Become A Video Game Tester

Game testing does not involve playing the latest games and telling the developers what you think of them - it's the developers who decide what makes a good game, testers are there mainly to find glitches

Game testing does not involve working 20 hours a week and earning a six figure income - at crunch times right before the game is released you may have to work up to 80 hours a week. Plus, the average income of a game tester is about $35 000

Game testing is not some lazy job for school dropouts who want to just sit around and play games their whole life - it requires a lot of education and skill to even get into the video game industry in the first place, and the main factor affecting your job security is how hard you work.

Game testing does not allow you to work from home, playing games whenever you choose - one of the most crucial parts of game testing is working as a team, and there is no way you can do that effectively if all the other testers/programmers/developers etc aren't in the one place.

So that's some of the myths out of the way... but what about the facts?

Working hours
This all depends on the company, but some can be fairly lenient with the times that you must arrive and leave... but obviously they must be sensible (i.e. no arriving at work at 6pm). The amount of hours you actually have to work changes as the game goes through the different stages of development. In the early stages of development the demand for testers will be low, but as the game nears its deadline, it is likely that you will be called in to work for up to 80hrs a week to finish your tasks.

Wages/Pay
Game testers get paid hourly rates, so the more you work the more you earn. The actual amount you are paid per hour depends on what level game tester you are and also varies between companies. The top testers can earn up to $80 an hour, but the average for an entry level tester is usually between $8 and $15 an hour.

Age requirement
You must be at least 18 years old to get a full time game testing job. Those of you who are younger may be able to get small part-time holiday jobs, but these wouldn't be proper testing jobs, and you would really only do this for experience. There are however a lot of things that anybody can do at home to prepare themselves for a proper game testing job, and these will be explained in Part 3 of the course.

Type of games to test
You will usually spend up to a year (or longer) testing the one game. You will start to get to know how the game works and be able to perform your testing tasks much more capably. While this might be good if the game is the next big hit, you will still just be spending hours performing the same tests over and over again (this is where things can get very boring). Plus for the majority of the time the games will have almost no sound, some very bad graphics and a lot of things just won't work. Yes you do get to play the games, but it won't always be fun.

Which is the best/quickest/easiest path?
Honestly, there is no definite way to get into the video game industry, and no quick pathway. All those courses you see on the internet promising you a job within one week generally only focus on one specific way into the industry, and it's usually a way that only one in a million people can be successful with. That's why this course is different. It simply aims to give you the necessary tools and knowledge so you can have the best chance at finding a job within the industry.

Opportunities to expand within the industry
Game testers have the unique opportunity to expand into any aspect of the video game industry. In fact, there are a lot of people who get their first job as a tester, and then choose to advance further into the industry to the job that they truly want (such as programmer, developer, artist, writer, etc.) A tester will come into contact with people from all the different areas in the industry, and this is a great chance to get to know what is involved and build a good reputation, so that if you choose to move up in the industry, you have many directions to pick from. Of course you will need the proper qualifications, but it is so much easier to move up the ranks once you are in the industry than it is to get a lead job straight out of university.

Basically, it is the tester's job to find glitches or problems with the gameplay, music, graphics and general workings of the game.

They are then required to write a report detailing the glitch or problem, and explain exactly how to reproduce it.

The programmers will read the report, and use it to find and fix the problem.

Of course, that's just a very basic outline of what is involved. Testers also will spend a lot of time communicating with the developers and programmers to help sort out all sorts of issues with the game.

A lot of places on the internet don't think much of game testers (except for those 'miracle programs'). They're meant to be the low paid, badly treated workers doing all the boring jobs.

In actual fact, a tester plays just as an important role in creating the game as the developer, programmer, artist, writers etc.

They are responsible for identifying all the mistakes in the game. But not only that, they are the ones that must report the issues to the programmers and developers. Being able to effectively communicate the issues to these people is one of the most important aspects of being a video game tester.

Demand for testers can vary as games go through the different stages of production, and usually the closer to the release of the game, the more work will be available.

