I’ve decided to keep in my current thread of the underappreciated, often overlooked, positions that I am familiar with when it comes to game design. This week, I’m going to focus on that of the Quality Assurance employee, which can be broken down into several levels. In the capacity I’ve handled QA, it has resulted in a combination of play testing and software quality assurance.

What does this mean? Well, play testing is the version of Quality Assurance that most people get excited over. Glorified in such movies as ‘Grandma’s Boy’ (holy crap, they get cubicles?!) you tend to view this job as eight hours of playing video games, and getting PAID for it! The harsh reality is that the glitter and joy of this will wear off within the first week when you find yourself playing level 3-b for the hundred and forty-second time making sure that the A-B-A-A-Up-Down-Up-Down-R2+R1 combo doesn’t launch the player out of the level.

On the upside, if you can view the position as a job, and something to learn, then there’s definitely the possibility of improvement. With the amount of turnover that play testers experience, within a month you could be training new hires, and have moved onto level 4-a in your own testing. A large amount of people who join a company as play testers, don’t anticipate burning out but a conscious effort has to go into the job, as the repetition involved could soon have you wishing for a pneumatic hammer to the temple. If you don’t end up going to pneumatic hammer route, this can often be viewed as one of the gateways into the game development industry.

Now, it seems to be a leap to go from playing video games to making video game, but you will notice that you don’t have other industry insiders in your basement game room when ‘pwning’ on Xbox Live. At a game development studio, however, you may occasionally bump into one in line for the bathroom. As such, this is the perfect time to begin making your contacts (though standing at the urinal may not be the best place).

You may get the chance to work with programmers, developers, and even the games producers. If they want your opinions on the game, though it may cause some strife in the short-term, and terrify the hell out of you, it’s always best to be honest about any flaws or problems you’ve found in the game. While programmers may abhor the extra work-load, people will begin to notice your effort, and once a quality product is released everyone will be happier.

In addition to some key skills, such as patience, patience, and calloused thumbs, play testers develop a deeper understanding of the game than others may. In smaller companies (such as I’m familiar with) you can notice the difference between just fixing something, or programming and then fixing something. You gain a larger appreciation for the mechanics that go into creating something, and an even greater appreciation for how easy it is to break everything else while trying to make a mob not get stuck.

Of course, aside from the burnout, how can you screw up a job in play testing? It depends on how in depth the mechanics go. Introducing something entirely new into the game can tend to horribly break something else. If you happen to have the pleasure of being the developer, programmer, and QA department yourself, this tends to be less of an issue, as you can work out where the problem originated with debugging code, and a little imagination. In a larger environment where the developer creates and idea, a programmer programs it, and it’s up to you to work the kinks out, don’t be surprised when the blame falls on you for missing something that fifty players and an infinite amount of curiosity don’t.

Do you have any Quality Assurance, or play testing horror stories? Or were you one of the lucky ones?