What do video game testers do?

is reading his notes off of his brand new iPad. Yeah, and your point being it's pretty Yeah, it's also heavy, So I'm going to hear to get a stand for this thing. Okay, good. I'm glad that you were able to throw in some sort of downside to it, because otherwise I might end up everything has an upside in a downcer. So you know what also takes has an upside and downside? What's that, Jonathan? Testing video games? Oh? You mean like the best job in the world. That's

what some people think. But we're here to talk about what really goes on with video game testers. And you know, you see a lot of stuff online about it. There are lots of sites that, uh purport to help you become a video game tester. We'll probably talk a little bit about that and uh and in a few minutes. Um. But uh, you know, there's a lot of different arguments on either side. Like there's some people who will say, hey, I can't believe it. I get to make money playing

video games. It's awesome. You should do it too. And then there are those who are saying, no, it's really the worst job in the world. And really, again, the truth lies between the extremes. Well, I think that the basic if you get right down to the the the core truth of it is, it's a job. It's not something where you go and play, you know, to play. Right.

So let's let's talk about what video game testers actually do. Now, it's their job to take a video game for you know, a video game per assignment, let's say, and to test out a certain set of uh maybe perhaps certain set of levels. Or they're told that the video game developers have just uh instituted a particular new feature and it's their job to test the feature, make sure that everything

happens the way it's supposed to. Well, it's like any kind of software testing really, I mean, there when when software developer is putting together a program of some kind, uh, generally the developer is going to give it to a group of testers to see if they can break it. Essentially, that's where the the vernacular. But yeah, I mean the idea is to well do everything you can to it and see if there are any bugs in it, or if there are any bugs. We need to work these

out before we release this to the general public. And the developer has invested interest in doing this because if they release a a program of of any kind to the public that has a lot of problems with it, it's difficult to use. Um, people are going to complain about it. And you know, in these days when when the Internet is plenty of places for us to complain about it. Um, it's not like it's gonna go unnoticed

if you if you throw a lamon out there. So the game testers, you know, the video game industry has as a multibillion dollar industry, they it's in their best interest to give it to a bunch of people to try anything and everything they can to see if they can make it break right, right, Yeah, because it can affect the sales of the video game, which that's the bottom line. You know, these video game companies are making video games, not necessarily because they really want to entertain you,

but because it's a great way to make money. It's not to say that everyone who works in the video game industry is just interested in making cash, but at the end of the day, it's a business, so you do want to have that quality assurance team uh to check your your product before it ships, because you would rather know about a problem before it hits store shelves so that you can fix it rather than release something.

I mean, we've seen it happened time and time again where a game has come out and the producers will actually say, yeah, um, you're gonna notice when you play this that this one thing doesn't really work well, but don't worry. We've got a patch coming in a month. And you're thinking, wow, that that's Unfortunately they found that

bug so late in the development cycle. It's also why I don't I always think it's a better idea to tell people the game will be done when it's done, rather than to announce a release date, especially if you're like, by the end of the year, this game is coming out, because I guarantee you there's gonna be something that comes up and either they're gonna have to drop a feature from the game, or it'll go out a little buggy, or that it ends up missing its release date. Can

you think of a game that misses its release date? Oh, because they would get most of the way through it, find a better gaming engine and decided to scrap the entire development of the game and started from scratch. I have a feeling you're talking about Duke Nukem Forever. That's a good example. So video game testers what they do is they test the hell out of the video game to make sure that there aren't any game breaking bugs

out there. And that that's everything from running through a level the way you're supposed to to doing everything you're not supposed to do in the video game to make sure it doesn't break the game. Because I guarantee you, if you release a game, some player out there is going to try something that you know it never occurred to you when you were building the game, because you're thinking, oh, player has to get from point A to point B,

and here's the pathway that the player needs to go through. Well, when you give that to real people, they're like, oh, well, I'm at point A, I need to get the point B. I'm gonna take this totally different route than no one ever even imagined when they were developing the game, and see if that works, what happens if I jump off

this wall here right? So you you could be if you were a video game software tester, you might be asked to shoot anything and everything in the room to see what what happens, right, And if anything unusual happened, you would have to document it and you would have to be able to explain in very clear terms exactly what happened and why it was a problem. And here's

another element about video game testers. Some people think the video game testers would would play a game and then say, oh, you know this, this level would be great if only you had a bad guy behind this one door instead of behind that counter, because when you put them behind the counter, it's a it's too hard to see and uh and it makes it makes this level way too hard.