If you know anything about programming, you will know that the code for modern games is ridiculously long. Among those hundreds (often thousands) of pages, there are sure to be mistakes somewhere.

The job of the tester is to identify as many of those mistakes as possible to ensure that the game runs correctly as designed. This can be done in a number of ways, the most common ways explained below.

They will go through the whole game and make sure that every single item, weapon, npc, object, event etc works correctly. When you take into account modern RPG's that contain thousands of weapon and skill combinations, things can get really tedious.

Testers must also test the 'limitations' of the game. For example, many players will experiment with doing things the game wasn't necessarily designed for (e.g. creating the largest army, getting to a far away point on the map etc). The tester has to think of all these crazy things players might try, and make sure the game can handle them.

Testers have to make sure that the game can actually be beaten in all the possible ways. So for those games that allow you to take different paths to finish the game, testers must beat the game with every one of those paths.

A tester will also be responsible for making sure that the game works properly on its designed system. So in the case of PC games, the tester must make sure that the game will work with a combination of different brands of hardware.

There are two major types of testing, explained below:

Static or Structured Testing
This is where a Test Case is written and followed out. The Test Case will usually involve a certain aspect of the game, with a list of specific things to check.

Examples of this include running into all the walls to make sure you can't go through any, checking that all item combinations work, checking that all areas of the interface are working, checking that an npc can be interacted with etc.

Dynamic or Unstructured Testing
(sometimes known as Adhoc)
This basically involves the tester just playing the game trying to expose glitches.

They might just be playing the game properly to make sure every thing works, or will try unique things that the game isn't necessarily designed to accommodate (e.g. In a racing game, trying to find shortcuts, or creating demolition derbies and performing stunts).

The actual task of a tester will vary between companies and projects, so there is no set job description. Things will also change as the game reaches the different stages of development.
Sometimes you won't even play the games, you will just write Test Cases or test hardware. Then sometimes all you'll do is unstructured testing, playing games everyday.

I have come across a book which is solely devoted to the requirements of a video game tester. Throughout this course I will mention a few products which I recommend for more information, but if you only choose to buy one product, I recommend it be this one.

You can download a copy here:
Become A Game Video Tester Guide

Before you decide to buy, you can read the
first chapter of the book for free by clicking here.
This book is unlike any other I have seen in that it goes one step further, showing you not only what's involved in testing games, but how to become the best tester possible. (And if you ever want to expand in the industry, being a good tester will make it so much easier).

In this part of the course you're going to learn about some of the key qualifications and requirements you'll need before you can become a game tester. We'll focus on the formal qualifications you must have, plus the extra skills you need to know before you start applying for testing jobs.

Now due to the varying nature of testing jobs, one of the only 'must have' qualifications you will need to become a game tester is a university/college degree... so we'll start off by addressing that.

University/College Degrees
To get into the video game industry you really need university/college qualifications.

Yes, there are people out there that have gotten testing jobs without going to university, but they truly are the exceptions, and I wouldn't recommend you base you career around being one of the exceptions. Most employers these days in the video game industry just assume that all applicants will have studied at least 3 years at university... and if you haven't, is very unlikely that you will be taken seriously.

However, the thing about aiming to move into the industry as a game tester is that you have the advantage of being able to choose from many different courses that could relate to your career.

There is no "Game Testing Course" offered at universities, but here are some ideas of other courses you can choose that all relate to video game testing:

Game Design Courses - only a few universities offer these and while most have nothing to do with testing, at least you will have some sort of qualification directly related to the video game industry.

Mathematical Courses - mathematics, physics, 3d artist, computer programming etc will relate to the computer and coding side of testing.

Writing Courses - writing, literature, speaking, drama, foreign languages etc will definitely help with the writing of reports and your communication skills. This is a very important part of game testing, so some sort of writing course is definitely recommended.

