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Get Paid For Playing Video Games
By David Barry | March 15, 2010
Ask the question: “if you could do anything as a job, what would it be?” and the response for most gamers will be the same – a video games tester. Little wonder. Play video games all day everyday, and then get paid for the “effort”? That has to be one of the sweetest rackets going on.
The common (mis)conception of game testing is that people are paid ridiculous amounts of money for playing video games all day. In truth, the pay is not quite as generous as you might think, and the process is far from fun especially if you do it on a continual basis, yet it’s still an appealing career choice for many.
Testing a game is exactly that: the tester will be required to repeatedly play through the same few segments of the game time and time again, usually without a break until they unearth any and all bugs they can find. The tester must keep their eyes open for these bugs and then record their findings.
However, the process did not end there and it is important to note that your findings must be legible, comprehensive and easy to understand for the people to whom you will be reporting it to. Your input will directly affect the speed and ease at which the technicians can remedy the fault(s) and so if your communication skills whether verbal or written are not on par then there will be trouble.
Now that we have for all intents and purposes stripped the process bare, the next question we must consider is: just how much money does the average game tester earn for their labor?
It is not really possible to simply provide a round figure or a precise prediction and this is because there are a number of variables that will affect the final salary. Not surprisingly, the level of experience the tester has will count heavily in their favour and so a tester who has a clearly established work portfolio with a number of provable successful projects will command a higher fee than a rank novice. The salary offered can and will differ between different companies although irrespective of how much they happen to pay for your work you can be rest assured of one thing – the work you do will be a major feather in your cap, and the experience you’ll gain gives you a big advantage when going for other games related jobs.
Click for a free report on how you can start earning your own games tester salary and break into the games industry to test games for a living.
categories: test games, games testing, games jobs, games industry, video games, computer games
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