How Testing Ruined Gaming

Dream Job?

You may think that being a tester would be a dream job for any gamer. While that is the case for some of you, think about what you might be giving up in exchange. Take a moment to consider how breaking the illusion games have created for you can have a great impact on how you perceive and enjoy gaming for the rest of your life.

All That Work

Do you remember the euphoric sensation you got from dinging level 85 in your favorite MMO? Do you also remember the countless hours, quests and instances you endured to achieve that high honor? The sad thing is that a Blizzard employee can achieve the same feat in just a few seconds through the wondrous miracle known as “console commands”. PC Gamers may have been doing this for years, but their exploits have largely been confined to single player campaigns. With just a few keystrokes, the developer can change nearly any metric in the game instantly. Knowing this makes all of those lonely nights in front of a monitor seem superfluous.

Makes You Bitter

There are plenty of visual bugs that annoy me as a former tester. Z-fighting, open seams, and floating point errors can really grind my nerves, but it’s the functionality bugs that give me a real headache. Seeing an AI character running into a wall or in circles can be slightly annoying, but when a system is so broken that it barely functions, I want to punch someone in the face. The Taxi system in Saint’s Row 2 is an example of a game-breaking system. In single play the system worked seamlessly; in co-op, however, it was a minefield of game crashing bugs. Now, I know as well as anyone that QA will occasionally find a bug and the developers will assess the issue and ultimately deem it “shippable”, but there comes a point where you have to say, “The QA guys employed on this project were either been lazy, or inept.”

Can’t Turn It Off!!

Once you’ve tasted the bitter-sweet nectar of QA, it can often infiltrate your mind outside of the workplace. Your eyes will become conditioned to see visual and functional flaws that remain, otherwise, unnoticeable. While there are those who can turn off their QA training, the majority of people who have spent time as a QA tester have difficulty simply enjoying a game once the QA nectar has graced their lips. Just know that if you decide to become a game tester, this could easily happen to you. You’ll no longer be able to take a casual stroll down the streets of Liberty City with no worries. You will see the flaws and seams where the veil of illusion has been pulled. You’ll know the sky is simply a giant picture put above the game world (sky box). You’ll know that under the sidewalk there is a dark void of nothingness.

Don’t Believe The Lies!

The internet is saturated with lies and misconceptions about being a tester. We’ve all seen the ads on the side of websites promising six figure incomes for the simply “playing games for a living”. The sad truth is that testers are often treated as second class citizens. There are times a developer will host a party or raffle and everyone is invited…except QA. I’ve even seen a developer go so far as to have a giveaway where “everybody gets one,” but QA is left out. Addressing the lucrative payment for being a tester… that is a drastic overstatement as well. With the exception of management, who can make a fairly decent living, you will never get rich being a tester. When I started as a tester all those years ago I was making $8 an hour. Four years later I was making $12.50 - you do the math! While I was more than content making that kind of money doing something that I loved, it was often barely enough to pay the bills.

Consider it carefully

You have to REALLY love video games to become a QA tester. The difference between “playing” and “testing” is drastic. Imagine playing your favorite case in LA Noire. Now, imagine playing that case ten times a day, five days a week for six months straight. It’s very important to keep in mind that working in QA will take your favorite past-time, and turn it into a job. Before you head on over to your favorite developer’s website looking for a testing gig, ask yourself this; “Are you willing to forever change the way you perceive and play games?”

PS: Don’t call them “glitches”. They are called bugs.

[Emilio_Estevez]

Interesting article. Do you want to inform us what you tested?

[DanielRCampbell]

Sure! I cant really remember all of them off the top of my head but the bigger ones include Saints Row (1+2), Company of Heroes, Red Faction Guerrilla and Juiced 2.

[DA_SHREDDER]

You were a tester for Red Faction? So tell me. Did you even play RF1? Did you not bitch about how it being that much different totally sucked? Sure destructibility was the major focus, but the original was a master piece. I'd even say it was the Metro 2033 of its time. So how much pull do you guys even have when it comes to the games? I don't mean to sound so harsh but if your QA don't you have a say in what goes on?

[Hayabusa 117]

@DA_Shredder

A thousand times NO. QA have absolutely NO say is what get's put in the finished game. Developers simply DO NOT listen to QA feedback and opinions: they're only there to find bugs, and if the coder/designer get's enough pressure from a producer he/she will fix it.

The sad thing is that developers these days will bend over backwards to please the focus test group but completly ignore QA. Fair enough, I get that QA is packed with hardcore gamers with high standards, but they can come up with some good solutions as well :)

[outwar6010]

i loved rf g

[SageHonor]

This is a great articles. I knew for a while that testing isn't the haven gamers think it is. Its almost like aspring video game designers. Alot of people think its about telling people what they want in the game and then they just execute it. It's pretty much why I don't think I want to be in the video game industry anymore.

