Get paid to play games!!

smiaras

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Rabies

What worries me is Barbie has outsold Warcraft

link

Best-selling franchise series from Vivendi Universal Games (last updated July 2003):

Crash Bandicoot: 30 million units sold
Diablo: 13 million units sold
JumpStart : 13 million units sold
Spyro The Dragon: 12 million units sold
Barbie: 11 million units sold
Warcraft: 9 million units sold

€350 per week. After tax what will be left. Living in Dublin it wouldn't be much. Is €350 the going rate for games testers ?

smiaras

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eyerer

ok, someone help me make a phony CV

CombatCow

Lol a phony CV.its not a if you need and degree to do it,just like playing games...a lot.I tested warcraft 3 the frozent throne in russian,and some asian languages.good crack tbh.

It says on nixers ''You must have experience in Games Testing to be considered for this job'' i say apply neway might get lucky.


CombatCow

tHE vAGGABOND

going rate for testers here in london is 5.50 an hour (usuall plus your travel expenses too)

Len_007

Here lads, you don't really need a foreign language do you? I filled one in anyway

Rabies

Originally posted by tHE vAGGABOND
going rate for testers here in london is 5.50 an hour (usuall plus your travel expenses too)

£5.50 = €8.26027 www.xe.com

Travel expenses eh, can i commute from ireland to london every day. I'm sure city jet will do a good deal

£5.50 x 40hr week = £220 = €330.40

€350 / 40hr week = €8.75 = £5.82

Slightly better paid in ireland.

tHE vAGGABOND

cost of living is cheaper here than in post euro 'rip off' ireland

Dustaz

yes but remember britain dont have forward thinking health and safety laws, so your chances of contracting lung cancer are massively higher what with all that second hand smoke.

CombatCow

Well id rather live in a rip off country free of smoke than a cheap one with such lax smokeing laws.

And len_007 it depends on if there are looking for functional testers or localisation ones.good luck tho.


CombatCow

savemejebus

len, for localisation testing you would definitely need a foreign language, as you would be checking the validity of translated menus, subtitles, instructions etc.

uberwolf

Originally posted by Len_007
Here lads, you don't really need a foreign language do you? I filled one in anyway

This really strange, I'm one lab down from Len in UCD, when I followed that link I could see the details that he filled out. Kool email add. Len!! How did that happen?

smiaras

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Samson

Eh, who's Ruairi Griffin?
His details ('phone numbers, email etc.) and cover letter are displayed when I click that link.

mr_angry

I've heard bad things about Vivendi game testers in Dublin. One of my mates used to work there, and he described it as 'the worst job he'd ever had' (and he worked in Dunnes Stores aswell). He said that any semblence of fun was dragged out of you by the management, and he spent his time finding bugs in German versions of kids educational games.

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Oh, and going slightly off-topic here:
1) Valve have their own QA team, so there's NO chance of you ever seeing Half Life 2, and...
2) London was declared the most expensive city in Europe to live in last year.

That is all, thank you.

Len_007

Wolfy-Probably the site's fault. In that it keeps up the details of the last fella (or girl) to apply. I can see that Ruairi chaps details now. Glad it was someone I knew who seen it though!

Syth

I'm sure there's somekind of privacy issues with them displaying the personal details of the last person to apply...

I like games, but I fear that it would suck the fun out of it... Oh a dilemma...

tHE vAGGABOND

The way games would be tested would be that publisher and developer would both be testing the game. Esp. a game like half life that would be released in many many countries, covering all the bases is a lot of work. During peak times on CM0304 I had 20 people testing full time here and eidos had 15-20 testing in wimbledon for example.

Given its THE big game on vivendi's schedules for the next few months, and given they have some money issues I would bet they would be planning to test it to death as they simply cant afford a flop, so I would not rule it out.

You would indeed need language skills to do localisation testing. But sometimes if people have no other option, or deadlines are tight they will hire anyone, I got offered a job before I came over here in Microsoft in sanyford doing games localisation testing (maybe 6 months before xbox came out, so they must have been busy), but the money was tiny, 12k (punts) no other package and I did not take it. Dont expect to get rich testing

I was joking about London BTW, the only thing I care about is that its more expensive to go out to eat or get pissed at night at home than it is here in London (more people = more competition and variety if nothing else). Rent and that kinda thing can indeed get OTT over here.

