Space Truck

I’ve had this conversation over and over with young men, sometimes on a first date. Ask any man what his ideal job is and I’ll guarantee you that eight out of ten times he’ll say either a pilot or a computer games tester. I’ll be discussing the pros and cons of the latter job, as such a job does actually exist, but the reality is a little different from an 18-year-old’s dream of getting paid for eating m&m’s and playing his (or her) favourite games all day. In reality, there is a lot of responsibility involved with the job, and the pay is abysmal for an IT contractor, as it pays approximately the same as a receptionist’s salary (from £1000 a month).

 Indeed, the job description is a little more extensive than ‘play cool games’. The job does involve playing a game, but over and over again, and often it is an incomplete version of the game. The aim is also not to kill all monsters, but instead to find bugs and glitches in the game that need to be fixed. There are definite fun and creative elements too, as a tester needs to anticipate different ways the game could be played. The more I write about it, the more I realise it sounds like an average desk job with its own perks and drawbacks, as it require someone who can be both accountable and responsible; the tester also needs to see if the game meets the designer’s intentions and has to evaluate it against other games in the market, so I can imagine quite a bit of time is spent writing up reports.

In addition to this, a successful games tester will have excellent hand-eye, coordination and attention to detail. The glitches they look out for can be anything from spelling mistakes, to graphics flaws or something that just doesn’t gel well in the games. I’m not slating the job completely and I do think that youngsters would enjoy a job like this (most testers are in their late teens or early twenties) but it will definitely have to be a labour of love. It could also be a springboard into really interesting and well-paid IT jobs, such as a games designer or project manager for computer games. Like with everything in life, as long as you’re willing to do the slog work first  you should be able to reap the rewards.