Get Paid To Play Video Games

Wow! Can you imagine a job or perhaps even a career where you get paid to play video games! Is this a "dream job" or what? Well perhaps, however like most things you hear and read, things that appear too good to be true usually aren't. Then again maybe game testers jobs are as good as they sound.

The only way to discover if video game tester jobs are in fact as great as they appear is to examine some of the duties and responsibilities of being a game tester as well as what kinds personal characteristics are need to be a successful video games tester.

Since it is vital for a video game software manufacturer to test out their products before spending millions of dollars in marketing costs, it is fair to say that game testers jobs come with a great deal of responsibility. If games are released to the consumer with lots of problems or "bugs", not only will few sales be made, but the reputation of the company will take a beating as well. This could add up to millions of dollars in lost profits from declining sales as well as not making back the money already spent in game research and development.

Duties of a Video Game Tester

Ok, so let's imagine that you were successfully hired on as a video game tester. What kinds of things might you be doing? Well first off you are most likely part of what is known as a "development team" working with other people such as game programmers and animators. As the tester, your duty is to find the "bugs" in the game so that they can be fixed before the game goes to market. Therefore you may be involved in such tasks as:

• repetitive testing, that means doing the same task over and over again to ensure the game is running smoothly; this could be as simple as turning the game off and on numerous times or interacting with game characters at the same level time and time again to ensure no "bugs" or game freezing occurs.
• testing game hardware such as the controllers to make sure they work properly over extend periods of use.
• working through various levels in the game, much like a customer, to ensure everything runs smoothly without any problems.
• playing the same level in the game repeatedly looking for any problems.
• testing and retesting in-game communications such as messaging and chat features if the game is played online.
• close to the release date of the game, a video games tester often is required to play non-stop, sometimes 24 hours without a break, as a final check.

As you can see some of the duties list above are down right boring, but they are part of the job. Then consider the fact that as a tester, especially when first employed with little experience, you may be involved strictly in the video game beta testing stage where some of the "bells and whistles" are missing or even in the initial alpha testing which may even lack in-game graphics.

Yet another important duty of video game testers is to make detailed and meaningful reports of any problem they find to their on-site supervisor, or if a video game tester at home, then to a company contact person.  These reports must be extremely detailed so that the game programmers know what needs to be done within the game coding to fix the problems.

Next we will look at how to become a game tester to see the type of personal characteristics necessary to be a successful and actually get paid to play video games.