Game testing: An interview with VMC Game Labs

[Everlost_MI]

TeamXbox (http://www.teamxbox.com/) has posted an interesting interview (http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1196/VMC-Labs-Interview/p1/) with VMC Game Labs in how game testing works and most importantly how one can become a game tester. According to the article, VMC Game Labs, has been selected by Microsoft to provide console, game and peripheral testing services for the Xbox 360.

An interesting read that's worth the time in checking out.

[Varsity]

You'd have to be desperate to try and break in as a game tester. It is NOT a nice job.

[The Radical Cleric]

True that. Testers are considered lower than animals in most companies.

[ChunderMan]

You'd have to be desperate to try and break in as a game tester. It is NOT a nice job.

I disagree. I started out as a tester for a video game company and it was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had in my life. Plus, in my experience, I've found that companies like to hire (espescially entry-level positions) from within. After being a tester for only two months I was promoted to designer. In my opinion, it's one of the best ways to break into the industry.

[bobbler]

You'd be surprised how many people in the (game) industry started out at the bottom (especially now days).

You don't just get out of school and become a developer right off the bat (in most cases) -- you work your way up. I wouldn't exactly call it desperate...

[The Radical Cleric]

Chunder,
What company was that? That would -never- happen at Sony or EA...

[ChunderMan]

That's where you're wrong. I personally know multiple people that work at Tiburon (where Madden is made) that started of as testers.

And while I say that companies like to hire from within, you still have to have talent/skill to get promoted.

[ChunderMan]

Oh, and I work for High Voltage Software.

[goc_sin]

Ahhh.. the life of 80 hour work weeks, living off of vending machines, sitting in a room packed with 8 smelly guys playing video games. It's got it's moments.

[The Radical Cleric]

-If- you have an educational background and talent in a specific field, yes, you're right. The impression seems to be that you can become a tester and move on to design, as if it were a natural progression.

This is just not true, unless you have a plan and this was your aim all along. I guess what I'm challenging is the idea "Become a tester and see where it leads you". You have to know where you're going or you'll always be a tester, and trust me, it's a thankless job.

[ChunderMan]

Well of course you have to have a goal in mind. I didn't mean that just anyone could be a tester and they'll naturally become a designer/programmer/artist. You have to literally live, eat and breathe games, not just play them. And even once you're in (to the industry) you still are going to be constantly learning things.

And referring to the fun-ness of being a tester, it all depends on where you are. From what I've seen, the bigger the company, be it EA, VU, or Take2, the less fun the experience will be. But even then it depends. I recently was able to observe a bunch of testers from Take2 and they seemed like they were having a pretty good time. So again, it just depends on where you work.

[Undertakr]

Having been in QA for almost 15 years now, I can say a few things from my observations:

1) Out of all of the testers I've seen in 15 years, I'd say 20 were testers and the other few hundred were seat fillers. It takes a lot more than pointing out obvious problems to be a good tester and very few people I've worked with were good at it.

2) Testing is a great entry level job IF you have skills beyond testing. If you aren't a good writer, aren't technical, can't speak a foreign language, you'll be stuck in testing for a long time.

3) 80 work weeks was minimum at my first company I tested for. My record was a 115 hour week trying to ship a product with a movie.

Most testers don't get that the key is reminding yourself you work for the home user and not the software company. The software company doesn't give two shits about bugs really. It's up to the testers to protect the public from buying crap that doesn't work and honestly, I think most of the games we buy shouldn't be in stores. Two of my favorite games, ESPN's NHL 2k5 and MLB 2k5 both have MASSIVE bugs that Ray Charles could have seen. It's really depressing to see such shoddy testing from companies that obviously could afford better.

It's also amazing to me how a company spends millions of dollars making a game and then gives it to people who are either temps or getting minimum wage or close to it to validate that the game works and is good. Mind boggling how stupid that is. In the old days, PROGRAMMERS tested games, that's why they worked. Now adays, people who couldn't get a job at Pizza Hut who list "Nintendo" as computer experience do it.