[DanielRCampbell]

Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.

[Tuxedo_Mask]

Thanks for giving us an inside look into the life of a game tester. It seems like game developers should either treat you guys better or stop with the false advertising about how grand of a job it is, preferably both. I wonder how many QA people are employed by specific game companies, especially Obsidian considering how their games are usually released full of bugs. Considering the number of reports they had to have known they were there, maybe their QA guys told them about them and they just ignored their findings.

[DanielRCampbell]

A lot of studios do not have their own QA team. They deem it "unimportant". There usually is a small QA team at the publisher but they usually are there simply to assess if the game is far enough along for submission and such.

[SLLCKGT]

I had a friend who was a tester at THQ, and everytime someone who say how is it he would tell them how much he hated it. He also keep saying its because he wouldn't play them, he would test them.

[DanielRCampbell]

It was actually THQ that I tested for. They are...less than kind to their QA staff.

[FaSCoRP]

VERY good article. I had a friend who developed games with Gameloft, mostly for iPhones, and he told me sad truth about this. Running a Java emulator with the game for hours just to verify bugs and look for glitches. He was anything but happy doing that but, it was a job at least.

[DanielRCampbell]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. You make a good point though. I forgot to mention the pain of "regression". We would have to not only find and document the bug, but we would have to spend a sizable chunk of time attempting to recreate the bug once the developer had marked it "fixed".

[mastiffchild]

I he you-and can see where you come from. Since doing film studies(which I only did as a minor)I can't take films at face value-sod all those books about how to "read" a film because of them I just cannot enjoy a movie any more as ?I find myself analysing every last detail. I can only imagine this does a similar thing to gamers.

As far as testing as a job goes ands being left out of the dev loop-it's lways going to be lke that with MOST QA testing. Often the creatives will see testers as "the enemy" when it'#s simply nopt true, and take any chancew to ignore and discredit you when, in reality, they should be happy that you're helping improve their work. There's no bone of contention and you SHOULD be credited for working on the same side but because you're finding THEIR mistakes, and some people take it as criticism, this will always happen. Christ, I even know proof readers who get this stuff for pointing out, as heir job, grammar errors and spelling mistakes!!

As a job, though, I can still think of worse things to be doing even than playing the same level day in and day out even though it's obviously not perfect or the best thing in the world it's better than some tasks in this climate.

[R_aVe_N]

Q/A is one of the most important jobs at a game studio, and from experience it can be very rewarding too. Not all studios are like this. I have worked at some Sony studios that they love the QA team mainly because they make them try harder to get things right the first time which in the end cuts down on dev costs. This is not a job for somebody that thinks they are just going to be playing games because that is not even close to what you will be doing. I remember going through one area for about 20 hours to make sure there was not any wall glitches in the online mode. That was the most boring 20 hours of my life lol.

[SolDojo]

I have tested a plethora of big name games.

Simply put, the under appreciation, sullying your favorite pastime, and grinding hours are, together, an absolute deal breaker.

You begin to see every flaw, every tiny scrap that could maybe possibly be slightly better in this marginal way.

You can test a game that sells millions and millions of copies and not see a single cent of profit sharing, after you and the rest of the QA team poured your heart and soul into making sure the game was ready to launch, and met the expectations of the investors, share holders, and potential customers.

You play the same game, for months and months and months, until, when that game finally comes out and is sooooo awesome to everyone else, and at this point, you could really, REALLY care less.

QA, when all is said and done, is a job for the guy who thinks games are neat, but doesn't actively engage in them, but mainly has an insane eye for detail and an iron will for monotony.

QA is NOT for a tried and true gamer who also happens to have developed an keen eye for quality control over the years. Just take your skills and thoughts, and make your own game. I promise, you'll be much happier.

[SageHonor]

Excuse me but what does QA stand for?

[awesomeperson]

Quality Assurance if I'm not mistaken.

[UNCyrus]

I agree with most of your points, mostly the inability to turn it off.

[Solid_Dave]

I really liked this blog. Very interesting to see what its like to be a video game tester since it is most gamers dream to become one.

[dinkeldinkse]

Which is a shame because it is important job unless the developer is just absolutly perfect.

[Xelestial]

Actually, no I have never really wanted to be a game tester. From the moment I learned that game testers are the ones who actually learn what works and what doesn't, I knew it'd be a terrible job.

God knows how many times I've gotten stuck, but the fact that I know it's completable (thanks to testers) always keeps me going. But what if you didn't know if it was your own flaws or the video game that was keeping you stuck?

