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The video games industry is a multi billion dollar per year industry. If a game is released with bugs, glitches, and errors, it will cost the game publisher money. Negative reviews on internet gaming forums and blogs, coupled with a backlash from users can massively affect a games profitability and seriously damage sales for the publisher. The Video game tester, more generally known as the quality assurance tester is tasked with identifying all errors, problems, and anything that can affect playability prior to the game being released.. Doing this helps to keep the final product glitch free, and therefore encourage positive reviews from the magazines and websites, and promote positive feedback from gamers. Good reviews and feedback = more profit for the games publisher. Game testers are the last chance for bugs and glitches to be picked up prior to release, and therefore are vitally important to the games publisher.

Unfortunately, games publishers are not going to pay you money to just play the games the way you play them during your leisure time. You will nearly always be working on a set project with very clear instructions concerning what specific parts of the game you are required to test. This is how the video game tester, or QA tester, earns his / her dollars. Essentially, you will be trying to break the game.

For instance, a few months ago I was assigned to testing a Fps, testing one specific level. My jobs was to test the map , which included running into walls, objects, and other supposedly impassable barriers at different speeds and different angles to see if I could get through. I would also shoot at the walls and objects with different weapons, and try to climb the terrain to get over the boundary. This particular project was designed to ensure that the boundaries where solid, and walls and objects reacted the way they were supposed to when under fire.

Other examples of tasks are testing a track in a racing game, driving round it in different directions, at different speeds, driving into the boundaries, and generally trying to wreak havoc and find something that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Other things you will be looking out for when testing a game are that all the levels load correctly, in game items weapons and objects work as they should, and weather effects and game graphics are displayed correctly. Concentration is essential, as you will need to ensure that no problems are missed, as these will negatively effect the gaming experience for customers.

In short, you will be needed to treat playing the game as a job, and not a hobby. You will need to act professionally at all times, and follow the project guidelines strictly. As you can probably guess, this can be extremely boring. You could end up in a situation where you are playing the same game for weeks, even months. You will often be totally sick of a game by the end of the project! Quite often, game testers will rack up hundreds of hours of game play on just one project.

Once a bug has been found, the video game tester will have to complete a short report on the bug, including details of how it was located, and how often it occurs. All glitches are categorised according to the impact they have on the gaming experience. The most serious bugs are those that cause crashes and game freezes. On the other end of the scale are bugs that may be down to personal opinion, for example a video game tester thinking that a particular graphic “doesn’t look right” or an animation that seems odd or out of the ordinary. These more minor bug reports may have no action taken against them, but the more serious bugs will get near immediate attention from the programmers.

The database of reports is consulted by the programmers again, bugs are fixed, and the game is then retested. It is very rare for games to be released with major problems, as publishers know full well the damage this can do to their reputation.

Thanks to the video game tester, a clean, polished product is usually released and fans and publishers alike are kept happy.

If you want to work as a video game tester and would like further details, feel free to visit my website.You can get lots of free info about the game tester recruitment process, and what life is like working in the job.