August 7, 2012

Game tester Jonathan Bettger's cool job

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Game tester Jonathan Bettger at Big Fish Games in Seattle. (January Fredericks / Special to NWjobs)

What do you do? I test games at Big Fish Games [in Seattle]. A game tester's job is to discover bugs, or problems, in the game software and then work with developers to get those bugs or problems resolved before the game goes on sale to customers. So, yes, we do play games for a living. Think of a game tester as quality assurance, making sure our customers' game-play experience is the best and smoothest it can be.

How does someone else get a job like yours? It starts with a passion for gaming. When recruiting, [Big Fish] wants to see a logical approach to how people play games and a desire to break the game in any way! It takes a special mindset to really understand how a game is developed and intended to work, and then turn that focus in to find holes or problem areas in the software or game code.

What’s a typical day like? Testing a game is broken down into many types of tasks. The majority of the day is spent playing a game in different scenarios, or different scenes, to make sure the game-play works as intended. There is also a lot of communication throughout the day between other game testers, game developers, game producers and other creative teams throughout the company to fix problems and make the games work as smoothly as possible for the end player.

What’s the best part of the job? Finding a critical bug in the game-play or software is a fulfilling experience, knowing you have helped make the game better and created a better gaming experience for the end player.

What surprises people about your job? The job requires more creativity than expected. Game testers can't just play the game through once and be done. They have to really explore each game world and imagine the many permutations users can play. Games are not linear, so you have to explore every avenue and different path a player can take, and then make sure each scenario or path plays correctly in order to stamp a game as "bug free."

--NWjobs staff

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