No thanks, I'll take writing about games anyday. But I salute you testers and all that you do. You are truly hardcore.

[ChronoJoe]

Well in most cases you aren't stuck, forever. You can go ask a dev how to complete the section if your unsure... so it's not like your endlessly stuck some place in QA, as you suggest.

Although half the time you might spend running along the edges of walls and such to make sure you won't fall out the map... kinda interesting. It's more fun if the people on your shift are uh, nice people, you can make a game out of it :)

[Xelestial]

Informative, thanks. Now I feel a little less bad for them but then again, if it's bad design, just asking the dev how to complete it won't reveal if most players can't complete it. How about getting stuck on bosses? Can that happen?

[ChronoJoe]

I'm not a QA by the way, so my information is second hand. A friend of mine is. But he said they have like debugging tools so they can skip between levels and stuff like that. If they encounter a bug that prevents them progressing and they feel they've thoughroughly tested the other aspects of that level then in most instances they are able to skip to the next level.

[Hayabusa 117]

"God knows how many times I've gotten stuck, but the fact that I know it's completable (thanks to testers) always keeps me going. But what if you didn't know if it was your own flaws or the video game that was keeping you stuck?"

That's more a design thing then anything to do with testing.

[Xelestial]

Seems like poor design if you have to ask someone how to do it after trying for hours. I mean, you want a game to be challenging but not completely frustrating.

[buckley]

Great article. I don't have much experience as a tester (just some betas back in the day before they became glorified demos), but ever since becoming a regular reviewer, it's a similar situation where you can't turn it off. Gone are the days for taking a game at face value. The automatic analysis kicks in and it gets harder to harder to just play games for fun anymore. So in a way, I can empathize.

[mart-saarman]

lol

[pr0digyZA]

I was never interested in being a game tester because I had heard what a bad job it was. I'm more interested in being involved with the ratings board, anyone know the low down on that?

[ChronoJoe]

I know people who're in QA for Travellers Tales. They say it's fun if you have someone who you can race with, on your shift. Y'know compete for to get to a certain point in the level, or find the most bugs etc.

They also say they're treated pretty well by the devs, my friend specifically is QA management though (but only been working with them 5 years), but he goes out with them for drinks and such so I don't think they shun him or anything like that.

Guess it depends where you work.

[Hayabusa 117]

I'm not sure if I agree with all those. I have done QA and although I ended up hating it, it was for a different reason: I wanted to move on and get into design (which I did :)

Firstly, I've never had the problem that "I can't turn it off" I dream of the game every now and then but I never really think about it at home, even when I tell myself "Well I'll think it over the weekend" I never do!

I also didn't find it ruined other games. Sure, when you play games 30+ hours a week you're less inclind to play a game when you get home, but I didn't find it made me analyize the game too much. Perhaps it's because I was already analytical of games (which is what helped me get a job in testing) but I didn't find that ruined games for me. If anything, the step-by-step bug repoing process helped me in other things, like if my laptop starts acting up.

On the other hand, QA does get largly ignored. I think it's really bad that developers don't listen to their QA team alot more, and I think QA should be implemented into the process at a much earlier stage in games developement. And as I said in another post, it's really annoying that developers take every letter a focus tester says as absolute, even though it's just a handfull of people that probably would never buy or play the game anyway :p

But if you want to have your say in game, QA definitly isn't the way to go. Just try and get into design or something. QA isn't the place to get your ideas into a game and it never will be.

I guess that's why alot of people get frustrated in QA. Alot of people get into QA because they want to break the game industry. I did it because it was the only way I could break the industry and luckily the game I worked on gave me the opportunity to progress into design. But QA isn't the best way of gettig into the industry, especially in this day and age where getting poached out of testing is becoming rarer I think. But certainly do QA rather than some crappy "game design" course at some Uni. Better yet, learn coding or modelling and start from there...

One thing I will say about working in the industry if just how wrong alot of fan speculation is. When a game get's delayed for example, fanboys cry "it's because they're scared of Call of Duty! blah blah blah, e.t.c." when the reality is it simply wasn't polished enough on time. Althugh I can't think of any other examples right now, there are loads of situations like this where gamers speculate and largely agree amongst themselves why something is going on but the reality is simply someone didn't turn up for work that day or something.

Back to the topic, QA is a job at the end of the day, so you have to accept that it comes with a certain amount of responsiblity and "work". The idea of sitting down and earning money by simply "playing" a video game doesn't exist. Although I too found testing games distastfull in the last couple of months did it, I wouldn't go as far as to say "testing ruined games" for me. Most of my friends in QA still play games outside of work too, just not as much as they would if they had other jobs.