Get paid for playing games?

[jefis]

I know this must have been a dream to many of you when you were young.
When i was a kid i thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to play video games all my life, and make a living out of it. Like in that movie "Grandma's Boy" where that dude tests videogames (this movie btw http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456554/ ). That movie was awesome btw. But back on topic. So have any of you guys ever thought of this?
I've been searching for this some time now, but with no results. A week ago i found this site, that updates vacant job spots for video game testing. I gave it a shot, and I hope this will be the jackpot
The site can be found here - http://www.only4gamers.com

Have you guys/gals tried getting a job in video game testing?

[snakesqzns]

[Devil N]

^

I was going to write a long rant about how video games testing is just about the largest deception you could ever have in your working life, but that comic sums it up better than I ever could.

[jefis]

You both kinda shattered my dreams

[Devil N]

You're welcome.

[Waterfaller]

^

I was going to write a long rant about how video games testing is just about the largest deception you could ever have in your working life, but that comic sums it up better than I ever could.

I second THAT notion.

[NeoVamp]

So have any of you guys ever thought of this?

Which gamer hasn't?

though the last time i thought of it I was like 13/14.

it all went downhill from there.

[Zoltor]

In the old days, I would've loved too, but in the new school error, It's a Nightmare. Yea, considering there are only a very few nomber of companies that keep producing good games after another(ATLUS, NIS, and Capcom to name most of them off the top of my head. Also there are compamnies with slightly less then a meraculous record, that are still pretty good, like Sega, and Nintendo for instance), unless you are lucky enough to get a job with the few great companies left, you'll most likely end up being forced to play test games you'll hate with a passion, which would be hell, and tough to follow through with.


PS. Really, It's amazing what a POS, companies will try passing off as a game.

[djshok]

I know a guy who used to do beta testing. It involved playing terrible games and making the character literally walk into every wall over and over and then reporting on the results. That comic is pretty spot on.

[MrMatthews]

Yeah, anyone who enjoys video games imagines something like this.

"What if I got paid to play video games? Or write reviews for them? That would be so fucking awesome!!!!"

The reality is, as many game reviewers will quickly point out, is that you don't get to play only the games you like. I imagine that it would be even worse being a video game tester as opposed to a reviewer. At least as a VG reviewer, you're playing games that are at least in their final form. As a tester, it's simply your job to find as many problems in an unfinished product as you can. Mind-numbing stuff, I'm sure.

[Why-Disciple]

That show "the tester" makes me laugh every time. Whenever I see an ad for it, I think, 'damn, whoever wins is going to quit within the first month. What a waste.'

I've got a friend that says he might want to be a tester. I reminded him of what testers really do, and he was like, "I'm not a dumbass, of course I know I'd be playing just the shitty games."

That being said, I'd much rather program games than test them. That's what I wanted to do as a kid.

[Jesse813]

I know this must have been a dream to many of you when you were young.
When i was a kid i thought it would be the coolest thing in the world to play video games all my life, and make a living out of it. Like in that movie "Grandma's Boy" where that dude tests videogames (this movie btw http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0456554/ ). That movie was awesome btw. But back on topic. So have any of you guys ever thought of this?
I've been searching for this some time now, but with no results. A week ago i found this site, that updates vacant job spots for video game testing. I gave it a shot, and I hope this will be the jackpot
The site can be found here - http://www.only4gamers.com

Have you guys/gals tried getting a job in video game testing?

When I was younger I thought such a job would be totally awesome, now that I know that all these game testers spend months on the same crappy games I'd never want the job.

[Iron Lizard]

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...910945c1ee36d4

[Elusive]

I like video games, but certainly not enough to make 'video games' my job. I like a bit of steak every now and then, but that doesn't mean I'd go and work in a slaughterhouse.

[17daysolderthannes]

That being said, I'd much rather program games than test them. That's what I wanted to do as a kid.

Even that's not what you probably think it is. At one time, games were made with just an artist and a programmer: the artist decided the story and gist of the game and did all of the artwork and the programmer fine tuned the gameplay and made the whole thing work. Now, every game is so huge in scope that a programmer's entire contribution might be to make a character's shirt flap in the wind realistically. Furthermore, you don't have any say in what the game is or is about, you just kind of take whatever the higher ups say they want to make. Indy developers are the only ones that are really making exactly what they want anymore.

I like video games, but certainly not enough to make 'video games' my job. I like a bit of steak every now and then, but that doesn't mean I'd go and work in a slaughterhouse.

I think that would be more like working at a steakhouse...




Anyway, back at the OP, the thing to take away is that beta testing SUCKS. You aren't playing the game, you're hunting glitches while seeing the same shit over and over and over again. At least as a game reviewer you are only required to play a game and report what it's like in a relatively short article, you don't have to do every single little thing contained in the game (though bypassing auxiliary missions and going through the story as fast as possible would probably be frowned upon).

As long as you are a talented writer with either good humor or stylistic flair, being a game reviewer wouldn't be all that bad. Yeah, you have to play shitty games too, but IMO no matter how bad a game is, you can still enjoy the experience to some degree, even if it's to just laugh at how lame the developers are.

Another good thing about reviewing vs. testing is that reviewers tend to stick to their favorite genres as that makes their reviews the most relevant and keeps them from being biased i.e. someone that only plays sports or FPS games would say "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!?" if he played a super-anime RPG and thus would probably give it a 1/10 no matter how "good" it is (I put "good" in quotes because I personally don't understand any appeal in wandering around reading pages of text "dialogue" and then fighting monsters that consists of hitting "X" to select the "attack" and then watching the same animation over and over again).