The best time for video game tester jobs is now because we are in just about a horrible recession.  But you already knew that, the only question you may have is: so what? or what do you mean?  Well, you might be one of the hundreds of people that can benefit by becoming a beta game tester for video games you may possibly enjoy playing.

Sure you won’t be in bed all day playing video games (although you can do that if you’re a volunteer game tester) but you can make some extra cash or beer money if you drink.  In fact in a recession, video games may thrive because people are so frustrated and want to forget about their troubles by playing these games.

If you become a beta test gamer you can cash in on this industry.  You will begin as an ordinary game tester getting paid around 10 dollars per hour, but there are so many opportunities to go up as a game tester.  You basically, are getting your foot in the door of the video gaming industry.

Video Game tester jobs are an important part of the video game process, and they play an important role in the release of a popular video game.  It is a constant loop of testing and patching and testing and fixing to get it to the last level and finally to sell it to you so you can play it inside your living room.

It is very important that the games that are released are fixed of any errors bugs or glitches that would just be ridiculous to have in gameplay.  You know, like game freezing, characters doing strange things, getting stuck, weird teleports or anything of that nature.  You see, video game developers have this fear and apprehension about releasing a game with glitches and it makes sense.

Although Grand Turismo 2, a game for the early playstation actually had some type of error since you were unable to play the last portion of the game.  And despite that, this game actually sold lots of copies, so that’s something I found very interesting, so i don’t know what happened with those guys and their playstation game testing.

So now you might be thinking about a video game testing job and whether this is for you or not.  Well in this bad economy, you might want to try it even if you have a different job already to get some extra cash and break into the industry.  In the past I’ve looked for advice on how to become a game tester and I found lots of dumb things out there.  For instance, it went from suggesting i join a book club (hello, do i look like oprah or something)  to some guy telling me to join his monthly membership site.

But then I found a place to get a step by step guide on how to become a beta tester.

Whenever you think about video games you probably don’t think about girls, although they probably come into the picture if you’re playing something like dead or alive or any game where the girls are in 2 piece swim suits.

But that’s not what i’m going to talk about here (i know, disappointing?) anyway, when you hear the word game tester you probably don’t think of a girl.  At best you probably think about a few young guys in their twenties who like to play video games and wear t-shirts that say I love StarWars or something like that.

This brings up an interesting question: Should girls be video game testers?  Well, that depends on whether women possess the traits necessary to be successful as a video game tester.  And by they way, yes they do exist.

I know a girl that is just a freak about video games and plays them all the time.  She actually blogs about video games too, which is strange because I didn’t know she was good at writing.  Anyway, she inspired me so much that I had to write this post right now.

If I told her she should be a game tester, i would probably tell her to imagine she was like this fancy food tester.  All she had to do to get paid, was visit restaurant after restaurant and taste the food.  And after tasting the food (the new video game) she would report and tell the chefs (the programmer) if the soup had any flies in it (bugs) or if there was anything wrong with the recipe (errors).  Wow that took a lot of my creativity, i usually don’t get this creative.

Anyway, I don’t know if she would be able to handle a job as a video game developing tester.  Girls usually aren’t acustomed to working long hours and she’s a pretty girl that’s kind of spoiled, since people buy her all kinds of video games all the time for any occassion.

Also, you may have to play the same game for span of a few months, and this girl i know tends to not have a big attention span.  She would probably be able to stick with it for 3 weeks tops.

Finally, another issue would be that most girls tend to “spread the word” a lot about all kinds of things.  This would probably come in handy in the marketing stage, but definitely not in the video game testing stage.  In fact, having lots of girls being game tester might increase piracy rates because they might just feel the need to share the current new game she was was given to test.

I mean, there are so many different ways a company can stop piracy with more restrictions and systems, but some girls just can’t keep a secret, you know?  I don’t know if any companies descriminate about hiring women as game testers, but other then the above issues, i’m sure women can be excellent game testers.

Feel free to tell me your own perspective on this, I find it very interesting. And if you’re interested in beta testing games, go ahead and visit this game tester job paradise to find out how you can get the best game tester job.

Beta is weird word, it could be a greek letter or a two syllable nonsense word.  Anyway, the word beta in beta game tester just means that you get to play games before anybody else.  This is because the games haven’t been released to the public yet and you get dibbs on playing it first. 

The catch is that your gaming is not for purposeless fun and enjoyment.  Your purpose of gaming as a beta game tester is to examine the game and play with around until you find bugs and glitches in the game.  Some Game testers go really deep into playing around with these bugs in the game.  When you run into them you have to note the exact location of where and when.  This is to make sure the programmer can fix the bug with accuracy. 

Sometimes (or always) this is easier said than done.  The reason for that is that some bugs are not obvious or easily seen or accessed on the surface.  In other words, you have to really digg down to find them.  For instance, you may go around with your character in the game bumping into every (NPC) you see, Non Person Character, or into inanimate objects and wait and see what happens.  It may have to be that when you bump into a parked car you run into a bug and get stuck. 

However, what if you tried to bump into it again and you don’t get stuck? Well, you have to investigate and know your stuff so that you know exactly what you’re talking about.  It may be that you have to jump over the car and then run into it from the back in order to get to that bug and get your character stuck.  It may be that you tried running into the car from every direction imaginable until you finally are able to recreate a particular bug. 

