What It Takes to Become a Video Game Tester
The ‘passion to play’ is the first requirement of video game testing.
However it takes more than the fun of playing to become a video game tester. Although game playing expertise is a must, aspiring video game testers should have other qualities or related skills in order to be good in this field. Qualities include patience, defect finding abilities, English literate, programming knowledge and expertise in playing.
Once a copy of the video game is delivered to the testers they can begin testing. Video game testers need to diligently log all the defects that they discover. Most successful video game testers are expert in English and have good communication skills. Video testers need these exceptional qualities to pass on to the developers who can then quickly fix problems and errors in the program.
Video game testing as a job can be competitive and stressful. Video game testers need to be patient enough to do repetitious jobs like evaluating the same level where bugs were found over and over again and switching the video gaming device on and off because the game locked up or crashed. It is not entertaining to play an unfinished game repeatedly. Video game testers have to play the same game or at the same level for hours at a time – it can sometimes take five hours or more to find the bugs.
The video game testers need to check if bugs have been fixed by the game developers by going through the game sequences repeatly. This kind of job is stressful and time consuming, but what they are paid to do. Aside from doing repetitious jobs, video game testers are often asked to work long hours, especially as the release date approaches, to check if all bugs are already addressed by game developers who are assigned to fix those errors.
Going back through a game sequence and ensuring that working features still work before the release of the game is a normal practice in quality assurance. If a new bug is found where it used to work then testing needs to done again to make sure all the bugs have been ironed out to maintain the game’s quality. Being a video game tester is tough but financially rewarding. Depending on experience you can earn from 30 to 100 dollars per hour as a tester and can be a stepping stone to higher things.
If you think you have the abilitiy and qualifications to become a video game tester it is time to look around to find video testing jobs.
About the Author:
Jon Dersona has been managing testing teams for more than 20 years. To know more about video game testing and how you can become a game tester, visit the website http://www.video-game-testing.info.
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