Get paid for playing games?

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 :cool:
The site can be found here - http://www.only4gamers.com

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

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/7...78_VG7Cr-L.jpg

^

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.

You both kinda shattered my dreams :D

You're welcome. :p

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Originally Posted by 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.

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I second THAT notion.

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Originally Posted by jefis

So have any of you guys ever thought of this?

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Which gamer hasn't?

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

it all went downhill from there. http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/6997/laughing2z.gif

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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 :cool:
The site can be found here - http://www.only4gamers.com

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

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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.

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

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.

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Originally Posted by Why-Disciple

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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).

I've been backup in an office handling testing before. It's no picnic, which is to say that it's much like every other office job. If you want an accurate representation of it, watch the first half hour of the movie Office Space, just imagine that the employees are given the liberty of wearing casual clothes all week, and have a second computer at their cubical which happens to run a shitty beta version of the latest Halo.

Writing on a deadline is shit work too. Being a game reviewer would be no better than testing.

Writing in itself is horrible these days, pick up any news paper and you'll see regular suckhole journalism blindly praising things while not addressing a pressing issue (usually copy-pasta hack jobs from other rags); Contrasted by op-ed's that are completely retarded, irrelevant, or stupid and unfit for blog traffic.

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Originally Posted by Knuckle Duster

Writing on a deadline is shit work too. Being a game reviewer would be no better than testing.

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I don't see how. I mean, everyone on here "writes on a deadline" all the time when we make posts. We basically just express what we want to say about something, and that's that. The only difference is that in a formal review you can't be as abrasive and you have to spell/grammar check your work (which I usually do anyway). Spitting out a couple pages on a game you just played is something people do all over the internet for fun, just read reviews of games on Amazon, they're longer than many commercial reviews.

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Originally Posted by Knuckle Duster

Writing in itself is horrible these days, pick up any news paper and you'll see regular suckhole journalism blindly praising things while not addressing a pressing issue (usually copy-pasta hack jobs from other rags); Contrasted by op-ed's that are completely retarded, irrelevant, or stupid and unfit for blog traffic.

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This is only true because of oversaturation of jackasses. Everyone has a dream job of making a living by just speaking their mind, but the truth is that most people's mind's aren't worth hearing. Still, there's nothing keeping dumbasses from blogging their ass off about shit they don't understand (for fucks sake someone stop the clueless anti-GameStop bloggers "oh noes! they only gave me $5 for a horrible game I bought a month ago! boo GameStop!").

The biggest problem with journalists, and the reason I basically don't read any form of news anymore, is that you have people with a LANGUAGE/COMMUNICATIONS degree posing as an expert. Even worse than those is the "activists" like the morons handing out environmentalists pamphlets about buying hybrids when hybrids have been proven to be only marginally more fuel efficient while being nearly impossible to economically repair in a wreck due to the complexity and having batteries that are horrible for the environment to manufacture, etc. All of these "green" bandwagon jumpers can go to hell, they need to learn WTF they're talking about before they go blogging their "ideals".

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

I don't see how. I mean, everyone on here "writes on a deadline" all the time when we make posts. We basically just express what we want to say about something, and that's that. The only difference is that in a formal review you can't be as abrasive and you have to spell/grammar check your work (which I usually do anyway). Spitting out a couple pages on a game you just played is something people do all over the internet for fun, just read reviews of games on Amazon, they're longer than many commercial reviews.



This is only true because of oversaturation of jackasses. Everyone has a dream job of making a living by just speaking their mind, but the truth is that most people's mind's aren't worth hearing. Still, there's nothing keeping dumbasses from blogging their ass off about shit they don't understand (for fucks sake someone stop the clueless anti-GameStop bloggers "oh noes! they only gave me $5 for a horrible game I bought a month ago! boo GameStop!").

The biggest problem with journalists, and the reason I basically don't read any form of news anymore, is that you have people with a LANGUAGE/COMMUNICATIONS degree posing as an expert. Even worse than those is the "activists" like the morons handing out environmentalists pamphlets about buying hybrids when hybrids have been proven to be only marginally more fuel efficient while being nearly impossible to economically repair in a wreck due to the complexity and having batteries that are horrible for the environment to manufacture, etc. All of these "green" bandwagon jumpers can go to hell, they need to learn WTF they're talking about before they go blogging their "ideals".

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You have no concept of the editorial review process, or what good writing is.

