So you want to be a game tester? Well, then you’ll probably have to get interviewed at some point if you want to make testing video games your official job.  This means that you’re going to need to learn a few tricks and techniques about interviewing so that you can get the job in the end.

The video game industry can be all fun and games, although these game development companies take their jobs really seriously and you should follow that degree of seriousness.  Therefore, you should definitely dress the part for the interview.  You don’t have to wear a full blown tux James Bond stlye, but you definitely want to look a little sharp.  I’m not a video game clothes stylist, nor do I know if that job exists, but you should dress with some slacks and a nice semi-formal shirt, I say that a tie would be optional, so wear it if you think it looks cool and its not choking the life out of you.

The Tell Me About Yourself Question For the Game Tester

Before the game testing job interview, you should probably go over the things you expect to take place in this interview.  You might prepare by going over some of the questions that you think they might ask you.  For instance: the question everyone suddenly can’t answer when they’re finally in that game testing interview job or any other job.  Its the old “Tell me about Yourself” question.

Just make sure you don’t reveal too much in this answer. This is your opportunity to shine and talk about how you fit the job description by indirectly talking about relevant things.  This is where you can say things like, I love playing video games and I couldn’t live without playing because my heart would probably stop pounding, or things like that if that’s who you are.   But nobody wants a complete goofball because they might goof off on company money and that’s not good.

You can also talk how you know a lot about video games and that you also have a professional side.  These people are serious about hiring someone and they will be paying you.  Therefore, they want you to have some type of professional business sense.  You can tell them:

1.  how you have been dependable in the past

2. how you’re in an independent person, or

3.  how you enjoy working under pressure when you have to.

The Truth About The Game Testing Field

The truth is that nobody who will hire you really cares about yourself as a person.  They’re only asking questions like these to find out more about your behavior and whether or not you will fit into the company culture.  As sad as it sounds, the video game industry is just like any other.  Video game company managers will be interested only in your performance and what you will be  doing during the 40 or 60 hours that you work in throughout the week.  They could care less if you live in a car, a trailer, a pool (never heard of this one), or a shopping cart (seen this one).

So knowing this, you’re the one that’s going to have to be looking out for yourself and know what you want in a job.  Maybe you won’t take jobs that pay less than 10 dollars an hour or maybe you have different standards.  Be sure to become aware of your standards so you can go fully prepared into your game testing job interview.

Visit  paytestgamers.com to learn more

Watch Game Tester Video

As Christmas approaches the video game gods become powerfully generous as they decide who they will give the best game tester jobs to.  Video games are made and must become ready for testing so that they can be released by Christmas time, where all the beautiful children who prayed to the gods will recieve the video games that they asked for.

Wouldn’t you want to be part of this fantasy? You can be.  If you play the role of a game tester you can contribute to the video game industry and get paid to play video games.  You can do this as a beta tester.  As such you can test the games for gameplay and errors before the games are released, so actually get to play the games before everyone and their grandma.

You can start earning salary in the form of about 10 dollars per hour when you start as a beta tester.  There are many higher positions that you can move up to as well such as alpha game testers in the video game development arena.  If you start beta testing games you can later achieve these higher positions of game tester jobs and earn more money by doing something you love, playing video games.

Now, i know you probably never heard of what a game tester job is since its not exactly something you go to school and be taught about.  When you play grownup games when you’re a little kid nobody says i’ll be a game tester.  They say they’re doctors and play doctor, or firefighters, maybe police or teachers, but certainly never a game tester.  And if they do say game tester, you should take that child to a psychologist where he can get the treatment he needs. seriously.

Nevertheless, video game testers play a valuable role in the development and contribute to the release of great video games.  They look out so that they can remove all those horrible errors, bugs, and glitches.  This way when the person buys the video game at the story it is completely smooth and wonderful, like a great present for a child.

And if you’ve bought any video games recently you’ve probably noticed that there’s lots of money to be made in this industry because the latest games for sony, nintendo, and microsoft are not exactly on the cheap side.  You should be able to get your own slice of the pie.

The things is that most people that end up persuing a game tester job end up failing.  Often times they give up too quickly and quite frankly many just don’t know how to go about it.  If you’re interested in becoming a game tester, check out a video game testing guide here.

Whenever you look at a glamourious job, it usually doesn’t end up being exactly what you thought it was when you first thought or fantasized about it.  The same scenerio applies to video game testing jobs.  Its kind of like that song about becoming a rock super star that talks about how you may think its about having a big house and five cars.  But he says you gotta look over your shoulder constantly, and that first you get played, like all damn day, and then you get dissed by the media and fans.  So its a fun job, but its still a job and you gotta put in the effort and the daily hours, and meet deadlines just like you do in video game testing jobs.

Being a beta game tester for video games can be a similar situation.  Its not just about playing the latest blockbuster games and nonstop fun.  There is plenty of work involved, and you have somebody to answer to.  Don’t get me wrong, this is still a better job than others and it is a field where lots of people are turning towards and is highly sought out.  But many times people get the wrong idea when they hear the word game tester and the get a fantasy in their mind about just playing halo or call of duty all day, and getting paid 100 dollars per headshot.  But that is just not reality.

In fact, the industry is so popular that many game developers, programmers, and even video game designers begin their carreers as game testers.  Being a beta game tester allows you to gain valuable experience about the process of how a game is developed and this can serve you down the road to advance in this field.  It is also a job that is ideal for beginners because it doesn’t require you to have a college degree.  However, if you want to reach the top paying positions in the game company you must get some type of education, because they don’t just hire anyone.  While you get your education you can get the applicable experience by being a beta tester and earn money while doing it.  On top of that you’ll be playing video games, what more do you want?

