Video Game Tester Jobs – Testing Jobs With a Developer Or a Publisher, What’s the Difference?
By David Barfoot
Video game tester jobs also known as quality assurance jobs are growing as the video game industry continues to expand. If their is an economic recession going on the gaming industry hasn’t noticed. It continues to explode and with continued growth comes the need for additional employees. Many avid gamers who desire a career in the video game industry are getting their start as game testers. Before you start down this path you need to understand that video game testing isn’t necessarily the same thing as video game playing.
What exactly does that mean? You need to forget the notions of playing the latest edition of Halo or Madden football all day just to report the fun factor to the company. It’s not your job as a tester to determine if a game is entertaining. It’s your job to report and catalog bugs in gameplay. Their are two basic categories of game tester jobs. They are testers that are hired by the game publishers and those that are hired by the game developers.
Testers that are employed by developers usually work on site. The pay is usually better and they are more involved with the overall familiarity of the game. Testers hired on by publishers are generally hired on a contract basis for three to six month increments. These jobs tend to pay lower but at crunch time you can expect to get plenty of overtime pay. The long hours can be grueling and it’s not uncommon for testers to be sleeping on cots at the office during later stages of development.
If you would like additional game testing info including a study done on different salaries in the video game industry check out this link. If you would like to know more about job listings and how to prepare your resume you need to check out Only 4 Gamers. The job listings are updated Monday-Friday and they will walk you through the entire process of getting your first testing job. Good luck to you and never give up on your dreams!