Video game testing?

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I just accepted a job doing this-- I've heard everything from "it's the most boring thing ever" to "it's the funnest thing ever." Anyone got stories they can share from when they did this job? I start Monday and have NO idea what to expect. Other than, "there's a binder and it tells you to push buttons then you write what they do" or some such business.

― Will M. (Will M.), Friday, 14 July 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

i've known a few who had this job, but they've never stuck around long. it's supposed to be pretty monotonous.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 14 July 2006 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

hey dood i started as a tester at a shitty company and now i have a high paying job with full benis and 401k at an awesome company! pretty soon ill be producing games! if its a good company then there will be lots of room to advance and stuff! good luck!

― Moonwalkbjrain (chaki), Friday, 14 July 2006 19:55 (nineteen years ago)

im a tester too but i test stuff for wireless phone companies. i did test playstation online before its release in australia and that was OK but it was more performance testing rather than functional testing. i couldnt pick the game either, obv. it was some lame army game. call of duty maybe? its cool you get a binder with what to do. i have to write that shit myself. i get paid lots too but i still want more.

― sunny successor (katharine), Friday, 14 July 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

Well, it's not as fun as playing video games all day and crunch times suck hard (80 hrs a week+ and no extra compensation really). Depends onthe environment and the coworkers a lot. Having documentation already is a good sign.

― patita (patita), Friday, 14 July 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

Just remember two words: JUSTIN BAILEY

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 14 July 2006 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

chaki, who do you work for now?

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 15 July 2006 03:57 (nineteen years ago)

chaki, who do you work for now?

i would also like to know this. the place i am going to work for rhymes with "colt." are you familiar with this comapny whose name starts with V?

― Will M. (Will M.), Saturday, 15 July 2006 07:59 (nineteen years ago)

vcolt!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 15 July 2006 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/01/game_designers.jpg

My mom said i'd never get ANYWHERE with these games!

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Saturday, 15 July 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, but vcolt isn't a gamedev house, they just staff 'em.

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 15 July 2006 15:30 (nineteen years ago)

i work for a company that rhymes with raprom.

― Moonwalkbjrain (chaki), Saturday, 15 July 2006 20:32 (nineteen years ago)

vcolt is real? i just made that up

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 15 July 2006 20:37 (nineteen years ago)

no, it's fake. the company it refers to is real.

― kingfish cyclopean ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Saturday, 15 July 2006 23:47 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, this gig isn't attached to any actual companies that MAKE games, they just get contracts to try and test games. However, it gets me out of Ottawa and into Montreal which will be fun (just in time for half of fantasia film festival), and i will be close to a lot of fun places, like the HQ for that other place that makes video games... you know, named rhymes with rubiroft.

― Will M. (Will M.), Sunday, 16 July 2006 04:06 (nineteen years ago)

GAHAHGAHAHAHAHA WHERE DID U FIND THAT SCREENSHOT CGC THAT IS MY FAVORITE ANYTHING EVER.

― BUTT LIKE A HOLE, BLACK AS UR SOUL (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 16 July 2006 07:16 (nineteen years ago)

this sounds like pretty much the best job i could ever have, short of being paid to stroke my harbl and eat chimichangas all day.

― BUTT LIKE A HOLE, BLACK AS UR SOUL (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 16 July 2006 07:29 (nineteen years ago)

http://cosbytestspokemon.ytmnd.com/

― BUTT LIKE A HOLE, BLACK AS UR SOUL (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 16 July 2006 07:30 (nineteen years ago)

update: pretty sweet job. i wouldn't go as far as saying it's FUN, and the folks I work with are kinda... well, they scrape the barrel around hiring season, I guess. Today I had "Enn Cee Ay Ay" 2007 Month-Before-April Madness. I had to enterr the game with every team as a home team, sit through the loading screen, then before the toss, hit start, do an instant replay, and scan around the stadium for graphical errors. Yep, looks like I'm on Eee-Ay Games/Sports as long as I work here. But hey, it beats data entry. I get to use a controller to get boring data instead of a keyboard. It'd be even more neat if I cared about college ball at all. But I'm Canadian so I don't even KNOW most of the colleges.

― Will M. (Will M.), Thursday, 20 July 2006 01:31 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2006/06/a_bugs_life.php

― webber (webber), Thursday, 20 July 2006 02:13 (nineteen years ago)

the new NCAA looks good

how did you get this job? you make it sound like they threw a fishing net out into the street. also, which state?

― sunny successor (katharine), Thursday, 20 July 2006 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

Not state. Province. Aparnetly the job's outsourced to Canada. It's in MTL, QC.

― Will M. (Will M.), Saturday, 22 July 2006 15:53 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, and I found it on ... v-raig'slist.

