This seems especially relavent since the article in CGM not long ago...

My wife got an e-mail from one of the guys we went to (elementary, junior high, AND high) school with, and it turns out he moved to California about a year ago, just to get a fresh start. As part of that fresh start, he got a job -- get this -- at Lucasarts, as a game tester.

And, contrary to what the article implies, he loves it!!

With the exception of those few full-time freelancers like Tom, or editors for magazines, I can't think of very many jobs where you actually get paid to play games for 8 hours a day...Sure, they're all from one company -- which is where freelancers have testers beat -- but it's still a full-time job, and MOST freelancers can't pull that off.

As long as you work somewhere good. Can you imagine play-testing Force Commander for 12 months? *shudder* It'd be a great gig at somewhere like Blizzard or Bioware. For a company that just plain doesn't produce bad games.

Back when David Landry (I'll test the old-timers here - what games did David Landry design?) was running a game testing company, I did a lot of wargame testing for him. For example, I was a tester on Grigsby's War in the Pacific and War in Russia, some Norm Koger stuff, plus a number of other SSI games (and a few really horrible Mindscape games.)

What was interesting was how difficult it was for David to keep a full staff of testers. People would sign up, but when they realized how difficult and non-fun it was, they would fade away. Testing every little combination of key commands (systematically), whether the detailed functions were operating properly, details (for wargames) such as whether the results were appropriate, etc. etc. is really hard work, and you're working with early builds with no manuals.

Yeah, there are definitely some companies that would be less fun to work for. I wouldn't enjoy that situation either, Jeff. But, Lucasarts?? I bet he's seen Galaxies...

Anyhoo, if you got in with the right group, it could be a lot of fun.

And what just kills me about his deal: He wasn't even looking for it. He just kinda stumbled onto the job.

Before going to work at my first magazine job, I was a game tester at CD-i. So think about that before you post your little sob stories.

I spent 2 months playing Tox Runner (a terrible Road Rash clone for the CD-i) for a living. My favorite Tox Runner bug report: "Race takes exactly the same amount of time to finish no matter how fast you ride."

This led to a big argument with the developers, who said that this was the way it should be and that I "didn't understand physics." They played the physics card again later when they used "centrifugal force" to explain why a rider would be pulled toward the center of a turn - even if he was sitting still.

To my knowledge, the game was never released primarily because the testers hated it so much. If you ever played any CD-i games, to think that a game could be too bad for the system is astonishing.

-Ron

I tested MDK2 at Bioware for three weekends, and by the end I was just about ready to explode. I don't think I'd really enjoy testing games for a living... although I'd probably like it more than my stupid retail job right now.

Ron, that is hilarious. I know sooner or later all software developers fall into that trap of self-delusion. I've tried mightily to avoid it, but I think we all have our moments. ;)

99% of the tester jobs suck. Q&A is the mailroom for gaming companies.

I remember having a conversation with a guy from Terminal Reality on the plane ride back from E3 who was describing some Microsoft-wanted "design changes" to CART and its physics model, was rather funny how the Microsoft product people thought.

--- Alan

Yeah. "Would it be possible to irreversable integrate Internet Explorer into this game? How do you feel about ActiveX? Or maybe advanced features for users who have Office 2000? We're also going to need you to incorperate a little talking paper-clip that pops up to give the player tips."

Brad Grenz

i often come across this issue when people say i have an easy job, and i will tell em "your hobby is work or you work on your hobby" are 2 really different things, if your hobby is work, aka workaholic, or just simply take pleasure in working, no matter what kinda job, u will enjoy it. however, if u turn your hobby to your work, it will become tedious, because your work will include many more things than just the stuff u wanna do, eg. in this case a game tester probably needs to give feedback, maybe even need to test specific things REPEATEDLY on a daily / monthly fashion, now that could drive someone insane. so i never envy anyone's seemingly good fortune, everything has a flip side to it

You want sob stories?
Before my current job, a couple of friends and I started a testing company. This was during the time when anything being put on CD-ROM was considered "multimedia." There were a lot of small media companies back then so there was a fair amount of work.

High point? Testing Bad Mojo and nailing a complex gameflow problem that would have made it impossible to finish the game.

Low point? Two of 'em. Testing numerous titles made with macromedia Director that were aimed at ages 5 through 8. Not terribly engaging but it did pay the rent. The other one was getting a contract to test an "adult" title that was little more than a doom rip-off with porn images. We decided to close up shop shortly after that.

I was a tester for Microprose and Maxis. I couldn't hack it at Microprose. Not that it was bad but we tested EAW for 6 months. 3 longer than expected. I was so sick of EAW by the time we were done. I haven't played any flight sims since then. I tried to play Crimeson Skies and my brain started having EAW flash backs...