They don't care. That's not what you're there for. If you're a video game tester, you're not there to tell them that their game is great or their game stinks. You're there to tell them, hey, your game works or it doesn't work right right, And you may you may be asked to play let's say Level three over and over and over again to make sure that it's playable

and then everything works correctly. Or you may just be told to load level three over and over, not even playing, just loading it over and over to make sure that the game doesn't crash if you load and then restore a saved gametimes in a row. Or you could be asked to turn it on and off to see how long the loading process actually takes for the game itself right. You could also be told, hey, U turn on level three,

and you know we've got those in. If you've played video games, you know a lot of video games have invisible walls, which drive me nuts. I hate invisible walls. But when you come up to the edge of a level and it doesn't let you go any further, even though you can see as a character that there's more there, but there are people down there, I want to go

talk to them. They might want you to check every single little space around the entire perimeter of the level to make sure you don't pass through something and and go somewhere you're not supposed to. This. This also applies to levels where there are solid walls. They may say, oh, you know what I need you to walk along the perimeter of every single solid wall to make sure it is solid and that you don't accidentally pass through and go into a part of the level that you're not

supposed to. And of course, uh, this is where earlier Easter Egg podcast comes into because sometimes there are you know, deliberately holes and there was invisible walls, but they're there for your reason. They don't want to make sure that there aren't any that aren't supposed I don't want to see like you somehow accidentally turned clipping off and then

you're able to just walk through everything. Um. Also another thing to keep in mind when you're a video game tester, like we've already pretty much I think we've runned into the ground that you're not playing the game in order to win it. Um also play straight through. Yeah, you're also not necessarily playing the anything close to a final build.

What you might be playing might miss tons of of functions and features, meaning that what you're what you are currently running through will have no resemblance to the final product once it's released. But um, I'm sorry, go ahead, no, no, I'm sorry, Um to that point into your earlier point, Uh, if from what I've read game testers basically get their hands on the earliest playable version of the game, because um, as soon as you know, they can get testing in there.

You know, if they keep building and building and building and wait until the final version is done and say, okay, well we're pretty sure this is a playable build of the game, go on ahead. Well, there might be layers and layers and layers of code that depend on that buggy chunk that causes problems that they'll have to completely recode. So they need to get people uh testing those games as soon as possible to prevent you know, additional mistakes added on layer by a layer onto the uh unto

the original bug. So, um, you know this isn't something that they wait until the final is done. Yeah. And not only that, but uh, the once they fix a bug, then you may have to go back and do the exact same thing you just finished doing for the last four hours, because they want to make sure that the fix they put in actually fix the problem, and they have to make sure that the fix they put in doesn't break something else which does happen. Um, here's another

thing to throw out there. Besides the fact that yes, the games you're gonna play, aren't gonna necessarily resemble the final product, and yes, uh it's gonna You know, you're not really playing to win, you're playing to make short works. You don't have any real say in what kind of games you're gonna be testing. Nope, but it might be

a long time between games. Um. We we actually have an article on the side about this and what I thought it was in uh uh an interesting analogy to compare them to day laborers, because it's sort of like that. I mean, you you could test a game and then if the developer you work with doesn't have anything else for you right now, you're you're gonna have to find another job for a while until there's something else where,

you know, find another developer to work with. Yeah, And it maybe that you're thinking, oh, awesome, I'm gonna be working on the next super advanced first person shooter. I can't wait. And then you find out your first assignment is to test out my little kitten, and you have to make sure that the kitten and my little kitten behaves the right way and there's no problems, and and that's your job for testing this game day and day

