cheats. It is sometimes possible to try and produce a custom level on your preferred game. Some of the on-line PC games, particularly the MMO games, won't permit you to do this, but other games have special settings where you can produce a pretty detailed map or level.
Another way which you can show gaming firms which you are what you say you will be is to organize local gaming events. For anyone who is in the video game community, regardless of if it's on line or offline, then this really is a terrific opportunity to display your involvement within the market. You can quickly show prospective employers that you display initiative by organizing gaming competitions or events within the community. It also shows that you are willing to take some action to get involved in gaming instead of just sitting about playing.
You may also test anything at all to (and I’m not talking just games here!) obtain testing knowledge. For example, get a gig testing new cleaners or gadgets. That will show the gaming company you can test something and do a fantastic job at it. You can find hundreds of thousands of companies which are looking for individuals to test their products, so you could locate a fantastic gig testing something. It can be the testing experience that the video game providers are on the lookout for.
Game Literacy
This should go without saying, but it’s worth mentioning anyway. Don’t just play a game passively: compile a mental (or written) list of what’s good and bad about the games you play. Don’t stick to one platform either—if your chosen platform is the Playstation, branch out and play console games, handheld games, and arcade games. They all have to be tested, and limiting yourself to knowledge in one area is going to limit your ability to get a cross-platform position.
Computer literacy
Being great at playing games isn’t enough. You need to be able to install software, peripherals, and drivers. You might have to futz around on a system to get it working properly (bug #1), or you might find that the game doesn’t work with a particular platform version (bug #2). Don’t forget the bug tracking software: as a game tester, you’ll probably have access to a defect management tool shared by the engineering and QA departments.
Communication skills
You could be the best bug finder on the planet, but if you can’t communicate, your skills are worthless. Possessing communication skills means writing a polished, professional, understandable report that includes essential information about the bug. You need to be able to clearly communicate about where the bug was, what was happening when you found it, and what you were expecting to happen instead. It’s for this reason alone that a class or two in English composition and communication skills should be in the resume of every game tester. As a former department manager, I can tell you that having a brilliant programmer who is unable to communicate via email, and having to go to that person’s desk to ask them what the heck they are talking about, is one of the most frustrating aspects of a manager’s job. If you can’t communicate, you won’t last long.
Written communication like, “I performed an attack and it sometimes crashes the game” is next to useless for the person trying to fix the bug. A better bug report would answer questions like:
•Does it happen on a certain enemy?
•Does it happen while you are wearing certain armor?
•Does it happen in every area of the game?
•What steps does the developer have to take to recreate the issue?
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can squeeze by the door without these skills (thinking, perhaps you’ll get some on the job training). In order to get a job (especially with one of the larger game development companies), you’ll likely be pretested in the interview process. As well as being asked a myriad of questions during the interview itself to see how you perform under pressure, you might be asked to take an online test in grammar or computer skills. This is especially common if you go through a tech or temp agency; they will only put you on their books if you’re able to perform above a certain level on these tests.
Analytical Skills
As a game tester, you’ll probably be checking every aspect of the game. That means following the instructions for installations and following every hint, tip, or instruction in the guidebook. You’ll be to the production team what a copy editor is to novelists: your role is not only to have fun playing the game, it’s to catch all those small errors that seep into printed form as well as in game play. Be prepared to have to prove your analytical skills: a college degree that’s strong in math or another analytical area will help, or you may be asked to take an entrance test. At one of my first positions in computing, I had to sit a logic test to get the job, after I was interviewed. The company had a policy of only hiring people who performed above a certain level on the test. The test was similar to a test you might expect to sit for Mensa, not game testing, but these types of tests are becoming more and more commonplace.