Those who love video games may well believe that being a video game tester is the ultimate job. As a tester they receive each month the new games free of charge and well ahead of the general release time, and they get paid for playing and giving feedback about the games in their spare time. A video game tester can work from home and put in as little or as many hours as he likes, and earn hundreds of dollars for his time. This is still forgetting that the video game tester will more than likely be playing these games in his spare time anyway, and so is getting paid for the privilege.
Many of you maybe wondering why companies will employ a video game tester for the privilege of playing their games before they are released to the general public. If the video game tester spots several different bugs or glitches in game play or can provide some good ideas on how the game can be improved his feedback will pay for his services many times over. The computer game companies have huge budgets for their games and they need to know that when they release the game to the public it will run smoothly and not be full of errors and glitches. The programmers often do not have time to analyse ever part of the game and a video game tester will often give different insights about the game that the developers can not.
The testing process often happens late in the overall development of the game- normally between 50-75% of the development process. Thus a video game tester will be playing a game that likely will not be seen by the general public for several months. The video game tester often must note down exactly where they see errors in the game play and this is one of the hardest parts of the job- describing the exact nature and location of the error. Many companies also ask of their video game tester questions about the game play and which parts of the game they enjoyed or did not enjoy. Companies vary greatly with what they require from their video game tester, so if you look for a job with a company it's important to have a look at the job specification which will include details of payment rate (some companies will pay up to $100 an hour).
Most companies do not send any hardware to their video game tester so often it is a pre-requisite to own the system or console that is needed to play the game. Apart from this and an ability to be able to provide useful feedback about games that you test there are no other pre-requisites for the job a passion for video games is pretty important as well!
The hardest part is finding work, as a video game tester must seek for himself contacts in the gaming industry who are looking for beta testers, this is not the sort or role he will find in the job section of his local paper.
For the easiest way to find work as a video game tester check out http://www.gamertestinggrounds.com
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