Your Online Source For Gaming

Game Testing Jobs - Becoming a Top-Gun Video Game Tester by Learning Software Testing Fundamentals

An important step towards getting hired for all the game testing jobs you want is to become a really a great video game tester - the star of the team, or at least co-star. Achieving that level of competency involves moving beyond the what - finding bugs - to the how. How, exactly does one uncover flaws in the game? Ultimately, most bugs will fall into two categories - either design and gameplay bugs, or code bugs.

Understanding that you aren't simply testing a video game, but rather, are testing software, will help a great deal in finding and isolating bugs to hand off to the developers to fix. There are universal principles to the discipline of testing software, and when applied to testing video games, understanding these fundamentals will skyrocket your bug count - and your salary. You will then find employers begging to hire you, and will have all the game testing jobs you could possibly want.

Software testing is ALL about finding bugs - the more the merrier, the earlier, the better. "File bugs early and often" is a great philosophy to bring to the table, as the earlier the bugs are filed in the development process, the easier and cheaper it is to fix them. But as with so many things, what is easy in theory is more difficult in practice - it isn't until all the code is hooked together, "integrated", that end-to-end testing of the game and gameplay is possible. So most game testing jobs are advertised in the alpha and beta release cycles - but the closer one starts in the alpha phase, the better.

At this stage in the game (pun intended), it really pays off to perform what is called integration testing. Do all the major elements of the game integrate well together? Or is sound out-of-sync with video? Does player speech sync with mouth movements? Are sound effects in sync with player action? Does the game save to disk, if designed to? Is the game compatible with all supported operating systems? These are just a few of the high-level areas one will want to investigate.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty, one should design a matrix that covers all major elements of the game and integration, then break each of those areas down further. As an example, consider item storage. What are the various means of acquiring items? Buying, finding, looting, and trading are the major ones; don't forget quest rewards. Once acquired, do they stay in storage upon exiting the game and then returning? Can you trade with other players? If you drop it, does it stay dropped? Can you sell items that you found? Made? Traded? Stole? As you can see, the possibilities are truly endless.

Game testing jobs consist of considering these details and possibilities. The strategy to deal with such a huge number of possibilities is to build a test case matrix based on how often a given scenario or test case is likely to happen. One then categorizes the individual test cases and scenarios based on priority: P0, P1, P2, etc. So obviously, buying and selling an item and ensuring it stays in storage are pretty essential functions to the game - these would be P0. Being able to sell a quest item you stole from a looted corpse, less so - say, a P1.

These are just a few examples of applying basic principles of software testing to video game testing. Applying these principles will drastically explode your bug count, making you stand head and shoulders above your typical video game testing peers. Adopt these principles, and learn the fundamentals of software testing, and the number of game testing jobs you can get hired for will simply explode.

About the Author

Jonathon Halston has tested video games for over 11 years. He started out as a contract video game tester, and soon became a Software Design Engineer in Test at a World Class Software Company - and you can too. To learn more on how to get hired for
game testing jobs
, visit
http://Hot-Game-Tester-Jobs.com
today!

	Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $18.99 Used From: $14.00 Average Rating:
	Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister is a single player point-and-click adventure for play on either the PC or Mac computer platforms. Based on the Nancy Drew novel, The Mystery of Tornado Alley, the game tasks the player to solve the mystery behind a string of accidents surrounding a $100 million competition involving tornado storm tracking...

	Hoyle Card Games 2008 (Jewel Case) List Price: $9.99 Sale Price: $6.74 Average Rating:
	Step up to the best deal in town and test your skill. Shuffle the cards and deal yourself in to the greatest card games of all time. HOYLE drops you right into the action with more than 150 classic games, official rules, tips and strategies...

	Play! The Ultimate Casual Game Collection List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $14.99 Used From: $17.99 Average Rating:
	Enjoy dozens of full version games in one package--high-quality family entertainment with variety that can't be beat. Take a break for a few hours or just a few minutes. With something for everyone, it's easy to get in the game...

	Mystery of the Crystal Portal: Beyond the Horizon [Game Download] List Price: $6.99 Sale Price: $6.99 Average Rating:
	Join Nicole, and her sidekick Igor, as they trek across the globe in search of her missing father! Dive into Hidden Object fun!

	Mystery P.I. Vegas Heist List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $8.00 Used From: $9.42 Average Rating:
	The heist of the century has just happened! You've been hired by the casino to find & return the stolen money before its grand opening in 16 hours. Search for over 2300 cleverly hidden objects in 25 intriguing locations to solve the Vegas Heist.

God of War III List Price: $59.99 Sale Price: $39.99 Used From: $27.00 Average Rating:

God of War III is a single player action game, exclusive to the PlayStation 3, and the final installment of the God of War trilogy. Containing signature and addictive God of War gameplay — a combination of over-the-top action combat, exploration and puzzle-solving — along with an engrossing mythologically inspired storyline and a selection of new weapons and a new weapons system, it is a fitting conclusion to the much praised God of War franchise...

	Hoyle Card Games 2009 List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $1.95 Used From: $1.94 Average Rating:
	Step up to the best deal in town and test your skill with Card Games from HOYLE, the Official Name in Gaming. Shuffle the cards and deal yourself in to the greatest card games of all time. HOYLE drops you right into the action with over 150 classic games, official rules, tips and strategies...

	Bejeweled 2 List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $9.80 Used From: $8.59 Average Rating:
	The legend has returned…and is more wildly addictive than ever before! Bejeweled 2 takes the classic game of gem-swapping to euphoric new heights. Over 600,000 units of Bejeweled sold

	Hoyle Puzzle & Board Games 2009 List Price: $19.99 Sale Price: $4.38 Used From: $3.69 Average Rating:
	There's something for everyone with HOYLE Puzzle Games 2009. It's the biggest and best assortment of 21 classic and challenging favorites. This great collection features traditional puzzle game standards like Hangman, Mahjongg and Anagrams PLUS mind-bending puzzle classics like Sudoku, Kakuro and Crosswords...