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“Testers play games all day”

update: March 5, 2006

One of the first things people will ask if you tell them you’re a games tester is “Wow! You mean you play video games all day long and get paid for it?” Admittedly the honest answer is “Yes”, but therein lies an assumption that “playing games all day” is actually fun. People outside the industry often fail to realize that testing is not really “playing” games as you and I would normally play them – my experience is that it’s more the sort of thing you might do when you’ve played a game to death and want to eke a few more hours worth of entertainment out of it (i.e. trying to climb the castle in Mario 64 without using the cannon). It is also important to remember that testers do not get to choose the games they test – for every lucky soul play testing Perfect Dark or Shenmue, there are thousands of others lumbered with much less exciting fare during their 9-to-5 (in the spirit of Christmas, I won’t be mean and single out any game in particular).

One way to imagine “play testing” is to think about a recent game you played – not one that was outstanding or excessively awful, just a game mediocre in its fun quotient and middle-of-the-road in terms of replay value. Now imagine playing that game for four or five months in a row, ten hours a day, every day. Not only that, but it is most likely your own testing schedule will focus on only two or three levels in that game (although eventually you will be expected to know the entire game inside-out). If you are still thinking “Hey, that’s OK, it’s still playing a game...” trust me - you are not in the correct mind set! Don’t get me wrong - testing could be quite a lot of fun, but at its core it involves mucho repetitive and painstakingly slow, methodical work.

If you want to be a programmer, you can’t really blah your way in without knowing how to program. Likewise, to be an artist you’ll need a decent portfolio and knowledge of a graphics tool like 3D Studio. Level designers usually come with a few good level designs under their belt, and most positions other than that (namely producer and designer) are filled by people who’ve worked in the industry in some other capacity. Testing is quite unique in that it doesn’t require masses of experience or any specific skill set to begin with – hence the universally low pay and status of the job – but it does expose you to a surprisingly broad array of issues in development. In the early stages of a project you might be presented with early alpha builds that demonstrate some of the core game play concepts, albeit without many of the fancy bells and whistles. At this stage, you’re being asked to comment on the “feel” of the game – even at this early stage it’s likely the development team will have lost a fair amount of their objectivity (they’ve probably been working on it for about a year, mind) - and part of being a good tester is having an encyclopedia knowledge of games – cross-platform, cross-genre, cross-everything. Mindless system advocates and die-hard genre fiends do not, in my opinion, make good all-purpose testers: much better is a warm, open and altruistic love of all things “gamely”, be it Pokemon, Quake or Baldur’s Gate (hey, that rhymes). If you find yourself asking deeply philosophical questions like “What is a game, anyway?” rather than “Why do PlayStation games suck?” then you’re on the path to becoming a grade-A testing candidate..

So, in the early stages there really may be room for your suggestions and feedback. However, the project will inevitably reach a point where it gets feature-locked and most suggestions will be ignored in favor of getting things that are already supposed to be in there working properly. At this stage, you can bet that most of your time will be spent bug-hunting – either playing the game to discover new bugs (“hmm, I wonder what happens if I try running into this door whilst firing the bazooka”) or trying to recreate old ones that may or may not have been ‘fixed’ (“hold Up when entering or leaving a room and any currently-held items will be dropped”). Gulp! At this time, it becomes handy to have a good understanding of computer hardware and the processes behind game development, as the more specific you can be about a bug, the sooner the programmer will find and fix it. If you don’t know what a sprite or texture is, or what the Z-buffer does, you might find it difficult to relate some of the weirdo things you see onscreen to the guys writing the game. Of course, that’s why a lot of testing is done with the machine hooked up through a VCR – so you can trace the often-confusing sequence of events leading to a lock-up.

So, despite the fact that no formal qualifications in testing exist, it seems pretty obvious that a deep, wide knowledge and understanding of games and the fundamentals of how they work can be a big plus. Game development is an increasingly technical business, and I would advise anyone thinking about working in it to get technical ASAP – start learning C/C++ in your spare time and find out about 3D hardware! Likewise, developing an “instinct” for bug hunting can soon become an art form – one battle-scarred tester I worked with had discovered several ways to lock up Mario 64 whilst playing it in his own time. I find that amazing: I’ve played the game for hundreds of hours and never seen anything go awry...

“Testing is a good place to start in the industry”

I would never claim that my experience of testing was definitive – there are as many types of “testing” as there are programming (well, almost). I had the good fortune to work for a developer with substantial in-house resources which made things a lot more interesting for a mere tester (i.e. designers looking for design feedback from testing, personal contact with the development team) than working for a publisher. I would say, though, that this summary of the utility of a testing job is one generally accepted by my peers: if you can’t code, can’t do art and have no development experience whatsoever, testing is your best shot at that oh-so-valuable “foot in the door”. Plus, if you play your cards right, it can lead to some interesting places (junior designers are often recruited from testing departments). Some people may get a boost from work they do in the pubic domain (i.e. the guys who did the original Team Fortress now work for Valve) but testing is the place to be if your killer mod isn’t going beta anytime soon...

“Games testers work crappy hours and get lousy pay”

With most jobs in game development the hours get pretty hellish towards the end of a project, and testing is no exception. Playing games “all day” may turn into “all night” during the frantic final weeks, with testing departments often getting the shitty end of the stick when it comes to late nights at the office. As for crappy pay, that’s definitely true if you’re comparing testers’ pay to that of programmers and artists (especially of the ‘senior’ variety). However, in comparison to the many other non-game related jobs you could be doing for the same money, testing has to look good in comparison (i.e. cinema usher - another job I did that everyone else seemed to think must be non-stop fun). The long hours can add insult to injury as it is unusual for testers to get “overtime” as such, but some companies will pay a share of the royalties or completion bonus which can make up for the otherwise exploitative wage scale! Alas, whereas newbie programmers and artists can see comparatively rapid rises in their pay the same doesn't really hold true for testers (which is why nobody really wants to be a tester for more than a couple of years if they can help it).

I realize the above is a fairly abridged guide to testing If anyone has any questions about testing that I’ve left unanswered or is looking for advice, I’m be happy to help. I’d also love to hear from those of you that are testers. For those interested, the following is a quick rundown of the things propping up my CV when I was hunting for testing interviews: aside from my impending Psychology degree, I had taught myself C over the last year and written a (fairly poor) Net Yaroze PlayStation game which was of sub-NES quality but did teach me a ton about the basic structures of game development. I’d been writing for loony games for about 6 months, and had previously written for a number of other gaming web sites (including the now-defunct-but-much-beloved N64 Gazetta, of which I was Associate Editor) over the last 3 years. I also let the interviewers know that I had owned just about every console (and a fair number of computer systems) released since the mid-80’s, and I guess my pathological love of games seemed to shine through automatically. That’s the strongest thing on my side at the end of the day: I love games and I really enjoy being able to make them for a living with a bunch of other like-minded folk. It’s a cool job, and a cool thing to be part of. Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year - see you on the other side of Y2K!