The Truth about Game Tester Careers

So, you want to become a games tester. You may think that this sounds like an awesome job, with more benefits than downfalls but you may be wrong - very wrong!

You may have heard that a career like this can enable you to earn $120 per hour, or other similar statements but in reality this is wrong and you may not even earn half as much. Obviously, the more work you put in, the more money you will get out of it but as a general rule unless you want to stay awake all night and work, you won’t have the opportunity to earn this much and even more so if you want to make it a full time career. It will get very tiring!

Why is games testing not fun?

The one thing that you need to remember is that although this may sound like a dream job, it is still a job, and most jobs are not meant to be fun! It will take dedication, hard work and a careful eye to catch all those flaws that the company that is hiring you is expecting you to find. Combine this with the fact that if you spot a flaw you will have to report it and then play that same scene over and over again until the manufacturer has got it right and you will find that job ends up being very tedious and very boring!

You may not even get to play the whole game and find that you will very often have to continue playing the same scene. Games' testing as a career is all about finding flaws and reporting them so that they can be fixed and if you cannot do this you simply will not be paid. Repetition is the key with games testing and this is a very tedious process.

But I'll be playing games all day….

You may be playing them all day but it won't be the same as you going out and purchasing a game from a store, taking it home and playing it. You will be assigned a game, one from a genre that you may not even enjoy, and then endure hours of game play until the finished product is ready to be sold. What happens if you hate war games and then get given a war game? Your concentration will not be at its peak and you are more likely to make mistakes resulting in… you got it, no or reduced payment.

But…someone has to do it

Yes, that's right, someone does have to go through this process to make sure that the games we buy everyday in stores are right and ready to be sold. However, be aware that if you choose to take this career choice, you will need to be alert, concentrate a lot, and be prepared to be bored of playing the same thing over and over again! If you think that you can have a games tester career, then there are a lot of places out there, especially on the internet, in which you can sign up to.

They may make bold statements and promises, but in reality these are not always carried through and you first of all need to find a site that isn't a scam in the first place! It is a long and tiring process, and you may need to go through a lengthy recruitment process to make sure that you are the right person for the job. Once this is complete, the lengthy process doesn't stop, and unless you keep the same maintained quality of games testing, you will not have made the right career choice for you.