― Will M. (Will M.), Saturday, 22 July 2006 15:53 (nineteen years ago)

And my last day was "ad hoc" testing-- essentially PLAYING the gmae for 8 hours and passively looking for bugs. The game: 2007 version of that hockey game everyone plays. You know, the one that's "in the game." for the x360. It was AWESOME. I got paid to do something I'd probably do at home for FREE. also, I found bugs that nobody ewlse would have got, so IF NOT FOR ME, THIS HOCKEY GAME WOULD BE (MORE) FLAWED (THAN IT IS).

― Will M. (Will M.), Saturday, 22 July 2006 15:55 (nineteen years ago)

sounds like a much better gig than the ones in house!

― patita (patita), Sunday, 23 July 2006 01:42 (nineteen years ago)

welcome to mtl will. you're probably working 200 metres from my house. check out the vietnamese sub place just above st-viateur, it's good. or pharmacie esperanza. also awesome empanada place la chilenita just moved in right below the petro-canada.

oh wait you're NOT working for rubiroft right?

never mind!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 23 July 2006 03:06 (nineteen years ago)

Nah, I work for 'vcolt'. I'm on Metcalfe and Rene-Levesque (Sun Life bldg) for work, and Parc/Mont-Royal/Cote-ste-Catherine for living.

I tried to go to a la chilenita the other night... it was closed because the owner was on vacation or something. then we tried to get to the other one on time and it was closed. and also we tried to go to patati patata but there was some staff party. it was the night of everything working against us! but i will get there eventually.

― Will M. (Will M.), Sunday, 23 July 2006 14:15 (nineteen years ago)

"Others resort to more extreme measures – there’s a story of the management at one developer/publisher requesting QA staff ‘bring their own mirrors’ after cleaners complained about the amount of cocaine they were having to wipe from the toilet seats."

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Sunday, 23 July 2006 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

One of these days I'll talk Puppy into working for rubiroft as an excuse to come live in Mtl a while! Damn right I will.

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 23 July 2006 23:30 (nineteen years ago)

i like how rubiroft sounds like something scooby-doo would say

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 23 July 2006 23:48 (nineteen years ago)

Mtl??

― sunny successor (katharine), Monday, 24 July 2006 01:45 (nineteen years ago)

mount real

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 24 July 2006 04:06 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

We get tasks with times attached and are asked to write up any glitches we find along the way. Best task I have had so far: 12 hours. Play and beat an FPS campaign mode and find any errors you can.

Course, I spent about 3 or 4 of those hours writing up many, many glitches.

And I did finally get ot La Chilenita. El Burrito Grande destroyed my mind.

― Will M. (Will M.), Friday, 18 August 2006 02:23 (nineteen years ago)

do you ever go to caraïbe delite on du parc & villeneuve for roti & jerk chicken?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 18 August 2006 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

Haha, it took me ages to realise those last two posts weren't code for publishers/game titles.

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Friday, 18 August 2006 14:06 (nineteen years ago)

If it weren't for your post, I'd still think they were code... I'm not entirely convinced they aren't.

Anyway, I once got offered a Game Tester job, but it was only on a 4 week contract and for some stupid reason I decided I needed more stability than that from a job, so turned it down. It was in Edinburgh, and about 2months before the San Andreas release date. I often wonder if that was what it would have been for.

― Craig Gilchrist (Craig Gilchrist), Friday, 18 August 2006 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

I remember being 9 or so and being asked from Nintendo to get a job interview to be a videogame tester but then they found out I was 9 so that didn't fly so well.

― christopherscottknudsen (christopherscottknudsen), Wednesday, 6 September 2006 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

I rose in the ranks. I no longer test games! I yell at testers and stare at spreadsheets!

And yes, re: Caraibe Delite... it's only one block from my house. So I've eaten there more than a couple of times.

― Will M. (Will M.), Tuesday, 12 September 2006 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

Hi there!

So I guess you've been working at "Vcolt" right? That's pretty cool! I've got an interview for a tester job at Babel Media in Mtl thursday!

I'm pretty excited to find out in details what I'll have to do...!

I was just hoping you anwser my questions pretty please? ;)

- What does the schedules looks like as a tester? Do you have to do 60h/week or is it normal?
- How about the salary? I was hoping to get around 10$/h but I'm not too sure that will happen...!

Also, do you know if "Vcolt" is still looking for some testers? I juste graduated from CEGEP with a DEC in programming so maybe that could help me to land a job...! It would be funny to end up working with (well "for" you from what I gathered from the last post!:P)

Thanks for your time!

― Charles Boisvert (YoshMaster), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 01:48 (nineteen years ago)

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