Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
[TRENCHES] Thursday, August 21, 2014 - Heart Failure
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Super Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Super Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Heart Failure
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/heart-failure
My Very Short QA Career
AnonymousI had a yearly summer gig at one of the three big telecom companies in Canada, but it always started two months after Spring exams. One year I decided it’d be neat to work in video game testing while I waited for the other job. Hell, maybe I’d even stick around game testing instead. I applied and quickly got into a major QA lab (as opposed to in-house testing) with offices all over Canada and the States.
My first day was also about 100 other people’s first day. We were all crammed into a room without windows, just cafeteria benches. Names were called out, people were taken away to various teams. I met a few people, never to see them again. After two hours or so of awkward small talk in the stuffy cave, I’m called to my new home.
I pass rows of testers hunched over their screens or reclining casually, controllers in hand, talking and laughing. These people seem like they’re having a good time. I even recognize some games as I’m rushed by. I could be playing one of those! What could I have been put on? I’m excited!
Basketball. I got fucking basketball. Broken-ass, pre-alpha BASKETBALL.
So when I applied to this place I filled out a survey. What kind of games I like to play, what kind of games I’m good at, what kind of games I don’t like. All of my answers very clearly indicated that I’m not a fan of sports games, that I don’t know how to play sports games, I have no interest in them. “Put this guy on basketball!”
I talk to my lead, ask if I can get a different assignment, even though I liked my team. “Look, I can’t switch you. Maybe you’ll find bugs others can’t BECAUSE you don’t know the game. You’ll look at it from a different perspective.” Horseshit. I’m less likely to notice bugs because I don’t know the rules. Entire objects necessary to the sport could be missing and I wouldn’t notice.
So I go talk to the manager. “Look, I can’t switch you. If I switch you, everyone’s going to want to switch. I’m sorry.” “Alright, if I can’t get switched, I’ve gotta quit. I clearly indicated my gaming tastes on my application. I’m useless on this game. And playing a broken game of a sport I have no interest in is not a job, it’s misery. I understand your position, but certainly you can see mine, too. So, I guess I’m resigning?” This is about 4 hours into my new job, and the ballsiest move I’d made, or had to make, up to this point in my working life.
And it fucking worked.
So I get put in a new office down the hall, on Simpsons Wii. Fine, whatever. It’s also pre-alpha, broken as hell, but I KNOW that Marge’s hair shouldn’t look like that. I can actually recognize that it’s broken.
This office is a bit more cramped, and there aren’t enough test Wiis in the office, so we partner up on one console (the game, at least at the time, was single player). My partner (happily) plays and finds bugs, I chat with my neighbours till he finds a bug, we reproduce it, I write it up.
Geth on
0