So other than game testing mmo games or any other type of game, another thing you can do for experience is get your hands busy and writing your own mini games using xna or any other programming related activity.    So what will get you hired?  Hiring managers are definitely looking for a few charactertics, among others. 

For instance, you would be a favorable hiring choice if you are a person that demonstrates sound judgment and an ability to make good decisions, therefore, if you were to participate as a beta game tester in a certain company, you would have the tremendous opportunity of demonstrating this such talent and thereby getting a promotion opportnity as long as you’re doing the rest of the other things that you must do to get the position.  If you’re in any kind of doubt of whether this is even for you, just at least try taking a related class at a local community college and see how that goes.  The high end jobs will always require lots of knowledge.

Not just knowledge, but you have to appear to be a self motivated solution master that will use his extensive knowledge base to solve problems and situations you run into as a game tester.  So even though game testing can be tedious at times, it is definitely for a fun purpose and is an essential part in releasing an extremely fun game.  If you take the right steps there is no doubt that these companies will be interested in hiring you, they all want well trained personnel.

See this game tester jobs page to find more about the exact steps to securing a game tester job.

In other words, there are certain stages that a video game tester would have to go through to earn in the higher range of the earnings scale.  In the beginning you start all the way at the bottom, usually as a beta game tester or quality assurance game tester. 

These are the two lower stages of video game testing.  Later you can graduate to becoming an Alpha game tester, these are the more higher end game testers that get paid more and are hired by the big game developing companies. 

A person can start out in beta testing or QA game testing and with some determination and hardwork reach a higher position like Alpha Game Testing.  In alpha game testing, the game tester will test the games that are developed very early on and the type of testing they will do is bug testing for big bugs that would just devastate the entire game if they happened. 

After the alpha game testers get their jobs done, then they may pass the games on to the beta testers and Quality Assurance testers.  By the time that a game reaches the Quality Assurance testers the games are very much complete and only the details of gameplay, sound and graphics need to be tested because the major bugs must have already been detected. 

To move up from a beta tester or quality assurance tester to an alpha tester it may require more than just a willingness to play video games.  You may need to take the extra step such as actually getting some type of video game related education.  Since you will be dealing with major bugs in the system of a video game you have to know your stuff.  This is why these guys get paid more than a person who only does basic gameplay game testing.

You will also need some experience, which naturally comes if you began your game testing career as a beta game tester.  This is where you are introduced to the wonderful world of video gaming.  And most useful to you will be the habit of acting quickly on the things you learn. 

For instance if you learn of a glitch you must take action quickly and report it in detail and this will always make you look good.  You have to go in with the right mindset of getting problems solved and taking action and you’ll go far with that.

Anyway, video game testing can be tedious at times when you do the same thing over and over trying to find the exact error, but at the same time it is a very competitive job.  You have to do all the right things to end up in the best position that you can. 

Its even more competitive in the sense that some guys even test video games online for free as volunteers.  Of course if you prepare yourself adequately, you would do a much better job than any volunteer out there that just likes playing, because you need more than that.

Visit this video game testing page to find the right information to get you your first game tester job.

Anyway,  The beta gaming testers are more often assigned to work at home where they will safely and accurately test the assigned games they are given.  If you were to get a game tester job and you are 16 or 17 beta testing is probably what you would be doing, which is not that bad.  On the other hand, being a quality assurance game tester usually requires that you go in to the “gaming headquarters” of the video game testing company and go test video games under the supervision of superior game tester bosses. 

You usually work in small groups where a project leader emerges and distributes the current tasks that must be done.  You may begin to work on finding a specific bug or glitch for a certain game and you all work together to find it, or you can also be assigned different sections of the game or even different games.  If you are given independent assigments like they give you when you’re a beta tester, they may give you several games to test out where they want you to find a specific glitch or to test out your current abilities.  Out of those few games that they give you not all of the games may have glitches, so don’t Kill yourself because you weren’t unable to find a glitch (you are still a worthy person of existance) 

They may do that to test you or maybe they don’t know wheter or not the game had a glitch or not.  So the lesson for the day is that Glitch detection is actually a skill that you will develop and grow throughout your career (or job or whatever) as a video game tester.  And this is more than just knowing when the screen is frozen and when its not, you will learn to tell the difference of when you are stuck or ran into a glitch error and when you are totally lost just because you suck at that game (right….its not you its the graphics- they’re so confusing..uhu).  Anyway, if you really get all geeky about it you may learn to call different glitches by different names and start to categorize them.  By the way, you know you have been testing too many video games when you use these names on your pet fish or friends (assuming they exist). 

So what else do you need?  well, if you’re working from home you’re obviously going to need a computer.  Not just if you’re testing pc games, but just in general to stay in contact with yor project manager or whoever is in charge of you.  So you should be good as long as you have basic computer skills (which undoubtedly you awesomely absolutely probably have). 

Also, i don’t want to scare you or anything, but you’re going to have to do some weird things….they call it experimentation; now i’m not talking about girl on girl kissing or anything crazy that britney spears would do (you don’t have to shave your head to be a game tester), I’m merely talking about experimentation inside the video game.  Things you would normally not do while playing xbox with your friends (common, we all have at least one…..right?). Things like holding the joysticks in different directions, holding more than one button at a time, running your character into a wall (actually you probably do that anyways), or unplugging your controllers just to see if the game will freeze on you.  And with that, if you still have desires to become a video game tester make sure you read this game tester page.