Applying for a Games Tester position

Psyk said:
Well that's all well and good if he's out to make as much money as he can. But most people who want to work in the games industry aren't in it for the money, if they were they probably would be in a different industry.
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Fair point - do many people here do this for free? Get early release samples in return for testing feedback?
 
melbourne720 said:
Fair point - do many people here do this for free? Get early release samples in return for testing feedback?
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That kind of thing never happens unfortunately. The closest thing you'll get to that is Beta testing online games. All testing otherwise is done either through an internal test team, or a third party testing company.
 
ive beta tested a number of games, closed/private/open all kinds...

just... never with a main company.
i looked a trying to get into being a beta tester awhile ago.

but never got around to actually handing in a CV.
and.. i enjoy playing the games rather than beta testing them,

and then i love everything to do with the digital side/advertising

im focused on the Graphic Design side. so if you have any tips on how to get into the games industry in that area. post a reply for me ;)

im still unsure whether to carry on Freelance or try for a Job.
but i still would love to work as a graphic designer in a games company.

just very unsure where to go.. and how to start.
 
What do you mean by graphic design? Interface design? Concept environment/character artist? Digital or drawn? There are loads of opportunites for art in the industry and if you're good there are normally an enormous amount of jobs available.
 
Remember if you're an artist - specifically in Graphic Design - you don't need to make the games, to get involved in the games industry.

Working for a publisher, I can tell you they are always on the look out for good graphic designers for both the online marketing department and creative services (box art, print ads, flyers, tickets, car stickers - you name it, they design it).

Just an alternative option to going into actual game development :).
 
well i really enjoy,
the advertising/game cover designs, logo's, banners, websites.

im still putting a nice CV together,
ive allready got a sort of a website up. http://www.cezarewhite.com

once i have finish it, i will start to put together a new A3 portfolio,
to take, then make a nice CV to send out.

thank you for the comment on the publisher side, i will look into that also.

i have a keep eye for photography too, so maybe that could be a bonus in some area's, i do enjoy taking my images, and using them in projects/work

also cost effective too.

i shall look into it this summer all being well :)
 
Did a year at Rockstar testing GTA for the PC. It was long hours and the pay wasnt great but it was a bit of a laugh compared to ather jobs i have had. Thoroughly sick of GTA now though and cant play it anymore.

Currently doing a spot Beta testing for Fortress Forever source mod and have been bug testing for a while. Its not paid and its not official but it is much more fun!
 
BumSalsa said:
Did a year at Rockstar testing GTA for the PC. It was long hours and the pay wasnt great but it was a bit of a laugh compared to ather jobs i have had. Thoroughly sick of GTA now though and cant play it anymore.

Currently doing a spot Beta testing for Fortress Forever source mod and have been bug testing for a while. Its not paid and its not official but it is much more fun!
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Do you mind me asking how old you are and what qualifications you have/how you sold yourself in your CV/interview to get the position?
 
I was 21 and I just sent in a CV.

Had no real qualifications at the time was in my second year of computer science at uni i needed hours to fit round my timetable. Got asked for an interview and i turned up smartly dressed. People assume that just because it was a games testing job it wasnt a proper interview but it cant hurt to make a good first impression. Was quite informal really and i explained my background in playing games and what my course entailed. Explained i was at uni and needed hours to fit round my timetable but diddnt mind working nights and all night if needed.

I just sold myself as myself and they asked me back within a week. Once i started it was great. Went to work in casuals and turned up whenever i had finished class.

Testing is the way to get into the business. I know a few guys who started off as testers with me but carried on and are now designers in various parts of the industry.
 
Thanks for the reply, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. What sort of A-Levels did you have, and do you know if they mattered?
 
Im from scotland so i had Highers which are slightly different. Had Computing Technological Studies and Maths with A grades but im not sure they made much of a difference TBH. Was more the fact that i could do the hours and had some programming experence from uni i think.
 
I have worked with many game testers, and they do get the worst jobs. There is quite a bit a variation tho'. If you get a QA position in a smaller dev, it isn't so bad at all. It is still hard work, but at least you are an important part of the team. A good tester is worth their weight in gold, not that they get paid accordingly so don't get your hopes up. Being one of a huge QA team is less good. You have bug quotas that you are expected to find! Then there is TRC checking, soooo dull.

A testing position will often lead up to a designer role if you stick with it long enough and have talent. However, it almost certainly won't progress onto programmer.

The hours are long, the pay is poor, but for some, they wouldn't do anything else. And there is only one way to find out. Give it a shot.
 
ttreaders said:
Yeah I have a friend who works for Rockstar North (GTA games etc) who primarily does testing and from what he has told me it's certainly not fun.

He spends his time running around a map doing his best to make the game crash, jumping like a lunatic, deleting stuff while talking to npc etc (just examples - basically anything he can think of), then when you find a bug you can't just say what happened - you have to go into a lot of detail as to exactly what you did, is it repeatable, possible cause of the problem and whether you have a solution.

I also was keen to get into this but it's not for me.
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I went for an interview at EA for a games tester job. They said pretty much the same thing, a lot of it is "collision testing" ie running/driving/whatever around the playing area making solid walls are in fact solid, and there are no invisible walls for no reason. Not really fun, but EA HQ was well nice, even had a free arcade but I imagine most people were bored at the sight of games to use it! I never got the job, which may have been for the best lol!
 
I've doing a QA job, started 6 weeks ago. I never thought it would be fun, and it does get tedious now and again but as long as you get on well with the people you work with i actually find it fun! It hasn't affected the amount of games i play at home, i'm going to have to stop when my contract ends because i've got to go back to uni to finish my course.

So many people that i work with have degrees, its crazy! I didn't think i'd last this long tbh!
 
its something i looked into as an A-level student, and something i wish i had followed through with. I did spend a year in a problem management/testing team when i was 18 for an Inland Revenue contractor though.

Its the sort of thing im very good at.

Id love to get into it now and use it as a stepping stone into programming but with a mortgage to pay and a wedding to save for i doubt that they would pay enough. :(
 
Kreeeee said:
I wouldn't wish a game testing job on anyone. Anyone who wants to do it clearly haven't done it before!
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It depends on how dedicated they are to getting into the industry.

I don't think I'll take the QA route as it seems it's unlikely to progress into a programming role, it seems more about design roles. Getting into design must be tricky as there doesn't appear to be many formal qualifications that are relevent and it's probably harder to build up a decent portfolio.
 
Psyk said:
It depends on how dedicated they are to getting into the industry.

I don't think I'll take the QA route as it seems it's unlikely to progress into a programming role, it seems more about design roles. Getting into design must be tricky as there doesn't appear to be many formal qualifications that are relevent and it's probably harder to build up a decent portfolio.
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Five of my friends at Codemasters who started in QA around the same time I did, now work in the Central Technology group as programmars. Depends on the company, by if you're good at what you do outside of QA and can prove it - they'll snap you up straight away. Codemasters run a secondment program in QA for programming and designers, but you really do have to be good. They chuck you right in the deep end and you either sink or just about stay a float.
 
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