So this can be hard to enjoy, but if you love video games you’ll be able to handle it.  After all, this line of work might be better than flipping burgers (no offense to the burger flippers out there) but this is pretty chill type of work.  Just make sure you don’t get lost in the crazy world of video games. 

By the way, you don’t have to be super freak gamer that plays for 24 hours straight without eating or visiting the bathroom (yuck!), you could just be an average gamer that plays a few hours here and there.  Although you could definitely score lots of video gamer testing jobs if you’re a freak super gamer guy. 

Anyway, it just comes down to doing some basic video gameplay and communicating or reporting to your superiors (and meeting any deadlines that they give you).  And you definitely want to be patient to play games from all kinds of different points of views and perspectives. 

If you grew up with video games you are extremely lucky because you can understand things that some people might not.  For instance basic navigation knowledge, like knowing that the analogue stick is coordinated to move the character in a particular direction and simple things like that which nobody ever thinks about. 

You may be part of the multitudes of people who wish they can get a beta test gamer job.  If so, check out this game tester page to find out how to get the cheat codes for game tester jobs in real life.

So what does a game testing job usually pay?  You can make up to 80 or 100 dollars per hour, but don’t count on starting up that high.  You may be able to work to that level by filling up your resume with assignments and projects you work on and build up your experience.  After a few years you can get there if you always do your best.  Although, you’ll probably start at around 10 buck an hour or so. 

Remember that as a video game tester you will be playing games not necessarily for fun, but to do the favor (kinda but not really cause you get paid) to the game companies of testing their new developing games for gameplay, graphic, and sound errors.  You’ll be a glitch expert and bug detective.  Its important that you take good notes so that you can tell the guy that will be fixing the bug exactly how it happened.  This can be so that the glitch can be replicated at command and therefore being able to fix it. 

What type of games need testing? all kinds of games need testing: adventure, rpg, action, racing, you name it.  Since all games can have programming or other holes, they all must be tested by a human game testers.  In other words, being a game tester involves actual skillz and its not just about drinking soda all day and playing yourself silly (okay, maybe it can be). 

Be sure you can use a computer easily.  We’re talking about email, downloading software, installations, and even using instant messenger if required.  Just basic stuff.

You’ll be learning lots of insider information and about the process that needs to happen to bring a video game to life.  You’ll have knowledge that most people never find out at all.  And it doesn’t matter if you’re good at math or any other subject you failed at school.  Or maybe youwere a straight a student, good for you, this works either way.

One of the bright sides of being in the game testing field is that you may get to play games that other people will never play.  For instance, you may play and beta test a game that you find a huge glitch on, and if that glitch is too hard to fix, the game will probably not be released. Therefore, you’ll be part of the less than 1 percent of the population who actually got to play that game.  Many times a company may also let you keep all kinds of games as well.

Check out This website to learn the exact steps you need to get the most pay for video game testing.

Okay so video game tester jobs exist and you can become a professional game tester.  What’s the catch? Well you’re right whenever somethings overwhelmingly sounds too good to be true there’s usually a catch.  The main catch that comes as a video game tester is the moments of tedious projects.  You may be assigned to a specific area or level in the game trying to find a glitch some else said existed there, and it may be a bit hard to find it.  In fact you may spend hours just looking for it on that platform.  In other words, remember that a video game testing  job is still a job, you would still be doing plenty of things that you wouldn’t normally do when you play at your house.

So if you’re still here and that didn’t send you running that’s great news.  For those of you who did run out of here, tough….. but now there’s less competition for those that are willing to do what it takes to make a living testing games for big video game companies like any from the games you are currently playing (games you are playing for free).

As a game tester you need to hone several skills.  You will NOT need a college degree regardless of the myths you may have heard.  A degree would come in handy for other jobs like video game design or video game programming, but not necessarily for video game testing jobs.  But you will definitely need to be a team player to work with others well enough to solve the mistakes that video game developers have made on the games.  It can be similar to the good old days when you played counter strike or another similar game where you guys had headsets and you communicated in code while playing online. 

 You basically team up to kill the bad guy and use some hardcore strategies.  Except, that now the bad guy is finding and eliminating the glitch, if you happen to be a video game tester.  But hey, when you come to work, you basically deal with a video game console or a computer, its not exactly tough cookies like digging ditches.  Digging ditches is a damn tough job you don’t really want to have: not only is it exhausting but you’re basically digging out the house of someone that just died or is expected to die soon! God forbid that you fall asleep on the job and-  lets just not go there….

Other skills that you need will be describing skills.  These will come in very handy when you write a report or verbally communicate with a superior about any bugs or glitches that are present in the current game you are testing.  You must be clear and articulate.  Ideally, you would have the ability to describe a glitch or bug with so much clarity that you could basically touch or taste it.  Pinpointing the exact location and the exact timing of how the glitch happens with deadly accuracy.  This way the programmer doesn’t get angry like he would if you just describe it generally and without detail.  If you meet him, take him out to lunch why don’t you…. he has a tough job too.

Another thing, not everyone you work with will be an absolute delight, and this brings me to necessary skill number 3.5 >>> Patience .