There is a demand for devoted, meticulous video game testers to assume a crucial position in the video game ecosystem as the prevalence and complexity of video games continue to rise in the United States. However, being a video game tester involves more than just enjoying games. We’ve outlined what a video game tester actually does, how to become one, and jobs to get working from home to help you get a better idea of what the profession entails.
Video Game Tester
Before a game is released, a person who plays video games evaluates its features and finds flaws and glitches is known as a game tester. In order to improve games and make sure they are user-ready, game testers frequently work for video game firms alongside game developers and programmers.
Types of Game Testing
A game tester often performs two different duties.
- Playtesters concentrate on evaluating the user experience of a game, including its potential for boredom or ambiguity, how enjoyable it is to play, and how many triumphs you can get while working toward the goal of the game.
- The main objective of quality assurance testers is to spot game bugs, malfunctions, and inconsistencies.
Why Become a Game Tester?
Being a game tester can be rewarding because it gets you money. You’ll often have access to the newest titles as a game tester, giving you an inside look at the gaming business. Testing video games may probably appeal to your skills and interests if you enjoy playing them, especially if you appreciate discovering new worlds, paying attention to detail, and using your strategic thinking.
Being a game tester can lead to a variety of employment prospects if your long-term goal is to work in the gaming business, including game creation, visual design, quality assurance engineering, and project management.
How to Become a Video Game Tester
There are several routes you can take if you want to work as a game tester. To investigate your alternatives and get the qualifications and expertise required to land a position in a game-testing job, follow the steps listed below.
#1. Improve Your Game Technique.
The most crucial step to becoming a game tester is to start playing intentionally and responsibly. Your objectives ought to be:
- Play a variety of gaming genres, including sports, real-time strategy, and multiplayer online war arenas, to get a variety of experience.
- Learn how to play games on a variety of gaming consoles, as well as on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.
- Determine what elements would make games better.
- Be comfortable detailing in great detail your gaming adventures.
By enrolling in an online course in a specialized area of game creation, you can gain additional knowledge about how to recognize the components of a good game.
#2. Develop your Technical Expertise and Game-Testing Skills.
Don’t worry if you still need to get the aforementioned crucial abilities. There are various ways to get ready for a beginner’s position in game testing. A degree in game design, computer programming, or a related field might be earned by attending online courses, becoming certified in a particular skill, or any combination of these.
Use a strong base of technical skills to supplement your gaming practice:
- Understand the fundamental duties of a game tester, such as playing through the entire game, looking for bugs and glitches, and suggesting changes to the developers.
- Get a working knowledge of QA jargon including code release, playtesting, minimum viable product, and performance testing.
- Learn about renowned gaming firms and businesses such as Electronic Arts, Nintendo, and Ubisoft.
- Boost your analytical, reporting, technical writing, and strategic thinking abilities.
- Study technical writing and reporting.
#3. Take Part in Public Beta Testing.
Public beta testing is a fantastic opportunity to get knowledge about new games, hone your testing abilities, and even earn in-game incentives. To locate opportunities to take part in open tests, look through beta testing websites for gamers like Game Tester, Alpha Beta Gamer, and BetaBound – Games. Keep track of what you learn by documenting your procedure for each test.
#4. Create a Résumé for a Game Tester.
As you gain expertise, knowledge, and experience in game testing, you should create a résumé that highlights your qualifications. Provide your formal game tester training, any qualifications or degrees you’ve received, as well as your actual game tester expertise.
#5. Apply for Positions as Game Testers.
You might find it helpful to do job searches for this phase on a variety of employment sites, including those for both general positions and those dedicated to the gaming sector. Pay close attention to the income details, the skills and qualifications needed, and the connected responsibilities and projects for each job posting.
Jobs Video Game Tester
#1. Quality Assurance / Game Tester
In order to detect and report bugs and text problems, testers will be responsible for examining the development builds of our games. Other tasks include taking pictures, monitoring bug reports, regressing bugs, coordinating with other team members and leads, and doing various administrative duties. The best applicants are self-driven, English-proficient, committed to working in a team, and meticulous. A quick grammar test will be requested of applicants. To advance to the main interview stage, they must receive a score higher than a specific threshold. The candidate may reapply for the post after three months if they don’t pass this test.
