Since the invention of the electronic game, who hasn’t dreamed of playing them professionally? I can only assume that even those who have everything would still love to get paid real money to play video games all day long. It seems like the perfect job after all! You sit around all day, having lots of fun, exerting little to no physical or mental effort and rake in the dough, right? I don’t want to come out all bubbles burstin’ and say that everything just mentioned was wrong, because that would be false. It would also be just a tad on the cruel side but as the song goes, you’ve got to be cruel to be kind.

I’ll be covering all of these points over the coming posts, but first, let’s take a quick look at the biggest myths behind being a fabled game tester.

Big Myth Number One is that game testers just sort of sit around and play games all day long, not doing any actual “work” whatsoever, at least by the dictionary.com definition of the word, anyways. There will be plenty more articles about the methods behind game testing later on, but for now I will say that the only time QA actually get the chance to truly play the games they are working on is when they aren’t actively searching for/attempting to recreate bugs, which is practically never. Playing games for fun’s sake is called Exploratory (or Ad-Hoc) testing and is a very small, but satisfying part of the QA process.

Big Myth Number Two is that it’s a fun and exciting job. Yeah, I’m totally having a lot of fun doing the same mundane, repetitive tasks for 8 hours straight and spending another 4 hours on the same freaking day staring at scores of excel spreadsheets and test plans until I start crying blood. I JUST WANT TO STRETCH MY LEGS AND TAKE A SHOWER! ;_;

Going off on a quick tangent, Big Myth Number Two actually leads into a somewhat known fact about QA that many game testers themselves frequently forget about, probably because they have stricken the memories from their minds in order to keep some semblance of sanity: incredibly long, nightmarish hours. Good luck having a social life or even a private life during crunch time. Your body and soul now belong to publishing company XYZ.

Big Myth Number Three is that QA, like the rest of development, get paid to make games. This is splitting hairs but can be just as crucial as the others if you don’t happen to be a secret lovechild of Bill Gates. While QA essentially do get paid to play video games, the “grunts” typically scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of employee payroll. They actually tie with Customer Support for being the lowest paid positions within video game companies. Entry Level QA positions start out paying around 10 dollars on the low end and 12 dollars on the high end, or roughly 20k to 25k. Better start brown bagging it, buddy!

So, why even want be a game tester? It’s a thankless job that frequently gets little respect within its own industry. And for that matter, why do some QA, having experienced all of the negative aspects of the profession, not go running and screaming into the hills? Is it shell shock or maybe willful ignorance? Could it be that they are all just crazy? (I am, admittedly, quite crazy myself.) The primary and most important answer is the simplest to explain: Yes, they are crazy! Ha ha! Didn’t see that one coming, did ya? People want to become game testers because they love games and some are even willing to walk over the proverbial coals barefoot to achieve their dreams.

It is completely understandable that people who dream of doing something that they love professionally will often overlook all of the negative aspects in order to accomplish the positive, as this happens very frequently in other fields of work. Athletes will train extensively, to the point of exhaustion, for chances to compete and fulfill their dreams. Social workers shoulder the burdens of others while receiving very little pay because they strive to help others.

A dream job doesn’t suddenly lose it’s potential to become a reality just because reality itself sets in. Let’s face it: Quality Assurance testers actually do get paid to play games all day long and at times, it can be fun and exciting. But they will also acquiesce to being over worked, underpaid, and even under-appreciated just to do what they love. The biggest myths behind being a game tester do have glimmers of truth to them and it is these shiny, shimmery glimmers that steady the QA as they trudge through the fiery pits of hell itself.