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What is it like to be a Video Game Tester?
Getting paid to play video games is a dream job for some people. But is it really as great as people think it is?
I was hired by a video game company to be a video game tester. Before interviewing, I did some research on what the job was like. I read up on people having bad experiences with being a video game tester. They said you don’t get paid enough, they don’t treat you right, and they overwork you.
After reading that, I was pretty hesitant about interviewing. But what’s the worst that could happen? If I don’t like it, I’ll quit. Or best case, I’ll love it and stay with the company as long as I can. So I went ahead and interviewed. Here is my honest experience working as a video game tester. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Interviewing to be a Video Game Tester
Here are some notable questions they asked me during the interview.
What type of games do you play?
What is your favorite video game?
Give an example of a bug you found in a video game?
What is your biggest accomplishment?
Do you have have any experience working with big databases?
Why would you be good at video game testing?
They seemed pretty impressed when I answered, “I am good at logic puzzles and breaking things.” That is pretty much what they look for in a video game tester. I was hired on the spot.
How Much Money Does a Video Game Tester Make?
I was paid a little over minimum wage with my particular company. They even told us during training, “You should be happy you are getting paid over minimum wage, even if it is a little. Other companies pay the bare minimum.”
It was just under the living wage where I live. I couldn’t see someone living comfortably on this pay. However, near a video game’s release day, you’ll end up working up to 80 hours a week. Plenty of overtime pay.
What Does a Video Game Tester do?
A simple way of saying it, we break things or find broken things and report them.
You work with an assigned game console and a PC. The PC is used to enter any found bugs into a database that records all the discovered bugs.
Sometimes you are assigned a specific level or area of the video game to test. Other times you are free to explore whatever sparks your interest.
Once you find a bug, there are a couple of things you need to do.
First, check and see if the bug was already reported by someone else in the database.
Second, test the bug multiple times. See how many times you can repeat the bug.
Third, get evidence of the bug. This could be a screenshot, video clip, or the leftover cache files of a recent crash.
The last thing, enter a well written and detailed explanation of how to repeat the bug into the database. Then save the bug.
When not looking for bugs, you are testing old ones. You would find an old bug in the database and test it to see if the newest game patch fixed it. After testing it multiple times, you would mark in the database whether or not the bug was fixed.
Some days we “stressed tested” the multiplier servers. Everyone in the building would log on at the same time and play multiplayer matches against each other all day. If the servers crashed, we would just sit around and do nothing.
The GOOD About Being a Video Game Tester
You got a free copy of the video game you are working on
Sometimes they would have leftover promotional game-keys that they would pass around for other games.
You got employee discounts
This would be on video games and merchandise that the company owns.
There was almost no dress code
They told us not to wear anything too revealing or open-toed shoes.
Fun work environment
Gamers working with other gamers. Everyone had plenty of things to talk about. We even held Super Smash Bros
Free coffee and soda
I don’t know about other video game companies, but this one tried to keep us energized with unlimited coffee and soda.
The BAD About Being a Video Game Tester
The pay isn’t great
However, I meet some video game testers who loved their job and lived well below their means. They worked lots of overtime and complained about not having a social life.
You’ll get tired of video games
Being a game tester made me hate playing video games. I spent 8 to 12 hours a day, staring at a screen while at work. When I came home, the last thing I wanted to do was look at another screen.
Overall I think this overexposure to video games helped me beat my Video Game Addiction. I guess its a common thing that happens when you turn your passion into a career.
Lots of mandatory overtime near release
The month leading up to release day, we worked 12 hour days, not counting breaks, six days a week. I found my entire day pretty much taken up by work. I was beginning to miss my social life.
You are sitting in a chair all-day
Your muscles will get stiff, and you might gain a few pounds. I found myself going for walks on break and intentionally taking the stairs because my body was aching to move.
No phones are allowed in the office
Some people found this stressful. I was applying for other jobs at the time while I was working as a video game tester and found myself with a lot of missed calls. It was tempting to have your phone on you, but if you were caught, you would get fired on the spot. I saw that happen to some people. The company was stringent on us about leaks, telling us there would be “legal” repercussions if we released anything.
The UGLY TRUTH About Being a Video Game Tester
There were some job duties that contradicted themselves. It was a hard balance of working ethically and meeting a quota.
We were taught quality over quantity, but in practice, it was quantity over quality. We were told to test a bug multiple times, but nobody tested a bug multiple times, here’s why.
Pressured to work fast
If you wanted to keep your job, you were expected to find a lot of bugs. There was a public listing of every employee and how many bugs they found that month. The pressure was on. If you were on the bottom of the list, you’d be laid off. If you were on the top of the list, you’d get promoted. Why waste your time testing a bug multiple times when you could move on and find another one.
This leads to people entering poorly written bugs into the database. When we find a bug, part of the reporting process is making a detailed report. We add screenshots and videos as needed. Why waste your time entering a detailed report when you can write a poor report quickly and move on to the next bug.
Also, if you were spending a lot of time writing a detailed report about a bug, someone might write a quick report about the same bug and submit it before you. In that case, they would get credit for that bug, and you would get in trouble for entering a duplicate bug.
When testing old bugs, I often saw testers mark bugs as “confirmed fixed” without checking them first. There was no way they could know if the bug was actually fixed. I had one tester openly admit to me, “It’s just part of the job, you need to keep those numbers up.”
While I loved being a video game tester, this ethical dilemma troubled me. I take pride in doing good quality work, but for video game testers, it was quantity, not quality.
Do you ever wonder why a video game sometimes gets released with lots of bugs? It is because video game testers aren’t rewarded for being thorough. Instead, they are pressured to work fast or risk losing their job.
Another unethical thing I noticed was…
Some video game testers used known bugs for their own benefit on the video game’s day of release.
They would cheat the game though, currency glitches, leveling exploits, and bugs to win matches against online opponents easily.
Why wouldn’t they? They had access to a database containing all known unfixed bugs in that game.
Big layoffs
The Friday after release day, all the testers were brought into the office and told that we would be getting laid off. They didn’t need a lot of testers anymore. All the company’s games were released for that year, and so 200 video game testers were laid off at once.
Overall Being a Video Game Tester
Working in the video game industry was eye-opening. The ethical dilemma and the pressures working nonstop near release made the job stressful sometimes. But it felt great working on something larger than yourself. I look back at that video game now, knowing that I helped make it.
Please keep in mind this was my experience for one particular video game company I worked for. The experience of being a video game tester will vary wildly depending on the company you work for.
I hope this has been helpful and insightful!