- Takr

[The Radical Cleric]

Some interesting points, Undertakr...

[Cha-Ka]

Chunder,
What company was that? That would -never- happen at Sony or EA...

I personally know one associate producer for scea who started off as a tester. No joke. Also no names. He would want it that way. :D

[The Radical Cleric]

In Foster City? The hell you say! :-)

[Undertakr]

Yeah, everyone can name one person who moved from tester to producer. I can name 2 or 3, but that is out of at least 500 testers that poured through the companies I worked for. It's really pretty rare.

[Liquidize105]

True that. Testers are considered lower than animals in most companies.
Wow, even lower than http://www.geocities.jp/takeshi0218net/images/ham001_small.jpg ?

[xcalibur]

In the time it would take the average person to move through the ranks of QA and land a development job, you could have learned a skill (design, art, programming), developed a portfolio, landed an entry-level job at a game company, and probably shipped a title.

(shameless plug)
Or you could come to the Guildhall for 18 months, learn from industry veterans, and land a good job right out of school. 86% placement from December's graduates. 12 of the 28 June 18th graduates already have jobs. :)
(/shameless plug)

-X

[Kelegacy]

I have skills in writing and I have an education to fall back on. I'd LOVE to get into game testing for a living if it paid the rent. Hell, i'd love to write objectively for a gaming site, but it's just not going to happen. They only hire retards, last I checked.

EGM and Gamepro are great examples. And you have to usually live in the LA or San Francisco area....so, Californian Retards. I'm not a candidate.

[jeffool]

Oh, and I work for High Voltage Software.Hah, I once applied there by taking them up on what I assume was a joke on their job page. "If you really want to impress, write a one-page document that convinces anyone who reads it that a game titled “Car Washer” would actually work."

They asked me to take the test, but afterward I never heard back. Guess my test sucked.

[DeadPixel]

You'd have to be desperate to try and break in as a game tester. It is NOT a nice job.
I would have to agree with Varsity here. I worked as a game tester for 3 1/2 years, testing hundreds of products and I have to say it's not as fun as it sounds. Most of the job was either configuration testing of hardware compatibility or software testing of bugs. This means you may have to replay the same levels over and over and over, writing endless bug reports. Then of course the regression testing where you try and replicate previously found bugs in the new binaries.

The job is a good way to get into the game developing market, but by no means it is all about joy.

[mister_slim]

I like digging into the weird and broken games, but I've no interest in making a career out of it. Sounds like a horrible way to spend 40 hours a week.

[Kelegacy]

I like digging into the weird and broken games, but I've no interest in making a career out of it. Sounds like a horrible way to spend 40 hours a week.

Or you can work in an office, like me, and enjoy your 40 hours a week. yeah...right. I'd rather work in a slaughter house sometimes...but i cant kill an animal. A human slaughter house, making Solent Green. YES.

[Phhhh]

I like digging into the weird and broken games, but I've no interest in making a career out of it. Sounds like a horrible way to spend 40 hours a week.
40 hours a week... hahahaha I just got off of a 90 hour work week spending two days sitting overnight. But, I love my job and the company I work for. So it's really not too bad.

[*Legion*]

Every once in a while, we get a news story that brings the site's professionals out of the woodwork, instead of the flaming fanboys.

It's nice to see.

[Deadend]

I am a flaming fanboy...

I gotta say they got a nice setup from those pictures, very spacious and it looks well ventilated, which is nice if people spend 90 hours a week there.

I would like to do some testing, I beta test on occasion, but it really lacks direction, as in some games... you arent even told how things are supposed to work, so how can you know when it does not work?

[Achilles]

Testing is a great springboard into the gaming industry (any aspect of it really), it’s how I started out as well. However testing at VMC only seems to be a great springboard into testing elsewhere in the industry. The kinds of testing they do there is a different approach than being a dedicated tester either at a dev or a publisher, so the experience isn’t as useful. Just as a result of being separated from the people who are actually working on the game you don't learn nearly as much.

