Yup, I came back... it's been awhile.
Been pretty distracted up 'till now... actually, I still am.
Mainly I've been focusing on getting my art skills up to par, sicne it turns out I'm totally worthless on a computer if I attempt anything else. Heh...
Anyhow, I've got a deviantArt account now, which I'm hoping will turn into something worthwhile. That is what's been keeping me busy this whole time, actually. I'll go ahead and link to it at a later point in time.
But I'm glad to be back!
The Return of Jynthelm
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Dr. Sheexy
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3870
- Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 9:49 pm
- Location: Texas
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The J Person
- Grave Bat
- Posts: 446
- Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:23 pm
- Location: Under my hat!
Good to see I wasn't forgotten! I remember all of you! 
*drinks insane soda cocktail for the win*
Since I nearly forgot that I was going to post it - my deviantArt is here: http://lightblinded-analog.deviantart.com/
For those who are interested. :rolleyes:
I don't have much posted yet due to stress of life, but hey, that's how things go sometimes.
Anyway, I lost my crappy game testing job a long time 'go, so cashflow has been kinda... suck. So I'm looking for work at game-selling stores now, to tide me over until I am actually interested in testing **** games again!
My sense of humor, on the other hand, has been reasonably improved by my lack of work. Hopefully everyone here is still into subtle jokes.
*drinks insane soda cocktail for the win*
Since I nearly forgot that I was going to post it - my deviantArt is here: http://lightblinded-analog.deviantart.com/
For those who are interested. :rolleyes:
I don't have much posted yet due to stress of life, but hey, that's how things go sometimes.
Anyway, I lost my crappy game testing job a long time 'go, so cashflow has been kinda... suck. So I'm looking for work at game-selling stores now, to tide me over until I am actually interested in testing **** games again!
My sense of humor, on the other hand, has been reasonably improved by my lack of work. Hopefully everyone here is still into subtle jokes.
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Dr. Sheexy
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3870
- Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 9:49 pm
- Location: Texas
-
The J Person
- Grave Bat
- Posts: 446
- Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:23 pm
- Location: Under my hat!
Info, hm? I could talk all day.
I was hired for them through a temp agency, as a temp worker and not a full-on hire; they're a rather major publisher, and they tend to keep their internal workers happy. From contacts I have in-industry... I've heard their testing standards have been raised since they let me go - read as, they came up with a lame reason to cut their workforce that they didn't need - they didn't need me, really.
Best idea as far as getting hired is to go with a third party developer rather than a console developer who also produces games in-house, if you're interested in making a career out of it. At least that's my advice; if you can become in-house full-time, more power to you.
Anywho...
As a career, if you want to get into games, get into games. Game testing - unless you're hired on a permanent basis, in-house (read as, you are an employee and not a temporary worker) - is sort of a seperate form of employment - another world entirely. To make a comparison, it is almost 85% QA work - meaning, you tell the developers what's wrong with the game, and they have the option to ignore you at every turn if they want to (though that's generally a huge mistake if they do that, because you are, after all, a small fraction of their target market). Everything else you do in the course of the day is playing games and getting paid for it, so about 15% of your day, in monetary earnings (by the time you're a seasoned tester) is fun. That's only my experience, yours may vary. :うはwwwwww:
If you get in on the actual creative end of things (game design) however, where you can be free to both have ideas AND the ability and freedom to implement them yourself, then you're scoring big, at least in my book. Unfortunately that generally requires you have some form of Game Design schooling and a degree, or be in the process of earning one if you're lucky - somewhat expensive as schooling goes, too. I still don't have what I need in that department. On the upside, if you can manage to both afford and get into getting into games, you still get to play them.
As a side note, a lot of former gamers that got into making games have told me that they stopped playing games because they ran out of time to complete them. Loads of fun to be had if you can take it, though.
To sum up, since I'm in a hurry:
- Better to make games than test them, IMO.
- Also better to test games full-time than part-time, but take what you can get.
- Testing can pay very well even as part-time (little under 10 bucks per hour), varies by company/experience. That's still better than most professional artists make on a comission basis, so, glee!