Qualifications:
- Must be able to work in the United States.
- Strong interpersonal, writing, and communication abilities.
- Application knowledge of Google Workspace or Microsoft Office.
- Possessing or using gaming consoles.
- Discretion when working on games under development.
- Passion for Japanese culture or video games.
- A plus would be a BA or higher in English, literature, scriptwriting, or any other relevant discipline.
- Japanese, French, German, or Spanish bilingualism is an asset.
#2. Development Tester
For our first-person shooter project, XDefiant, you will facilitate and uphold the quality of new and current content as a Development Tester at Ubi SFO. By assessing the features’ quality and serving as a bridge between the production and QA teams, this will be accomplished. The design and nuances of the first-person shooter genre across several franchises are things you are quite aware of. This information will be used to inform and clarify decisions made throughout the project’s various sectors.
Responsibilities
- Speak with development teams and other development testers directly (locally and from other studios)
- To assure the required quality, conduct routine testing on the item and/or tools.
- Report problems with a standardized format that is simple to recognize and duplicate in accordance with project rules.
- Before incorporating high-risk modifications into the main version, validate them to verify stability and fundamental functionality.
- Provide reports and input to the development team on a regular and as-needed basis.
- Keep lines of communication open and provide product details to the functionality test teams.
Qualifications
- Experience working in a comparable capacity for at least a year
- The expertise of the FPS video game genre on a large scale
- Simple platform and workload adaptation
- Knowledge of JIRA or comparable bug-tracking applications
- Knowledge of Confluence or equivalent documentation software
#3. Video Game & Electronics Inventory Tester
By evaluating products for quality and functionality, the processing department consistently provides value. The Processing position is a crucial link in our sales chain since it accurately communicates the condition of each item while dealing with a diverse product mix. 40 hours maximum a week. Required on Saturdays or Sundays. The timetable may alter based on the season and workload.
Responsibilities:
- Upon arrival, check the inventory and evaluate the quality.
- Test electronics to make sure they are in good working order and have no exterior or internal damage, such as video game consoles, computer hardware, and media players.
- Sort and go over new goods orders.
- Ensure that inventory stock satisfies each week’s need for incoming orders.
- Daily Cleaning Projects
- Help in identifying any discrepancies, shortages, or overages in inventory levels.
- Support the reconciliation of the inventory.
- Additional tasks as needed, depending on workload and season.
#4. QA Automation Tester
You will have the chance to collaborate with a wide range of different disciplines in this position, including design, LiveOps, business intelligence, and engineering, to develop test strategies, and test frameworks, and construct and test products that satisfy the requirements for the overall business quality. This is a challenging position with significant exposure to many facets of creating and managing an original game.
Responsibilities
- Development testing, LiveOps production testing, functionality and manual testing, smoke tests, unit testing, regression testing, as well as any other ad hoc tests both in the development and production phases, are all part of the manual functional test framework that must be created and managed across the company’s PC, web, and mobile platforms (iOS, Android).
- Guiding and collaborating with your team to make sure the tasks are completed in accordance with quality standards.
- Responsible for collaborating with departmental leaders to make sure the necessary QA acceptance criteria are applied and followed.
- Maintain constant contact with the production team and stakeholders to coordinate on QA needs and risks for daily assignments.
Video Game Tester Jobs at Home
The following are jobs you can get as a video game tester at home:
#1. Remote Contract Graphics Engineer
In Portland, Oregon, ClutchPlay Games is a reputable game development company. Like many independent gaming companies, we split our time between creating our own games and working on projects for hire for some very awesome customers. We currently want to increase the number of contract graphics engineers we have available. That might be you!
Responsibilities
- Create and maintain 3D graphics software, hardware, and techniques.
- Create applications using a C++ game engine.
- Assure the functionality, effectiveness, and responsiveness of applications.
- Working together as a team, define, design, and release new features
- Find bottlenecks, solve them, and fix defects.