For example if you were a tester at a developer and you had ambitions of being a programmer you could hang out with the programmers and learn from them in your off hours, and learn how to use company tools. However VMC is useful for getting a job as a tester elsewhere (lots of people I worked with started out there). It’s effectively the game industry equivilant of a mail-room job in my experience.

[Savok]

I've always seen myself as born to be a tester, my uncanny knack of breaking something within 5 seconds of picking it up would be useful for once. I'm also a bitter, obsessive, petty, very angry person who is tired of seeing shit served up to us like it's the next fucking million seller and ridiculous logic holes (age as you power up in Fable anyone?) in gameplay which had so much damn potential.

But here I am, stuck in Australia, blackhole of computer electronics for the western world.

[Deadend]

Savok, can you describe how you break things and repeat the break?

[Savok]

Depends on how I break something, on some occasions it's like when the planets align and mytically tug on my system at exactly the wrong time to cause everything to turn orange.

Other times like Jade Empire with a memory leak (or something) I got, slowing the game to a crawl. I then saved the game and switched off the system, whoops I've saved the memory leak rendering my game unplayable. Repeating it is as easy as loading the game.

Or the case of the PAL versions Disgaea, La Pucelle Tactics and Phantom Brave, turning over the disc and yelling at the stupid cheap assholes at Koei for printing them on blue discs which have always hated both my PS2s.

There's the (rather well known now) case of X-Men: Legends with Beast being unavailble for the second mission if you don't talk to him in the manion before hand. You can add crazy flight ceilings for Jean and Storm which change every square inch, not to mention that you can somehow fall down a bottomless pit WHILE flying. One part on the Artbitor can't be sealed because everytime you try to get near it you end up dying as the AI can't handle player made bridges.

[Hellstorm]

I disagree. I started out as a tester for a video game company and it was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had in my life. Plus, in my experience, I've found that companies like to hire (espescially entry-level positions) from within. After being a tester for only two months I was promoted to designer. In my opinion, it's one of the best ways to break into the industry.

Yes, but you just might have been a special case or had the luck of being in the right place at the right time. That doesn't mean that the company you work for likes to hire from within. How often does it happen? Are they planning to promote from testing in the future? If it just happened to you, that doesn't mean the company will always do that.

Talent is subjective especially design-wise. A lot of talentless people get to design games, Stevie Case for example. Excellent writing skills will not save you when you cannot understand the formal abstract systems that drive gameplay, the patterns, etc. Heck you would be surprised at how many designers think the base game mechanic of the Metroid series is exploration, which is not the base mechanic.

[jeffool]

But here I am, stuck in Australia, blackhole of computer electronics for the western world.Bah I say, bah! There's at least 30 game developers in Australia! :D http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/contractor_display.php?category=1

Finding a nearby one isn't always as hard as people think. Now, finding a nearby game company that will hire you? There's the challenge. ;)

[Savok]

Good lord when did they appear? I knew Irrational Games had a studio here but they aren't looking for testers (http://www.irrationalgames.com/company/aus_jobs.cfm) (they want people who know what they're doing, bastards), damn shame as well because I love their games. Also I think I may be one of the only people on Earth who understands the ending to FF vs 3rd Reich :p

Of course part of that love is lack of game stopping bugs (or many bugs at all (single player anyway)), their testing department seems perfectly able. Then again that makes it the perfect place to learn the trade, testing is more then breaking stuff and screaming about it.

Still, all those others...

[ChunderMan]

Maybe my company is a special case, I don't know. I think that the smaller the company, the more likely they promote from within. Huge companies that have literally hundreds of testers would have a harder time "getting to know" their employees, and thusly they wouldn't get promoted.

In terms of my company though, there have been multiple people promoted from the testing department, so I know that it's a consistent behaviour.