Can you be a game tester full time and get payed? - And what is that job called?

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I'm no expert on the matter, but I'm guessing... probably not. I mean, studios will have their own internal Quality Control in one form or another so technically you probably can get paid for playing games, but there's such an abundance of gamers out there who leap at the chance of playtesting for free that you're very unlikely to make any cash as a freelance games tester...

I could, of course, be wrong here

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Oh, or you could become a games reviewer I suppose. In which case I imagine you should be able to offer up some sort of degree relevant to journalism if you want to do it professionally.

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Apart from internal developer QA dept's there are plenty of publishers who have dedicated testing departments, although I doubt you'd do little more than bug hunting (this is the nature of testing work). Generally though you'd be looking at n-month contract work (3, 6 or 12 typically) with no guarantee of renewal after that.

I know of at least one "freelance" games testing company (not sure whether I can name them or not) who also provide feedback on the games they test.

I don't know any freelance individuals.

Ok, thanks

(I highly doubt I will be able to make it into reviewing games because I had bad English results in my GCSE's )

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Just to add onto what Atchoo said. I believe what your asking about is QA(Quality Assurance) testing, which, believe me sounds more appealing then it really is. QA tends to have a high turn over rate due to people seeing it isn't what they expected it to be.

Your not just sent games in the mail and you play them and then tell them what you like/dislike about it, thats what an open/closed beta test is for. QA usually works as, they take you and/or a group of people, assign you to a certain place in the game, a very small point in the game, and you try to break it, you make a report of what is broken, and how you managed to do it, Dev's take a look at it, fix it, and have you try to break it again.

It turns into a very unexciting job very quickly, depending on the company, they will keep you another term or release you based on performance and potential and wat not~

If this is what your looking into doing, check to see if there is a studio in your area, if there isn't then you really don't have much of a chance, since most QA is done in house, due to the ability of quick communication from QA/Dev team. You can always tell the games where Devs are close to there QA teams, and the ones that aren't.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_tester


all questions answered there

hate reading ? heres a video (not mine) http://youtube.com/watch?v=46buMHO7384&feature=related

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I'm a dog chasing cars. i wouldnt know what to do with one if i caught it. you know i just do things.
R.I.P Heath Ledger

there was a position recently around my hometown called web master.

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When the sunshines does that mean it is always going to be a happy day?

"Be careful when fighting monsters, lest you become one yourself..."

EliteDARTHMARC:

there was a position recently around my hometown called web master.

He-Man tried that for a while, I hear it didn't live up to his expectations either.

Loyaltrekie:

Just to add onto what Atchoo said. I believe what your asking about is QA(Quality Assurance) testing, which, believe me sounds more appealing then it really is. QA tends to have a high turn over rate due to people seeing it isn't what they expected it to be.

Your not just sent games in the mail and you play them and then tell them what you like/dislike about it, thats what an open/closed beta test is for. QA usually works as, they take you and/or a group of people, assign you to a certain place in the game, a very small point in the game, and you try to break it, you make a report of what is broken, and how you managed to do it, Dev's take a look at it, fix it, and have you try to break it again.

It turns into a very unexciting job very quickly, depending on the company, they will keep you another term or release you based on performance and potential and wat not~

If this is what your looking into doing, check to see if there is a studio in your area, if there isn't then you really don't have much of a chance, since most QA is done in house, due to the ability of quick communication from QA/Dev team. You can always tell the games where Devs are close to there QA teams, and the ones that aren't.

I once heard a story that when they were working on some Lucas related property (Young Indiana Jones?) there was a tester who always broke one little part of the game and couldn't get past it due to it being an "A" bug, every new build it broke there. Eventually she just came in a hoodie, grabbed a controller, popped in a video of the game breaking there, and slept for a few hours. If you want to do QA make sure your programmers are competent.

However QA can be a wonderful job for one reason, mobility. If you have a eye for quality and make gameplay suggestions as well as just testing you CAN move up into level designer positions (and beyond, i.e. Lead Designer), it may be worthwhile to have a degree in Game Design, but either way it is a way to get yourself in. In fact, go to Gamasutra and pick a handul of developer profiles randomly and you'll see a number of them went through the QA department. Some go through programming, others art, but if you're not specialized and more of an "idea man" or a jack of all trades QA can get you in. However it is one of the shittiest thankless jobs in the world until promotion. It's about 25k (starting) a year (up to around 61k if you become lead tester and are in the company for 6 or more years), but the job description pretty much amounts to running into a tree at every concievable angle in order to see if it crashes the game and then filing a lengthy report on how to reproduce the bug and how bad it is.