Creative Courses - art, film, music, mythology, popular culture etc will all help you to understand the deeper levels that games try to delve into and will help you realize how the developers came to their decision about what to include in the game.

Which of these courses you choose to major in really doesn't matter. For that reason I suggest to do the ones you most enjoy, as they will be the courses that you will get your best marks in.

It is also up to you whether you decide to go with a few courses from each category above, or if you just choose to focus on one thing. It is a good idea to try and study a mixture of topics, but showing the company that you are educated, able to work hard and able to achieve good results is the most important thing.

Just a little note, if you are looking to expand and become a programmer/artist/music composer/story writer etc, you definitely should look into focusing on courses that directly relate to the specific career you are looking to expand into.

But as I mentioned earlier, a university/college degree is really the only 'must-have' qualification you need before you apply for a game testing job. But there are a lot of other skills you should know that will significantly increase your chances of actually securing your first job, explained below:

You will at least need to know the basic structure of testing software... and by software I mean any software.

It doesn't matter whether it is a video game or a new word processing program, it will still go through similar stages of testing.

Going that extra step further and actually knowing how to test the software will really make you stand out among other testing applicants.

You may only be interested in playing games, but if you know how to do all sorts of testing (white and black box) you are going to be ahead of a lot of other people, and much more likely to get those superior testing jobs with better pay.

There's one book about software testing by Cem Kaner that details exactly what is involved. It's highly recommended by a lot of people within the software testing industry.

For your very basic entry level testing job, you won't have to know any programming language. However, it is a great skill to include on your resume to show the company your level of expertise in video games.

Not only that, but basic knowledge of C or C++ programming will be very helpful for you in getting those more advanced (and higher paying) testing jobs. This can also open up a number of other career paths within the industry.

You can learn C and C++ programming from all over the internet. But if you are completely new to this language of programming, there is one book which you can't go past.

To be a video game tester you will definitely need to be competent at working with computers. That includes both hardware and software.

With regards to software, you don't need to know exactly how every single computer program in the world works. You will though need to know how to use the basic applications fluently.

These include simple programs like word processors, spreadsheets and basic databases etc. but you must also be able to handle different types of installations and managing the settings of programs.

As for hardware, one aspect of testing video games (particularly PC games) is to make sure the game is compatible with all types of systems. A good knowledge of video game hardware (e.g. sound card, RAM, video card, networking etc) is necessary, especially in the PC industry.

Ok, so you don't need to know all the thousand steps that games go through before they are released, but you do have to know the basic processes involved.

For example, you must understand how developers go about initially designing a game. Not just that though, you need to know how the programmers/artists/music composers/writers perform their jobs too, as well as what the final stages of production involve (e.g. marketing, manufacturing, support, distribution etc.)

Yes, you will learn about these areas in more detail once you actually get a game testing job, but in order to effectively work as a team and communicate with these people in other areas, you need to have an understanding of what their tasks involve.

Not only that, but the relationships you build with people in these other areas of the industry will really help you to more easily expand into one of those areas later on.

This is probably the most important skill of all. The most common task of a video game tester is to find glitches or problems in the game, then write a report so that the programmers can reproduce the glitch or problem and fix it.

You must be able to effectively communicate your thoughts/actions into words, so that the programmers will know exactly how to reproduce the glitch.

This can be a very hard skill to develop, but if you just practice explaining things to people and doing a few communication exercises, you will slowly get better at it.

One thing you do have to take note of though is your grammar and punctuation. I know that there are not many things more boring than
learning proper grammar and punctuation, but it is a crucial skill to have as a tester.

Not only does it make your reports easier to understand, but it also shows that you are professional and educated... two very important values you must portray if you are looking for any sort of job in the video game industry.

So they are the fundamentals you should have if you are looking at becoming a video game tester. Now they are some pretty difficult skills just for game testing, but as I mentioned in the earlier courses, game testing really is important. A lot more goes into it than just playing games.

These were just some of the main skills you will need. There are many other similar skills that you might have that would be beneficial in getting you a game testing job.