- Maintain code organization, quality, and automation
Requirements
- Competent in HLSL and C++
- Knowledge of 3D graphics SDKs (DirectX, OpenGL)
- Thorough knowledge of the arithmetic and 2D/3D visuals used in computer graphics
- Knowledge of the tools and workflow for gaming content
- Knowledge of collaborating with programmers on a huge code base
- Knowledge of Microsoft Studio, XCode, or a comparable IDE
- Knowledge of code versioning tools to a high level
#2. Development Tester – Hybrid/Remote – Contract
For our first-person shooter project, XDefiant, you will facilitate and uphold the quality of new and current content as a Development Tester at Ubi SFO. By assessing the features’ quality and serving as a bridge between the production and QA teams, this will be accomplished. The design and nuances of the first-person shooter genre across several franchises are things you are quite aware of. This information will be used to inform and clarify decisions made throughout the project’s various sectors.
Responsibility
- Speak with development teams and other development testers directly (locally and from other studios)
- To assure the required quality, conduct routine testing on the item and/or tools.
- Report problems with a standardized format that is simple to recognize and duplicate in accordance with project rules.
- Before incorporating high-risk modifications into the main version, validate them to verify stability and fundamental functionality.
#3. 3D Game Tester
Responsibilities:
- The testing of video games throughout all stages of development, from early prototypes to finished goods.
- Find and report any bugs, malfunctions, or other problems that have an impact on gameplay.
- Cooperate closely with the development team to make sure that problems are fixed quickly.
- To ensure that games meet the highest standards of playability and quality, employ a range of testing techniques.
- Create and maintain test cases and plans for every game.
- Work together with other testers to discuss best practices and guarantee uniformity across projects.
- Give the development team feedback and ideas to enhance gameplay and user experience overall.
Requirements:
- A bachelor’s degree in game development, computer science, or a comparable subject.
- 2+ years of experience in quality control or testing video games.
- Strong familiarity with the design and development of 3D games.
- Knowledge of gaming engines like Unreal Engine or Unity.
- Understanding of the guidelines and procedures for software testing.
- Strong problem-solving and detail-oriented abilities.
- Strong communication skills in both writing and speaking.
#4. Creative Director – Video Game Developer
Responsibilities
- Shape the entire look and feel of games, taking into account gameplay, visuals, and audio elements
- Lead, oversee, and cultivate the internal and external art, game design, and story teams for a portfolio of games to ensure timely and cost-effective delivery.
- Provide creative suggestions to improve gameplay and player engagement.
- Work together with the publishing and product teams to develop plans that incorporate prototypes, and a pipeline of new games for various audiences, and player communities.
- Provide a framework and system to facilitate the creation and distribution of a wide range of game genres using both internal and external resources.
- To successfully convey guidelines, accountability, and the status of resolution to the team, partners, and leadership, challenges should be assessed.
- Make inventive, creative decisions based on data that adhere to the goals and strategies of the business.
- Hence, if you have experience as a technical artist or user interface artist, please apply now!
#5. QA Tester
A love of video games and customer service Effectively working alone or in small teams; able to manage to change schedules, different projects, and flexible hours Strong writing and communication abilities and a thorough understanding of the game development cycle, and decent troubleshooting abilities curious spirit and a love of casual games.
Do Video Game Testers Make Money?
The annual salary for a game tester is approximately $45,602.
Is a Video Game Tester a Job?
It is possible to work from home as a game tester, albeit not all game developers offer that option.
What Skills Do You Need to Be a Game Tester?
To find issues with the game, game testers must observe carefully. Also, they must be able to express the issues to the website designers accurately. Being a good tester also requires endurance, perseverance, and, most importantly, a passion for video games.
How Much Does EA Pay Game Tester?
The average hourly salary for Electronic Arts game testers in the US is $10.33, which is 34% less than the national average.
Is Game Testing a Good Career?
The gaming sector is anticipated to increase from $229.16 billion in 2021 to $545.98 billion in 2028, according to Fortune Business Insights. Game testers in the US receive an average salary of $57,313 per year, according to Glassdoor.
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