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Getting paid to play video games. It's the wet dream of every nerd, stoner, couch potato and teenager in the world. But is it really as awesome as it sounds?
Well, it depends on who you ask. First, let's shatter some stereotypes:
No, not like in that movie Grandma's Boy. Not even a little bit.
And no, emphatically no, definitely not at all like that infamous Westwood College commercial.
No, you cannot be lazy and be a game tester. No, liking video games does not qualify you to be a game tester. And no, your 1337 skillz do not mean much of anything at all. So what is it like being a game tester? It's difficult. It's challenging. It can be stressful, brain-wracking, tedious, and intensely grueling.
Think you like playing video games? Awesome. Want to play the same video game for four-to-six months straight, at an average of ten-to-twelve hours per day, six days a week? How about when there's a maximum of 20-30 hours of playtime before you get to 100% completion, and anything beyond that is re-doing things you've already done? How about when the game is so unstable and unpolished that it crashes every ten minutes and every loading screen is two-to-three minutes long? How about when, for hours at a time, it's your job to run through interface and options screens, making sure settings changes function as intended, or save files work the way they're supposed to? Still game? How about when crunch time hits and you're working a 26-hour shift to make sure the game is ready to ship on time?
The video game industry is extremely competitive, and that includes QA. It doesn't take a whole lot to get one's foot in the door--a well-written resume and a successful interview can easily make up for an otherwise lack of relevant experience or education--but once you're in, if you're not good, you will fail, and quickly. I saw a good many people come and go who, for whatever reason, didn't have what it took to be a successful tester. With the sheer volume of money and energy being poured into every game to meet deadlines and deliver a quality title, weak links in the chain can't be tolerated for long.
That's not to say that my employers were ruthless--far from it. Whenever someone was performing below expectations, a surprising amount of effort was always made to hone in on their individual skills, place them in positions which exploited their strengths, and under the wing of strong leaders who could help them improve on their weak points. In many cases, this strategy worked. I saw a good number of people come out of training showing little promise but a lot of motivation, and witnessed them sharpen themselves, with help from the rest of the team, into some of the strongest testers in the group by the end of the project. At the end of the day, however, for every sub-par, unmotivated, dime-a-dozen burnout who thought that "playing video games for a living" would be a great way to skate their way through paychecks, there were ten more eager and bright individuals waiting outside, begging for a foot into the door of this industry.
Sound tough? It is. But it's also one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences I've ever had, in a career or otherwise. I've talked about how hard and strenuous this job is, how difficult it is to succeed and how easy it is to fall by the wayside, but many of you are probably not surprised by this revelation. After all, EA has gotten a pretty bad rap for being evil, big bad corporate slaveworkers who push their unappreciated employees to the breaking point and never leave them anything good to show for it. Well, it's time to break that stereotype, too.
EA provided me with just about the best work environment I could have possibly asked for, and improvements to the system are constantly being made to keep their talented staff happy and make sure their hard work is appreciated and rewarded. Are the hours long and hard? Yes, but breaks are offered at least once every two hours, and meal breaks are almost always an hour long. Need to work a late night or a weekend shift? As a condolence, every project has a specific budget set aside to pay for the meals of the entire team on long overtime shifts. Other incentives can also be provided at the discretion of the project leads. Our project gave out gift certificates on a weekly basis to the strongest performers for those weeks, and at the end of the project gave a free copy of Rock Band (all the expensive peripherals included) to the individual with the highest overall performance for the project. At the end of projects, all team members are offered up to a week's time off to recharge and re-energize before moving to the next one. Other perks include free cereal and milk in the break room in addition to absurdly cheap vending machines (well-stocked with Mountain Dew) and free-to-play arcade games, a company store filled with video games from every EA-owned publisher and developer discounted at more than 50% off, and every once in a while--just for good measure--there are the on-the-clock keg parties complete with free pizza, wings and video game tournaments. Yeah, not even kidding.
But far more rewarding than all that is the tight-knit teamwork-fueled environment, supervised by leads who actually care about their employees, show a real passion for the products they help deliver, and bear the fire and charisma to instill that same passion into the team members under them. These days, every job on the market promises a "fun, fast-paced and team-oriented" work environment, and most of those promises prove to be naught but a hollow shell of rhetoric that leaves employees only working just hard enough to not lose their sources of income. Not so with EA. Never did I feel unappreciated, unimportant, or like I was just trudging through another work day counting down the hours until the weekend or the next paycheck. I'm extremely proud of the work I did at EA and sincerely love that company for the way they treated me. I couldn't have asked for any better. And although I completed my six-month temporary tenure and was unfortunately laid off last week, I'm eagerly awaiting the next hiring season so I can go back and try again for a promotion to a permanent position with the company.
