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What does it take to be a

video game tester? Olivier

Robin

'

s essential qualities

in a potential tester are:

• Patience (to avoid nervous breakdown).

• Be involved and remain focused in order to

handle the repetitive nature of the tasks all

day long.

• Have good gaming skills so that progress in

gameplay can be easily made.

• Have a good knowledge of the games market.

• Have a good level and understanding of the

English language.

I

t's a common question

we get asked: You get

paid to play video

games? Well, theoretically we get

paid to write about them. Such is

the demand of other aspects of the

job that all the playing we need to do

is done in our own time, and much of

that time is spent on games we probably

wouldn't have played as a consumer.

The same can be said for a video games tester.

On paper it sounds like a dream job: rock up to

the office with your sandwiches and a water

bottle, pull on the Uggs, settle into a comfy couch

and get paid to play games – oh, and catch the

occasional bug. But imagine sitting at a desk

playing the same part of a level for days on end,

searching continuously for faults. Does that still

sound like fun?

Olivier Robin knows a thing or two about games

testing. He joined the industry back in 1991 as an

assistant producer for Infogrames France, before

establishing the internal QA (quality assurance)

at Infogrames Europe, where he managed the

department until 2003. Over the next six years,

Robin worked as a QA project manager for various

companies throughout Europe before settling at

Namco Bandai Games Europe (NBGE), where he

currently oversees QA in France.

While there is no specific qualification for entry

into a games testing role, an understanding of

some programming and gaming experience is

beneficial; the job is notoriously underpaid and

extremely stressful, but many testers use the

role as a gateway into the development industry.

Testers must also be proficient gamers in order to

play the game at the highest difficulty levels.

“In order to be successful as a games tester,

you have to able to stay focused and apply

methods without ‘playing’ or being bored,” says

Robin. “It’s easy at the beginning of a project, but

when a tester works full time on a project for six

months, it becomes less fun for him. This is where

we find ‘senior’ and strong testers.

“We mainly want the testers to have

experience in QA methods and usual QA

practices. We need to work with trained testers

who know the Hardware Manufacturers’

Standards (HMS), and can detect non-obvious

Have you ever considered a job testing video games for a living?

Of course you have; we all have.

issues. Testers must be able to

follow test plans, but also ‘feel’

bugs. They must also be able to

speak and write English.”

Robin says that the majority of

today's games testing undertaken

by NBGE is outsourced to external

testers primarily located in India, where

reliable relationships are built up over a

number of years.

Where the testing process actually commences

on a Namco Bandai title depends on where the

game is developed.

“We mainly start on Beta stage if the game has

previously been tested in Japan first,” Robin notes.

“If we work on a European production game, we

will start some preliminary tests from Alpha stage.

Once the game has been released, we are also in

charge of testing patches and DLC packs.

“When we begin working on a game we

are looking for major bugs which violate HMS

compliance standards, as well as all important

functionality bugs which can damage the end-user

experience or decrease the level of fun and quality.

“All bugs are listed in a database, checked by a

QA project manager, and sent to the developers

for fixing. If developers are reluctant to fix, we

discuss it with them. Sometimes it’s better to

waive the bug, rather than creating more issues

with one unique fix. Sometimes we push to have

the bug fixed if we consider it to be really bad for

the player."

The testing process involves everything from

partial and full playthroughs, to checking the

printed materials for the box and providing videos

for the various rating boards across the globe. The

length of an assignment can also vary.

“The time spent on projects can differ and can

take anywhere between eight weeks to more

than a year if we include all the testing that has

to be done on patches, DLC and all the additional

content that a publisher decides to implement,”

explains Robin. “Consequently, our teams can vary

from anywhere between four testers to upwards

of 25.”

We ask Robin how they charge for the work

conducted by testers. Is it by contract? An

hourly rate?

“Actually, we are charged with an hourly rate by

our testing provider. This is negotiated via a yearly

contract and an agreement on how many hours

we'll spend in 12 months.”

Communication is a vital skill as a games

tester. All faults found during testing are required

to be catalogued and accurately conveyed to the

client. Robin identifies this as the key element

in the working relationship and the one that can

invariably cause the testers, and not just the

developers, problems.

“There is a real difficulty in getting information

in general [from the developer]. A lack of

information regarding the design docs and game

behaviour can cause untold problems.

“Developers have a lot of tasks to perform and

don’t always have time to update the design docs

created at the very beginning of a project. So, for

many bugs, testers have to ensure what they have

found and identified is a real bug, or not one 'by

design'.”

Inevitably the final part of the development

cycle is where the majority of the testing is done,

and Robin says the key is recognising when this

peak period is about to begin.

“Most of the time we can identify when we're

about to get busy, so it's not too difficult to handle

and testing providers are used to it.

“But we really try and push to start testing

as early as possible, in order to have more time

to test... which also means more time for the

developers to fix the bugs.

“It can be high-pressure and the period at

the end of the game is not for the faint-hearted.

We must deal with any delays that may have

happened in previous stages, and so it’s up to us

to catch up the time lost before. It often means

double shifts and weekend testing. But we’re

used to it.”

Olivier Robin

26

FEATURE

GAMES

visit

www.stack.net.nz

AUGUST

2015

JB Hi-Fi

www.jbhifi.co.nz