Anyone here from QA?
Sure, I've worked for a few years doing black box (term for QA where you don't have access to the code) QA work, although not in the gamedev industry.
It's easily the most horrid work I've had to do. You get to take horribly dry, incomplete, incomprehensible technical docs and produce horribly dry, more incomplete, more incomprehensible test plans. Then you get half your estimated time to do them, and all the blame when a bug slips through. Oh, and the actual test cases are often "click this, click that, mark complete" for hours upon days upon months...
Even cashier and tech phone monkey work was better. At least there people ask you questions you need to interpret and answer.
It's easily the most horrid work I've had to do. You get to take horribly dry, incomplete, incomprehensible technical docs and produce horribly dry, more incomplete, more incomprehensible test plans. Then you get half your estimated time to do them, and all the blame when a bug slips through. Oh, and the actual test cases are often "click this, click that, mark complete" for hours upon days upon months...
Even cashier and tech phone monkey work was better. At least there people ask you questions you need to interpret and answer.
I worked in-house QA for the Boulder office of Jaleco Inc., the best-paying job I had throughout college. However, the work itself quickly became dull and mind-numbingly repetitive, possibly because we didn't receive specific directions on bug-testing very often, more along the lines of "see what you can break tonight, write it up in the ticket system, and verify fixes from yesterday's bugs."
It was a lot of fun to meander through the rest of the place on breaks though, because you could walk through the departments and check out what everyone was working on. Nice, open atmosphere. Fun stuff overall.
It was a lot of fun to meander through the rest of the place on breaks though, because you could walk through the departments and check out what everyone was working on. Nice, open atmosphere. Fun stuff overall.
Author
Wow Tel,
Not sure where you worked but QA should never be that bad... I guess maybe it would be if it was for a software application and not a game.
I have been working in QA for about 10 years and was really looking for some insight and thoughts about QA for gaming in general.
Not sure where you worked but QA should never be that bad... I guess maybe it would be if it was for a software application and not a game.
I have been working in QA for about 10 years and was really looking for some insight and thoughts about QA for gaming in general.
Quote:Original post by Telastyn
Sure, I've worked for a few years doing black box (term for QA where you don't have access to the code) QA work, although not in the gamedev industry.
It's easily the most horrid work I've had to do. You get to take horribly dry, incomplete, incomprehensible technical docs and produce horribly dry, more incomplete, more incomprehensible test plans. Then you get half your estimated time to do them, and all the blame when a bug slips through. Oh, and the actual test cases are often "click this, click that, mark complete" for hours upon days upon months...
Even cashier and tech phone monkey work was better. At least there people ask you questions you need to interpret and answer.
Oh indeed. I've not QA'd any game other than my own and a few beta tests. I can only imagine they're by far worse given how less deterministic games tend to be beyond minute cases, more timeline pressure is exerted, more financial pressure is exerted on staffing...
But that's mostly environmental. Code is code and the process of ensuring quality tends not to very too much based on content.
But that's mostly environmental. Code is code and the process of ensuring quality tends not to very too much based on content.
hi i worked at sega as a qa technician, let me tell you it was the worst experienece of my life, as a programmer i thought it would be cool to get into the industry that way, boy i was wrong basically sega's qa department is ran by complete noobs who are looking after their own interests. The management and organisation was crap, the work environment really bad and cramped. The people were after awhile got annoying u meet alot of fanboys and epople just completely obsessed about games, the people who are not educated and basically have no life, it wasn't really a professional environment, u basically do all work for the team lead included doing work for the marketting department, get paid crap money, stupid overtime that gets you taxed more so its not worth it, crap overall pay, team leaders do nothing apart from surf the internet and watch their movies. I was shocked at sega, now i know why they r crap. Temp contract can fire u at anytime, have to work there for 4 years to move up, no development done there, i am talking about the main branch brentford.
Hey,
I worked for about a month at qa for a german game-company. It was a really small department and the work itself was very dull (ever played a game intended for eight year old girls for eight hours every day for four weeks?), but the people were nice and it was quite fun to be there.
The problem I had was as somebody allready mentioned that we did not get specific assignments but just had to play the game and try to break it, and when we did we had to play it again and try to figure out what might have been the case (does it only break when I click the menu-button in that room or do I have to pick up the saddle first... you get the point) and write the bug into a database so that the programmers could figure out for themselfes what might be the reason, again.
It was a bit redundent...
I worked for about a month at qa for a german game-company. It was a really small department and the work itself was very dull (ever played a game intended for eight year old girls for eight hours every day for four weeks?), but the people were nice and it was quite fun to be there.
The problem I had was as somebody allready mentioned that we did not get specific assignments but just had to play the game and try to break it, and when we did we had to play it again and try to figure out what might have been the case (does it only break when I click the menu-button in that room or do I have to pick up the saddle first... you get the point) and write the bug into a database so that the programmers could figure out for themselfes what might be the reason, again.
It was a bit redundent...
Author
Wow guys sorry to hear all of the bad experiences... yeah the older days were rougher for sure but now there is a nice big push to make QA more valuble to the gaming world.
For exaplme the theroy of testing quality is being replaced by building in quality... much much more efficent.
For exaplme the theroy of testing quality is being replaced by building in quality... much much more efficent.
I guess I can say I've done QA... But my position varies from project to project, and usually I'm more involved with development.
Right now I'm solving issues from a new implementation of a bank system. Dull, of course, since it's a banking system, but heck, it's hard to find some of the bugs in the system. Correcting them takes no more than 5 minutes, but I go bug hunting for one or two hours before finding the bug.
I think this situation is common in development. Obscure, small bugs are not apparent, almost invisible to the tester. They suck ;)
Right now I'm solving issues from a new implementation of a bank system. Dull, of course, since it's a banking system, but heck, it's hard to find some of the bugs in the system. Correcting them takes no more than 5 minutes, but I go bug hunting for one or two hours before finding the bug.
I think this situation is common in development. Obscure, small bugs are not apparent, almost invisible to the tester. They suck ;)
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