out for the next like three days. Um, you know, I'm I'm a little upset because the AI and my Little Kitten was awesome. Yeah. Uh, well I could never get past the part where it just started to chunk mice's mices mices at you. So for extemporaneous attempts again, we'll just count that as a fail. So we'll call that a Josh and Chuck moment. Uh. The So, yeah, so you don't have any necessarily an you say, in

what kind of games you're gonna be playing? Uh? Now that all all that being said, testing video games is a very important part of the process, and it can be a way to get into the video game industry, although in order to do that, you you kind of also need to have some background at least in your school work to um, to suggest that you know, you could move on to to perhaps become a developer or an artist or you know, uh, you know, sound design

or something. Um. It's it's a lot harder to move into those fields if you don't have the education to back it up. But video game testing can be a way to get into that, yes, um, and it helps to be as professional as possible, you know, tell if you're really seriously interested in this don't act, you know, like you're just happy to play the game. Say, look, I'm really interested in the development and learning more about

the processes of coding and developing this game. Further, I'm really interested in user experience and making sure that the players enjoy this game. Um, and the mechanics behind it. And you know that's gonna that's gonna take you a lot farther than going who I Got the latest shooter? Yeah. And a lot of the the ads online for things like especially for the web services that say that if you sign up with them, you you'll get a leg up in the industry. Um, A lot of them might

suggest that you could play even from home. So now you're now you've got the ultimate fantasy. Right, You're sitting at home. You don't even have to get dressed. You just sit there, turn on the TV, start playing those games, and and you know you're living the high life. In reality, most of these video game companies require their game testers to come in and test the games, because that way they can work side by side with the developers and say,

all right, well, here's the problem. Here's the situation that it comes up in uh, and uh, you know I I was able to repeat the problem, so it's clear that it's not just you know, a weird little glitch that happened the one time. Um, and usually you're working, you know, with a team of people who are working on that one game. So it's not like you are this, you know, this gamer sitting at home who just gets paid to play games. Yeah. Actually that's a that's a

good point. We should talk about how much you could make as a professional game tester, and and there's really a broad range. Yeah, there is. Uh, in general, most of them are paid on an hourly basis, and that hourly basis when you start off, can be nine to twelve dollars an hour, which is not that much, especially when you keep in mind that you do not necessarily have steady work. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you can make as much as I've seen a hundred dollars an hour,

but that's really for advanced to testers. It tends to be like game game tester leads, the people who who are really in charge of coordinating with the developer team and the testers to make sure that everything is is running smoothly. Um. Yeah, so if you're looking at an annual salary, I've seen ranges from everything around twenty thousand dollars a year, which is not that great, to uh around uh you know upboards of the eighty nine thousand dollars a year, which is that's a lot of money,

especially when you're thinking about testing video games. Well for me, that's a lot of money. And and you could be, Um, when I was poking around two, you could be sort of a low level tester in uh. You know, I saw that Microsoft actually has people come in and basically they'll give you a copy of the game if you'll if you're willing to try it out. I would imagine that, Uh, in those types of situations, it's like, Hey, we're going live with this, We're planning and going live with this

in a week. We really want as many people to come in and play this game as possible. If you come in, we'll give you a copy of the game. Um, that's not what I would consider like professional game testers, but you know, if you're interested in trying it out, it might give you an opportunity to do that. And if you've ever seen the chance to sign up for beta testing, beta testing can open it up to the public sometimes not just you know, like some some companies

will do all their beta testing. Now, beta is the build before you go gold, Yeah, which is when gold Master is basically, this is a copy of the disc that we're going to send to be duplicated, right, So yeah, that's it's. It's usually sort of the non the the version that doesn't have a name, than Alpha, than Beta, than gold Maker. M it would have to be it's the last one, so bet, but it should be UM.

