Experiencing An Interesting Position In Games Testing
The games industry is an ever expanding business, in recent years it has developed to be amazingly successful, in some instances rivalling profits and/or sales of Hollywood movies. A lot of people play games now, it isn’t just for kids, families can take part and play party games and the passionate gamers can enjoy high definition epics that never fail to. With the industry expanding so much, so do the Careers that become offered, but wouldn’t it be incredible if you were able to play games for an income. You could of course aim to become a pro gamer and with any luck earn your living from tournaments, but this is no easy task. Fortunately, there is also New careers as a games tester, which may be just the role you were hoping for.
Yes, Careers in games testing let you play games all day every day. But these Career ideas aren’t just a walk in the park, there is a challenge involved and you have to keep in mind that you can’t pick the game to play. Let’s get the difficult parts clarified first. To begin, you need to have a good eye for detail, it’s your duty to find the problems with the game so that the developers can fix them. You also have to be enduring and patient as you would be playing the same game constantly for the most part of a day. The biggest challenge though is attempting to work out how different individuals would play the game, not everyone has the same method as you and you must find the different ways the game can play out so that you can locate as many issues as possible.
What makes these Career ideas so good is the fact that they have no formal requirements the majority of the time. A person with reasonable GCSE grades in English and Maths can be in with a fair chance. Getting a degree in computing or knowledge of programming can increase your chance of acceptance, but to be truthful, the most wanted thing is good communication skills and a love for gaming. In terms of actually finding Careers in this field of work, you can find positions at outsourcing companies, publishers and even the developers themselves can provide positions. New careers in games testing are fairly rare however, so you will need to keep checking for any openings and don’t be afraid to send your CV to different employers, even if they aren’t looking for new staff it doesn’t hurt to make yourself known.
These Careers don’t provide the greatest of salaries, often between £14,000 and £18,000, but the main benefit is more the fact that you’d be taking on a job that you enjoy doing. It’s safe to say if you’re looking at these Career ideas, then you’re already a keen gamer and being able to carry out your hobby while at work can’t ever be a bad thing. It’s also completely feasible that if you’re good at the job, you can be requested to join the development team taking on a role such as level design by using the knowledge you picked up during the testing role.
