STACK NZ Aug #65

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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
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FEATURE GAMES visit
AUGUST 2015 JB Hi-Fi