- If you get hired by, say, Nintendo, or Sony, odds are you won't be there very long unless they like you. Smaller studios tend to be more worker friendly, and you'll thus have better job security (unless the company tanks). If you get hired by Microsoft, your life is over. Give in and become one with the swarm.
I know this is a long post, but in further news... game testing has quite recently been standardized into a *method*. This basically means, you have a database to work with - think of Microsoft Excel but in website format for most testing companies, but software varies by company so that's the most basic kind of experience you'll need. In addition you'll probably also be using pen and paper to submit bug reports (that seems to be going out the window in more financially well-equipped companies). It's been fairly important up till now to have hardcopies of everything. There is terminology to learn, certainly... I can probably dredge up some old stuff from my former job for your friend later on, if it's needed to secure a position, but it's been awhile, so I'm a little rusty and probably not entirely up-to-speed.
Advice for people who get hired on: get ready to sit on your ass and do the same thing over and over again! That's what it's about. Also of use is the ability to do your own proofreading, if the game is text-heavy, and some knowledge of a foreign language (usu. JP) is also helpful if it's a translation. They really need to come up with seperate or dedicated testing teams for that kind of thing, though; it's more efficient. I was on a localization project, so it really didn't have too many gameplay bugs to work out, but if you're not doing one of those, you'll prolly spend a large amount of your time slamming into walls at different angles and speeds, to see if you can go through them. It all depends on the game's genre, too, so you may not have an easy time of it in, say, an FPS like Halo, if you like playing Football games.
Anyway I have plenty more to say if asked, but I think I covered all the basics. Tell your friend to get on the forum and talk to me individually if he has any questions; that'll make things simple.
I was hired for them through a temp agency, as a temp worker and not a full-on hire; they're a rather major publisher, and they tend to keep their internal workers happy. From contacts I have in-industry... I've heard their testing standards have been raised since they let me go - read as, they came up with a lame reason to cut their workforce that they didn't need - they didn't need me, really.
Best idea as far as getting hired is to go with a third party developer rather than a console developer who also produces games in-house, if you're interested in making a career out of it. At least that's my advice; if you can become in-house full-time, more power to you.
Anywho...
As a career, if you want to get into games, get into games. Game testing - unless you're hired on a permanent basis, in-house (read as, you are an employee and not a temporary worker) - is sort of a seperate form of employment - another world entirely. To make a comparison, it is almost 85% QA work - meaning, you tell the developers what's wrong with the game, and they have the option to ignore you at every turn if they want to (though that's generally a huge mistake if they do that, because you are, after all, a small fraction of their target market). Everything else you do in the course of the day is playing games and getting paid for it, so about 15% of your day, in monetary earnings (by the time you're a seasoned tester) is fun. That's only my experience, yours may vary. :うはwwwwww:
If you get in on the actual creative end of things (game design) however, where you can be free to both have ideas AND the ability and freedom to implement them yourself, then you're scoring big, at least in my book. Unfortunately that generally requires you have some form of Game Design schooling and a degree, or be in the process of earning one if you're lucky - somewhat expensive as schooling goes, too. I still don't have what I need in that department. On the upside, if you can manage to both afford and get into getting into games, you still get to play them.
As a side note, a lot of former gamers that got into making games have told me that they stopped playing games because they ran out of time to complete them. Loads of fun to be had if you can take it, though.
To sum up, since I'm in a hurry:
- Better to make games than test them, IMO.
- Also better to test games full-time than part-time, but take what you can get.
- Testing can pay very well even as part-time (little under 10 bucks per hour), varies by company/experience. That's still better than most professional artists make on a comission basis, so, glee!
- If you get hired by, say, Nintendo, or Sony, odds are you won't be there very long unless they like you. Smaller studios tend to be more worker friendly, and you'll thus have better job security (unless the company tanks). If you get hired by Microsoft, your life is over. Give in and become one with the swarm.