But so a beta test beta build is supposed to be as close to the final build as possible, although there could still be problems that the ideas that it's it is not locked into place, but it should be what you would experience when you get hold of the final copy UM in a perfect world. Anyway, in a perfect world, you would not have to make any changes to a beta copy and you would just go gold from their companies will open this up to the general public,

and the reasoning behind it's pretty pretty simple. Yeah. So the idea here is that you've got a lot of players who are eager to play this particular game, and you open up the beta testing to them, They're going to play the heck out of the game in a short period of time and if they see anything that's wrong, they'll let you know. Uh, and you don't have to pay them, so you no longer have to worry about testers at that point. Now, before you get to that point,

you still need testers. It's not like you magically arrive at the beta build without having tested your product before that point. But it does mean that the testing process doesn't have to be in house as long. Yeah, and it's not as not really as as formal UM. I've beta tested a couple UM programs in the past, and generally they just ask you to send in an email whenever you have a problem. You know that you need

to report. The funny thing is, I mean you know that it's not like they in on you and go, hey, so how's that testing going, right? UM? Although uh, you know it does sound informal to do this, to have the beta testers and you know, hey, you can try out the program a week before UM it goes gold and you know I'll have it three or four weeks

before it's on the shelves. Well, you know, it could give you a leg up again on trying to get in the door, because some of them, even for the beta testing phase, have said, you know, have asked me, have you ever beta tested a program before? And UM, you know, if you could say, hey, I've I've beta tested five or six programs. Now I'm interested in getting in the industry that might give you the opportunity to

move up to be a professional level tester. Right. And the other reason a lot of these companies do beta beta testing I should have pointed this out to a lot of them are for games that have an online component, and so you have to load test, right. You have to make sure that your servers are going to be able to handle the kind of play that players are gonna put them through, and so beta test is really important to make sure that you know the infrastructure you've built.

Can actually so poor at the player base, not really the end users game so much as it is the back end of the game exact. So uh So, playtesters tend to not make too much money when they start off. They don't have a lot of saying what they get to do. Um, they're not necessarily playing games that are uh in their interest area, they're not necessarily playing them

the way they would want to. Um. But at the same time, they are an integral part of video game development and can go on to to really become a bigger part of the industry. You know, I thought of another minor but really big kill joy for those who want to be professional gamers. You can't talk about it because you're gonna have to sign a nondisclosure agreement formal a formal legal agreement saying you know, I'm not going

to talk about this game. Um, so you can't. It's not like you can go hang out with your buddies and go you should see this thing. You know, there's this thing on level five. You can't do that. This game has got m pchanics that that you know, our brand new and have never been seen in the video game industry. You wouldn't be able to talk about that either, or even you know, this thing is the biggest piece of junk that will ever grace the shelves, or even

in some cases this thing exists. In some cases, you wouldn't even be able to mention the name of it. So so that makes it a little less fun too. Yeah, but now that's not to say that video game testers never have any fun. We're just trying to to dispel some of the myths about the whole industry. Because you sit there and you think about, hey, I would love to be able to PLoP this disk in my Xbox and play all day and then get paid for it. Um. No,

it's a job. Yeah, it's It's a job like other jobs, And like other jobs, there are times where you want to strangle your coworker, like when he's looking at his iPad. I'm just this is an example. No, but you know, maybe video game reviewer. Now you're talking. Actually, video game reviewers do a lot of the same stuff the video game testers, due to not just I mean they'll play through a game to play through it, but they'll also play to look for things like obvious glitches, things that

break the game. I mean, video game reviewers do the same sort of stuff as well. But you don't have to, you know, go along the sides of the walls and turn it off and turn it on. No, you could if you really want to be thorough. But I don't know any video game reviewer who's that thorough. Two years after the game came out, I probably finished my review, right. Um yeah, now that now that the machines that run it are obsolete, well, uh, speaking of the machines that

run it, Yes, we wanted to address something. We've had several listeners right in uh about the PlayStation three and changes that have happened to it. Yeah, because we talked about it not too long ago. Yeah, about how the military was purchasing hundreds of p S three's in order

to link them together and make a supercomputer. Well, that's only possible because you could take a PlayStation three and install another operating system on it, such as Right and the Cell. The Cell processor allowed you to to link them together if you had the right software. Um. Well, Sony decided to discontinue support of the other OS feature with its most recent firmware update. So here's the thing.

