Testing, testing, testing

>> Working as a video game tester requires a keen eye for bugs and a high level of patience

by ERIK LEIJON

Imagine playing your favourite level on your favourite video game. Now imagine playing that level for an entire day. After that, play it for the next five days, and when you’re done, play it again for another two months. If you’re sick and tired at that point—bite your tongue and play it for another two months.

That, explains Eidos Montreal’s lead quality assurance (QA) tester Emmanuel-Yvan Ofoe, is the job of game testing. It’s repetitive, requires constant attention and can become frustrating, but it’s an essential and unheralded stage in the video game process. It’s also become a booming business in Montreal, with internal testing teams at most of the development studios and large outsourcing firms constantly looking to hire experienced gamers.

In the past, game testing typically occurred later, as the game neared completion, whereas nowadays it occurs throughout a video game’s creation cycle—from alpha to beta—meaning a tester often has to play bug-infested messes so early in development that they hardly seem like games at all.

“You’re working on the same game for a year,” says Ofoe, “and I’m not talking about World of Warcraft. At home you can choose what type of game you want to play whenever you want. Here, it’s every day that you have to play.”

“There are a lot of misconceptions about the job,” adds fellow Eidos lead QA tester William Pare. “People think you’re playing games all day. But that’s like saying someone who builds swimming pools swims all day.”

Breakers and fixers

With 10 and three years of experience as testers respectively, both Ofoe and Pare have seen their fair share of wide-eyed gamers thinking they stumbled upon their dream job, only to leave soon after. While loving games is definitely a pre-requisite, it takes more than a passion for Halo 3 to survive in this field.

In an average day, Eidos Montreal’s 27 testers must play through a specific area of a game repeatedly, exploring the many possibilities that exist in a particular level, looking for graphical glitches and collision detection problems (such as being able to walk through walls), as well as more significant problems like sound issues and game crashes. Testers keep track of every action they do, so when something goes awry they can retrace their steps and find out what the real problem was. Pare divides testers into two types: those who break games and those who find what is broken.

“It’s not as easy as just saying ‘Oh, I found a bug,’” says Pare. “You have to investigate. You have to figure out what makes it happen, how to do it consistently, or if what triggers it is random.”

Ofoe adds, “Often, a problem can hide another problem. It’s one thing to say I passed through a wall, but if you don’t look at every other wall, maybe there’s no collision [detection] throughout the game. So you have to find the right cause.”

Since all their information goes directly back to the developers, who could be anywhere in the world, the testers have to be extremely clear and concise when explaining what went wrong, so it can be fixed quickly. Depending on the game, every few weeks a newer, updated version of the game could be sent to the testers, who have to then verify that all the mistakes they found the last time were solved, and no new problems have surfaced.

Ofoe says the most frustrating part of the job is when he receives new builds of games that are actually more bugged than the previous versions, requiring him to essentially start his job all over again.

“When progression stops,” Ofoe says, “and you’re stuck with something that isn’t working, when it gets redundant… that’s a problem.”

Bugs everywhere

Playing a game as a tester requires a more discerning eye than when you play merely for recreation. It involves a keen sense of observation to notice not just what’s happening in the game, but also any bugs or glitches in the background. Pare admits that sometimes, when he is playing for fun (he and Ofoe still play games, even when not on the clock), he still tries to break the games he’s playing. And like any other gamer, he gets upset with glitches in the finished product.

“I was playing Crysis,” he says. “I got two bugs and couldn’t finish the game. Tester or not, you get pissed off.” Both are adamant it’s impossible to release a perfect game without bugs.

There’s also the idea floating around that game testing represents a foothold in the gaming industry, and that it’s possible to move up into production or design with sufficient testing experience.

“When you become a tester, you can have aspirations but you have to learn [the proper skills elsewhere] first. You can’t go from being a tester to an animator,” says Ofoe, who would consider moving into a different area of the gaming industry if the opportunity presented itself, but is more than happy in QA. While testing, especially if you’re involved from the original alpha stage to the end, can provide insight into how modern-day games are made and the computer code involved, Pare points out that testing isn’t a substitute for school.

Also, while Ofoe and Pare started at Ubisoft Montreal and Babelmedia respectively, before joining Eidos Montreal when it opened last year, many of the testing jobs in Montreal are on a contract, paying slightly above minimum wage on a game-by-game basis—meaning job security extends only as long as a game is in production.

However, most development studios have some sort of QA department and there are at least four outsourcing labs in the Montreal area, which can grow massively in the summer to accommodate students and the upcoming Christmas product rush. So there is always room for an experienced tester who enjoys the job.

Ofoe, who admits to having put in a 120-hour work week in his early days, points out that even though playing games is an essential part of the job, it remains a job like any other, with reports, meetings, bosses and teamwork. Still, Ofoe and Pare both say they love being testers and feel there are dedicated, observant people who will find it to be their dream job. Pare says there’s a competitive spirit among testers who try to find the “best bugs, the most bugs and be the fastest to find bugs.”

Which ironically could be as much of a game as the finished product.