I can tell you that it is the perception over here, among Irish people and others that Dublin is amazingly expensive for a tourist or someone passing though - be that right or not.

CombatCow

Originally posted by mr_angry
I've heard bad things about Vivendi game testers in Dublin. One of my mates used to work there, and he described it as 'the worst job he'd ever had' (and he worked in Dunnes Stores aswell). He said that any semblence of fun was dragged out of you by the management, and he spent his time finding bugs in German versions of kids educational games.

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Oh, and going slightly off-topic here:
1) Valve have their own QA team, so there's NO chance of you ever seeing Half Life 2, and...
2) London was declared the most expensive city in Europe to live in last year.

That is all, thank you.

Well,ya dont know much m8 cause i work there and the management are well up for a laugh,and the general working enviroment is fantastic,sure i had to play a few crappy games from time to time but id rather be doing that then be a pencil pusher.And yes HL2 will be tested in dublin - so your very misinformed.

That is all, thank you.

CombatCow

Hobbes

Originally posted by savemejebus
len, for localisation testing you would definitely need a foreign language, as you would be checking the validity of translated menus, subtitles, instructions etc.

No for localisation testing you do not need to know a foreign language. In fact you would probably get smacked for attempting to translate anything unless you are (a) the actual translation group or (b) a linguistic consultant. While some software houses may have language nationals test a product finding a good QE/Translation person is hard and very expensive.

You would only test that the product actually works and no funky errors are introduced with translation (like crash bugs) or truncation/placement issues. Actual string testing can be done outside of the software itself, if they programmed it well.

Btw QA games testing can be insanely boring. Imagine having to play level 3 of any game over and over for a few days. Now imagine that it is "My funhouse Barbie".

savemejebus

never said anything about a tester performing translation tasks, i said "checking the validity of translated menus, subtitles, instructions etc.", this would not involve translation, just noting any suspect translations, that might have gotten past the translators or proof readers along with bad diacritical characters, clipped strings etc - otherwise why advertise looking for someone with fluency in a native language?

Badgers

I worked there back when Half Life 1 was coming out (before it was Viviendi) and got to mess around with it for a while long before it was released, which was nice.

The way things work for something like HL2 is that it will be tested in Dublin but under the strictest of security. The games I used to test I was allowed bring home and mess around with. but with HL1 they forced you to test onsite, so with HL2 I presume it'll be even tighter.

Regarding foreign language testing, you're given the game in, say, Russian, and you play it. You note down any problems like spelling errors, broken links, text not fitting in boxes etc....anything at all out of the ordinary. I was allowed work from home doing this but they've probably changed the system now. You don't do any translation yourself although you're free to submit suggested corrections for spelling errors etc. Assuming of course that you speak the langauge in question fluently!

wombat

Originally posted by Hobbes
No for localisation testing you do not need to know a foreign language. In fact you would probably get smacked for attempting to translate anything unless you are (a) the actual translation group or (b) a linguistic consultant. While some software houses may have language nationals test a product finding a good QE/Translation person is hard and very expensive.

Exactly what is considered "localisation" differs a lot from company to company. In some it's a matter of looking at two screens, one in english and one in a foreign language to make sure that the menus and text all wrap properly and nothing runs off the screen. In others you have to check that the text is properly translated and in a few other companies it's more a matter of running through the entire test suite in a different language (ie learning and applying foreign tax laws in the case of accountancy packages).

And to reiterate what a few others have said, game QA is the most heniously dull project you can get involved in - sure it sounds cool but you'll be testing games in a methodical repetitive manner all day and it'll rip the desire to play games during your free time right out of you.

casper-

Originally posted by wombat
And to reiterate what a few others have said, game QA is the most heniously dull project you can get involved in - sure it sounds cool but you'll be testing games in a methodical repetitive manner all day and it'll rip the desire to play games during your free time right out of you.

Much like having to program in a methodical repetivive manner all day and will rip out your desire to code a fun little game/app during your free time... D*mn jobs!