How To Become A Game Tester
There has been a drastic change and development in the field of gaming. Video games are also being made in books and movies. It is believed by gamers that gaming is equivalent to reading plus watching movies combined.
It is true since the game's graphics are enough to captivate a non-gamer too. The game tester could be the coolest and the dream-come-true job for gamers. A game tester is the one who plays the game through all the stages of testing to identify bugs and loopholes in the game and fix it. To become a game tester, an essential requirement is to be an enthusiast in gaming.
Skills Required to Become a Game Tester
The role of the game tester is to identify the issues in gaming and fix them before the official release of the game. They must ensure that the game is interactive. Gamers are usually passionate about their games.
If one pursues a career that they are passionate about and enjoys doing, there is no better career option. To become a game tester, below are a few skills that the game tester must have:
- As mentioned above, the basic requirement of a game tester is to be a gaming enthusiast. Loving to play video games is different from actually playing video games. A game tester must know how to play a game to check its characteristics like graphics, sounds, settings, etc.
- Every job position requires qualifications. Though this position does not necessarily require education, companies and organizations prefer candidates with a degree. But for a game tester, a student completing high school is enough.
- A game tester knowing the skills of a beta tester will be highly beneficial. The gaming companies allow beta testing on their almost stable games and ask the testers to submit a document that illustrates where their game could be improvised. Beta testing is performed in the production environment to extract its errors and fix them immediately.
- Playing video games is not just about downloading and installing them. It is also about using different development kits for gaming and the systems and hardware that support it. For a game tester, understanding the game's characteristics and its back end is also advantageous. If a game tester has a technical understanding of which technique is used in what characteristic, this will help the companies in providing a better user experience to their customers.
- The video game tester needs to play the video games for long hours to understand their functionality and work and identify bugs. Since they spend a lot of time gaming, it's hard for them to record bugs and their experiences and conclusions about them. To ease this issue, they must maintain a report or a document that keeps all their observations in it. To maintain that report, they must have fair technical writing skills to give their views professionally and clearly to the developers of the game.
- Constantly apply for game tester jobs in a leading online game development company. It is better to write them a letter and express interest in working with them. The job applications could be for a game tester, QA game tester, development tester, etc. Some of the game tester jobs are available at Indeed, Sony, Microsoft, etc.
The Responsibilities of a Game Tester
- To assess all the characteristics of the game.
- To play the video game for long hours in continuity to detect errors.
- To perform the latest gaming tests on the pre-released games to check their functionality.
- To maintain a record of errors occurring in the report.
- To play the game with different scenarios and circumstances to check if the errors occurring are fixed or fluid.
- The reports made should be after thorough research on other games too.
- The report must make recommendations to the developers of the game.
- Working with a quality assurance team is always better for game testing.
- A game tester must attend gaming conferences, seminars, and webinars to gain more knowledge and experience and improve testing skills.
A game tester performs the testing based on the game assigned. The time invested also depends on the type of game. If the game is short, then the testing is completed quickly. If the game is long, the testing may take longer durations to complete.
A game tester's job is quite challenging since it requires dedication, interest, and patience to test almost every level and every character of the game. This also requires documentation and recommendation of the observations of the game tester to the developers of the game.
The salary of the game testers is around Rs. 20,000 in India. One more advantage of the game tester is working full-time and part-time. The part-time game testers are paid less than the full-time game testers. The people working with experience in the companies are paid more.
Conclusion
The skills, salary, and time required to become a game tester are discussed above. It is a perfect opportunity for all game lovers to work in a field that they are passionate about.
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