How Game Testing Can Ruin Games For You

Dream Job?

You may think that being a game 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 down the fourth wall 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.

Dream Job?

You may think that being a game 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 down the fourth wall 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.

I thought that playing the worst parts of a game over and over would be terrible.  Good read.

Is that you on your avatar? You have a striking resemblance to Vinny.

...anyway, Good read! I remember reading stories like this and it sounds as soul crushing as working at a call center.

Whenever my parents sardonically tell me that being a game tester would be my dream job (because I spend so much time playing the damn video games, etc.), I basically tell them a condensed version of what you wrote. I like video games a whole lot. But I would never want to make playing them my job (in a testing or any other context). Making them maybe, but that's not something I really have to think about now.

Meh, you'd still be getting paid to play a video game. Although, as you say, it's not much.

Meh, you'd still be getting paid to play a video game.

@CL60 said:

Meh, you'd still be getting paid to play a video game.

Yeah, still this. I'd rather be doing the same shit in videogames rather than the same shit behind a counter.

@CaptainCody said:

@CL60 said:

Meh, you'd still be getting paid to play a video game.

Yeah, still this. I'd rather be doing the same shit in videogames rather than the same shit behind a counter.

But if it ruined video games for you, what would you do for fun?  WOULD YOU SET UP A FAKE COUNTER SOMEWHERE AND ACT LIKE YOU'RE AN EMPLOYEE?!

Having worked as a game tester, I can say that there's really only ever been one game that I've tested that I had any desire to play after it was shipped. Everything else gives me some variant of PTSD flashbacks.

@ajamafalous said:

@CaptainCody said:

@CL60 said:

Meh, you'd still be getting paid to play a video game.

Yeah, still this. I'd rather be doing the same shit in videogames rather than the same shit behind a counter.

But if it ruined video games for you, what would you do for fun?  WOULD YOU SET UP A FAKE COUNTER SOMEWHERE AND ACT LIKE YOU'RE AN EMPLOYEE?!

Cocaine.

I have to say, you look like a younger Louis C.K.
 
Anyways, as for the blog, I had always wanted to be a tester when I was a kid, then I realized all this/found all this stuff out at some point and added that nearish to the top of my "things to fall back on if I fail in another profession list" because I just hate replaying the same game over and over unless it's great or it's a good multiplayer game we're talking about.

I actually feel that much of that goes with film and game reviewers/critics as well.  If you spend all your time judging a game for your job, it will be tough to "turn it off" when you get home and just want to kick back.  Unless the game is perfect, you'll find yourself noticing all of the little bugs and errors and eventually ruin the experience for you. 
 
I'm in marketing and I can't stop judging TV commercials that come on every night for example. 

Just game forums alone have ruined most games and all consoles for me. If I tested them, nothing would ever reach production.

I have always been confused at the desire to be a game tester from forum people. I always assumed it was probably a bullshit job for little pay when you really got down to it.

Well said. 
 
I think for me, I have looked at game testing as this awesome job that happens to give you first access to a certain game while in reality, it has a completely different prospect and is most likely going to be a process where you're not actually enjoying the game but rather trying to "ruin/break" it in order to find all of those annoying bugs. Even though that looks fun on paper, I am pretty sure that it will give you a different approach when playing games outside the realm of testing.

Man, that was an extremely realistic take on QA. I've considered going for it but now your post sort of bitch slapped me into reality.

Yep. Seems like it would a terrible experience. As someone who is mostly burned out on videogames, I wouldn't want to do anything to take away the small amount of enjoyment I have left. :P

Man, that was an extremely realistic take on QA. I've considered going for it but now your post sort of bitch slapped me into reality.

Sweet hat and beard bro.

I was a level builder for an MMO project that these dudes I know were doing ( I'm not sure if they're still doing it), we were using the UDK as our engine and I quit because it was driving me insane. Knowing what all those static meshes are and knowing that every level is just a small box in infinite black space really fucked me up. 
 
I was able to make myself stop thinking about it, but it really does ruin things for you. 
 
EDIT: I found the link to the project, but they haven't updated in a while.

It is, of course, subject to location and studio culture, as well. QA is a valuable part of a development team and although they should be treated as such, it sadly doesn't happen in some places. QA where I work is really quite good and as near as I can tell they're as much part of the development team as any other department.

I personally don't think it's a sad thing developers can very easily access hard to reach goals/levels/items during development. Imagine that developers would have to go and legally attain level 85 in WoW to test some content that they authored for players of that level. It just wouldn't be very practical. That said, it is absolutely true, for QA as well as design, that once you pull back the curtain on how things work, the 'magic' videogames have, unless exceptionally well done, is easy to see through, and visible problems in a final game become hard to ignore. That is one of the downsides to making videogames, especially ones you care for yourself.

It's easy for people to say QA is lazy or inept when they find a bug in a game they're playing, but as you already hinted, the lifetime of a game project will see tens of thousands of bugs usually get filed and fixed, and some will unfortunately make it through because you just run out of time to fix things safely.

Games jobs are very much still perceived wrongly by a lot of people. 'Getting paid to play games all day' is a blanket statement that gets thrown at any developer, not just QA. I even still occasionally have family or people I meet tell me that, and I'm not QA, either. You speak some truth, sir.

I take issue with your first point claiming that Blizzard employees can level up a character using the command console. While it is true that there is access to a command console unlocking the ability to do many things. Blizzard employees are unable to do this on personal accounts, it is confined to internal battle.net accounts, and is only possible to access the command console from inside a Blizzard office.

Quality assurance, while not for everybody, is a valued job within any entertainment company. The misconceptions rise from less informed people claiming that you get paid to play games for an extended period of time. This isn't true, you're getting paid to do a job, and high expectations are given. Of course no one job is going to please everyone, and a lot of quality insurance agents leave quite soon once they understand that they are expected to do a days work, not a days play. But for people that understand the position and are aware that it is a valued and important position can excel and if they chose to, progress within that respective company.

@danielcampbell:I can assure you that any employee that works for an MMO will already have access to, or will have the ability to get a high level character. This isn't considered a perk, it's a job requirement. World of Warcraft for instance has dungeons that have a minimum level cap to be able to enter, if an employee in any department needed to enter the dungeon, they aren't expected to play their way to that level. From what I understand of your original point, you wanted to show people that while they have to level up in an MMO, company employees didn't have to. It gave the impression that you thought that they could play on these characters that have the command console, and that isn't true at all. You also seemed to believe that it was time wasted when a person needs to level up in a game, from my perspective, if someone playing an MMO believes that leveling up is a waste of time, I feel that an MMO game wouldn't be suited to them.