I know this is a long post, but in further news... game testing has quite recently been standardized into a *method*. This basically means, you have a database to work with - think of Microsoft Excel but in website format for most testing companies, but software varies by company so that's the most basic kind of experience you'll need. In addition you'll probably also be using pen and paper to submit bug reports (that seems to be going out the window in more financially well-equipped companies). It's been fairly important up till now to have hardcopies of everything. There is terminology to learn, certainly... I can probably dredge up some old stuff from my former job for your friend later on, if it's needed to secure a position, but it's been awhile, so I'm a little rusty and probably not entirely up-to-speed.
Advice for people who get hired on: get ready to sit on your ass and do the same thing over and over again! That's what it's about. Also of use is the ability to do your own proofreading, if the game is text-heavy, and some knowledge of a foreign language (usu. JP) is also helpful if it's a translation. They really need to come up with seperate or dedicated testing teams for that kind of thing, though; it's more efficient. I was on a localization project, so it really didn't have too many gameplay bugs to work out, but if you're not doing one of those, you'll prolly spend a large amount of your time slamming into walls at different angles and speeds, to see if you can go through them. It all depends on the game's genre, too, so you may not have an easy time of it in, say, an FPS like Halo, if you like playing Football games.
Anyway I have plenty more to say if asked, but I think I covered all the basics. Tell your friend to get on the forum and talk to me individually if he has any questions; that'll make things simple.
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Dr. Sheexy
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3870
- Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 9:49 pm
- Location: Texas
Game design is what I'd like to get into eventually maybe.
I don't think my friend is headed in that direction at all.
He's just looking to play games for a career, so he'd have to find a really permenant job if he wanted to do that. The game testing areas don't really have that I'm guessing eh?
My friend is pretty lazy, I think he is mainly looking for a job which he can get through "easy." I don't think he realized how much work actually goes into testing, he kinda just figured he'd sit down and play games and make money...
Yeah...
Thanks for the info there, I'll set him in the right direction.
I don't think my friend is headed in that direction at all.
He's just looking to play games for a career, so he'd have to find a really permenant job if he wanted to do that. The game testing areas don't really have that I'm guessing eh?
My friend is pretty lazy, I think he is mainly looking for a job which he can get through "easy." I don't think he realized how much work actually goes into testing, he kinda just figured he'd sit down and play games and make money...
Yeah...
Thanks for the info there, I'll set him in the right direction.
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The J Person
- Grave Bat
- Posts: 446
- Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:23 pm
- Location: Under my hat!
Wooghat! I type too much.
Lots of people figure you sit on your ass all day if you're a tester. At some points in the development cycle, that is true. It's just not all the time, so yeah, it's not for lazy people. If he wants to play games as a career, being a tester is the way to get good at it, but he'd be better off trying to win money in tournaments once he does get good. Otherwise, he'd be more likely to be allowed to sit on his ass if he got hired at someplace like GameStop as a sales clerk (as if there are any other positions).
One nice thing is, game testing can go on your resume as industry experience, which is nice when you are done with schooling and want to get hired - it generally means (to the companies) that you're both knowledgable about how to create content, and about the production cycle. Being able to mod games doesn't hurt either, as I've learned. I just wish I could do that myself. I'm goin' for game design, too.
Good luck to both of you, and I hope your friend gets over his laziness.
Lots of people figure you sit on your ass all day if you're a tester. At some points in the development cycle, that is true. It's just not all the time, so yeah, it's not for lazy people. If he wants to play games as a career, being a tester is the way to get good at it, but he'd be better off trying to win money in tournaments once he does get good. Otherwise, he'd be more likely to be allowed to sit on his ass if he got hired at someplace like GameStop as a sales clerk (as if there are any other positions).
One nice thing is, game testing can go on your resume as industry experience, which is nice when you are done with schooling and want to get hired - it generally means (to the companies) that you're both knowledgable about how to create content, and about the production cycle. Being able to mod games doesn't hurt either, as I've learned. I just wish I could do that myself. I'm goin' for game design, too.
Good luck to both of you, and I hope your friend gets over his laziness.
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The J Person
- Grave Bat
- Posts: 446
- Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:23 pm
- Location: Under my hat!