If you own a an old laystation three, you know this is pre Slim because the Slim didn't support the Linux operating system out of the gate. You couldn't put the Linux OS on a out of the box Slim unless you hacked it first. So Sony is essentially telling

you you have a choice, your choices. You can either install the new firmware update, which will take away your ability to have another operating system on your p S three, but in return, you will be able to do things like access to PlayStation network and be able to run any games that require that particular firmware or any movies

that require that particular firmware. UM or you can not update your PS three, continue the support of the other os, but you no longer have access to the PlayStation network or any games that might rely on the firmware in the future. So, no matter what, you're gonna lose functionality on your PS three. There's no way to avoid it, actually without hacking it. What are you about to say

that hacking it? I was no, no, I was going to tell you this is something I found is I was as we were talking about it, was looking up video game testers and I ran across this and since we were going to talk about the PlayStation three incident. According to the blog, I'm not even sure I'm pronouncing

this right, but Marison readings UM. Amazon in Britain offered one of its customers a about refund for a PlayStation three because of European Directive one slash forty four slash e C. Because ce the item must be bought exactly as the seller says and has to be fit for the purpose that the consumer needs, and the seller has to you know, know that it is according to the customer needs at the time of purchase. And I'm probably

oversimplifying that, but it's you know, legal ease. Now, the thing is that Sony changed the features by changing the firmware so it was not serving the customers needs anymore, and uh, thereby altering the function of the console and making it in violation of this statute. Well, Amazon provided the refund, which it from what I can tell, probably isn't going to pass on back to Sony. But uh, this may start a precedent for people saying, this isn't what I bought and under this law, you know, you

owe me money back. And Amazon is not asking for the console back. But you know, there was no report as to whether or not it was still fit for use for other purposes or whether it was just you know, recycled at that point. But yeah, they've got a partial refund because Sony said, you know, changed the firmware and the customer was no longer allowed to uh install Linux

on it with that firmware updated. Place. In the case of the U S Military and the various research facilities that are around, they're using currently using the PS three as a processor. Uh, they can get around this just by not updating the firmware. And I don't see why they would update the firmware. There's no reason to do that if if they're using it as a processor other than to play games, which are not supposed to be doing on these things. Totally shocked down my argument. But

it is the US military, so come on, let's be serious. Um, well, they do. They do have consoles, but generally not the ones that they're using for you know, crunching numbers, So they can get around this by not updating the firmware. However, it does mean that what they have is what they're they're stuck with, right. They're not gonna buy more PS three's now because they aren't gonna work on that system

and something else. And if the PS three breaks, or when a PS three breaks, you've just lost part of your system, you know. I mean, if you can repair it yourself or you can get someone else to repair so it's working exactly the way it was before, you're fine. But you can't just purchase a new one because it's not gonna run the the the os you need. So that's a real bummer. Um, I'm not going to make a judgment here. I'm just gonna say I own the

next plus three sixty. Um, well, you know it has left a lot of PlayStation three fans upset, even people who weren't doing this. Well again, anytime you take away functionality of a device that had traditionally supported a certain feature, you're gonna upset the customer base, even if those people never used that feature the But what if I wanted to exactly well, I mean, I'm the same way. I can't.

I can't judge those folks. I'd be the same way if if I were told, for example, that let's say that my phone updated tomorrow and I found out that it no longer supported some feature that I had never used, I'd still be like, what, why did you take that away? That thing that I don't use? How dare you? But yeah, but it happens. It happens. I demands as fact, and Sarah, I shall see you at dawn. Um, all right, well, then be a dual boot system. Well done, Mr Pilette.

On that note, I think we can wrap this up all right, guys, Well, if you have any questions about any other let's say, jobs in the tech industry, if you got the questions about that sind o, men, if you have any questions about video games, send dozen. If you have questions about tech in general, send oz in, uh puns send to Pilette and uh We'll remember. The address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.

We do have an article on the site about video game testers, so you can check that out how stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk to

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