Source for salary:
http://gamecareerguide.com/features/266/are_you_in_demand_2006_game_.php?page=5

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There was a place near where I lived before I came to University but I forget what they were called, as far as I recall they were purely a game testing company but I could be mistaken, based in Aldershot.

I applied when I was 16, got turned down, although if I re-applied now i'd have a better chance I feel  and is tempting.

hey i wanna beta test but i don't wanna get payed i just wanna test betas

redogsal:

hey i wanna beta test but i don't wanna get payed i just wanna test betas

Ok just leave your email and i will send you gta 5, halo 4 fable 3 and final fantasy 13

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I was an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) with Microsoft during the 90s and worked on a game in MS Research part of that time.  Most of the "testers" were contract workers.  My boss (the test lead) and I were the only full-time MS employees on the test side.

Since we were a relatively small team, my job included the daily build (compiling the source and building the distribution package) and building automation tools.  After the build each day we'd automatically install the client on a few machines along with a test client and it would automatically play the game.  It was a space game, so my test tool logged in a few players, put them on "scout" missions to find items within the universe, and eventually sent them to destroy whatever enemy targets they would find.  If the game ended in a specific amount of time, we called the build "".

I also built other tools to slam the server with bots - then a couple of us would jump in and make sure the game played well with that number of players.  The tools would calculate lag but we needed people to make sure the action looked smooth.  I also did performance analysis so we could spec hardware for the clients and server.

The testers were responsible for other items - looking at the UI, making sure animations were smooth, sound effects worked right and were at the same time, and a lot of video card testing (PC).  They played the game more than anyone else.

We'd usually set aside Friday afternoons to play the game as an entire team and look at balance issues and things like that.

Hello peopleeeeeee yea it is possible to get into a full time game tester job and get paid

The only problem is how to do it well this page has some very useful information about the the bad and eve how to make your own mini games. I found the info quite useful  http://completegametesterguide.blogspot.com

Just a word of caution, that blog looks like it was set up to feed into another money making site. You should never ever have to pay to get a games testing  job,  and really it's something to go into for love not money.

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shonen.co.uk

Fairly spot on description of the job I'd say. Having been a member of Quality Assurance for nearly four years, I'd say it is a job worth having. I've love nearly every moment of it. Very rewarding, but very thankless as well. But I think that strongly depends on where you work. Where I am, testers are treated...with a bit less courtesy than the rest of the development team.

I could only imagine how awesome it would be to test, focus test or beta test for Lionhead. Of course my biggest inspiration in this industry is Mr. Molyneux so I'm fairly sure I would pass out from excitement if I ever got to meet him in person. So maybe I'm better off where I am. :-)

I have not been on this website for quite some time now, but I still want to be a Game Tester. I am interested in the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (not sure if it is the same thing) areas that people have mentioned. 

I was wondering since I only have one year left of 6th form, where and how do I apply for the job?

[I live in Wales, UK but am willing to move if I get the job (still inside UK though)].

Thanks for any help and the help everybody has already provided. (Although some of the people who did help may have left this site by now ).

 

Hawk

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Anyone?

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Anyone at all?

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hawk540:

Anyone at all?

helloooooo?

this is something ive always been intrested in too...
even the supposedly boring true nature of the job...

i dont see whats so boring about trying to break stuff over and over... and over... ...

...really... its something ive always wanted to do...

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"playing swingball, tears straming down his face...
and i said to him, "Mark be honest, is this not a little bit better than being dead?""

this ones impossible... so its for 2 NINJA COOKIES!
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derek-poundstone? xD

I think this is a profession most gamers want to get into.

 

You you don't have to break the game once. You have to break it, then do what you just did again a few times to make sure.

 

Playtesting would be cool. Getting paid to properly play finished games before the launch, but I believe there aren't many paid postions for that.

 

And this is to the people who said they'd love to be QA for Lionhead :

 

Last I heard, bear in mind this was 2 years ago, Lionhed doesn't have any in-house testers. They out source. If you want to work for Lionhead as a tester, your best bet would be working for another company they've used a few times for testers.

kageuchiha:

You you don't have to break the game once. You have to break it, then do what you just did again a few times to make sure.

i just said this...

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"playing swingball, tears straming down his face...
and i said to him, "Mark be honest, is this not a little bit better than being dead?""

this ones impossible... so its for 2 NINJA COOKIES!
_____

derek-poundstone? xD

id be happy just to play the game early

Lionhead does have ful ltime testers. Currently there are 4 (might be 5 now) and they have been here a long time.

When it gets busy, we bring in contractors to work in the studio.

MS handle testing at their end too...although we did use ex-lH test boss Andy Robson's Testing company for a little bit of F2 work on top of our own and MS's test depts.