Looking at this post as an example, your point ends up being lost as the train of thought (much like most of what you contribute) veers off course, into a quagmire of contempt for something else entirely.

*smirk*

Knuckle, I was going to say that you and 17Days are like Al and Peg, but no....

More like Brian and Stewie... ;) You choose who is who, eh?

X - Apples ARE in fact the superior to oranges, EVERYONE knows that, STUPID!

O - Actually, oranges contain vitamin C and are FAR superior nutritionally!

X - Pshhh..yeah...if you like SOUR shit with SEEDS in it!

O - Actually, if you check your FACTS, you will find that many varieties of citrus are quite SWEET!

...and etc... ;)

Great stuff! Gives me a laugh without fail! :D

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

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.

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That's why I wanted to do it as a kid. Back then that's basically what it was. Nowadays, I still wouldn't find it as bad of a job since I'm going to major in computer engineering, so learning to program would still make a better job than moving a character around and writing reports.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

(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).

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Rep.:ok:

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Originally Posted by Knuckle Duster

You have no concept of the editorial review process, or what good writing is.

Looking at this post as an example, your point ends up being lost as the train of thought (much like most of what you contribute) veers off course, into a quagmire of contempt for something else entirely.

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The posts I make on this forum are not an example of "exemplary writing". Most of the time I forgo proper grammar for the sake of compacting my statements (my posts are plenty long as is) and because I really don't feel like extended proof reading (beyond horrendous sentence structures and misspellings) when I don't need to.

Still, writing reviews, etc. is not that difficult and if the editorial process is "hard" or "difficult" to you...you're an idiot.

Did I just contradict myself? no. Editing=somewhat time consuming and me=not willing to do that for the sake of a forum post.

God dammit, why am I even entertaining your post with a response? you're a worse troll baiter than Robivy.

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Originally Posted by Why-Disciple

Nowadays, I still wouldn't find it as bad of a job since I'm going to major in computer engineering, so learning to program would still make a better job than moving a character around and writing reports.

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Prepare to be surprised. I don't know much (or any) of C or any other language used by game makers (btw, does anyone know if they program in C or do they use some kind of "game maker" utility?), but I used to make websites in pure HTML back in junior high and to call it extremely tedious is an understatement. Also, don't think all you'll be covering in that major is game design, computer engineering is pretty broad in scope and there will be math that will make you wonder if you're reading an alien language. Talk to someone that's a junior/senior in the exact major you want to go into before signing up to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

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Originally Posted by Roussimoff

Knuckle, I was going to say that you and 17Days are like Al and Peg, but no....

More like Brian and Stewie... ;) You choose who is who, eh?

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Except Brian and Stewie actually like each other, despite how they talk to one another.

17 & KD don't.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

The posts I make on this forum are not an example of "exemplary writing". Most of the time I forgo proper grammar for the sake of compacting my statements (my posts are plenty long as is) and because I really don't feel like extended proof reading (beyond horrendous sentence structures and misspellings) when I don't need to.

Still, writing reviews, etc. is not that difficult and if the editorial process is "hard" or "difficult" to you...you're an idiot.

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I never said it was, I've just pointed out that you need only look at your unedited post as an example of bad writing. The editorial process of refining a written body of work is fundamental that proves to be time consuming, and only a problem when deadlines are involved.

Is it hard? No.
Is it shit work comparable to the shit work of being a game tester? Yes. That was the discussion, no?

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

Did I just contradict myself? no. Editing=somewhat time consuming and me=not willing to do that for the sake of a forum post.

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It's too bad you can't apply that logic to understand what you're arguing against with this response.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

God dammit, why am I even entertaining your post with a response? you're a worse troll baiter than Robivy.

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Because you obviously feel compelled to elaborate endlessly about your opinion on a subject, to almost any response.

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Originally Posted by 17daysolderthannes

Prepare to be surprised. I don't know much (or any) of C or any other language used by game makers (btw, does anyone know if they program in C or do they use some kind of "game maker" utility?), but I used to make websites in pure HTML back in junior high and to call it extremely tedious is an understatement. Also, don't think all you'll be covering in that major is game design, computer engineering is pretty broad in scope and there will be math that will make you wonder if you're reading an alien language. Talk to someone that's a junior/senior in the exact major you want to go into before signing up to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

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Programming languages are portable, most developers use something like Eclipse to write in, export the code to whatever dev kit tools they need to run it via plugins and test it that way.

That's not always the case, but it's usually how it works.