If what Owen Davis from Evolution Research says is correct, you may one day find yourself testing games from your living room couch. That will show your mom, who said that you "would never get anywhere with these games."
Davis belives that the future of game concept testing lies in letting Xbox Live users giving titles a spin, giving them access as early as the concept stage.
The opportunity here is a delivery mechanism for early stage game play footage across a popular and easily accessible platform. In the future it will be possible to quickly and securely deliver limited access to these types of media to a large number of gamers. After exposure to these media we will be able to effectively measure gamer interest in game play mechanics as well as other key measures related to game concepts. Data collection on the Xbox 360 is particularly interesting because of the range of input devices. Gamers will be given the ability to use their controllers to provide response to closed-ended questions. Use of the headset and vision camera will be utilized for important open-ended responses about their experience.
Davis goes on to say that this could be a cheaper, quicker, and more accurate method of testing game concepts. The sampling of the audience would definitely be better than that of a small group in a focus room.
Would you be open to downloading and testing alpha and beta builds of games on your Xbox 360? Would our poorly detailed "tighten up the graphics" test reports be of any benefit? Wait, shouldn't we get paid to do this?
[Via Next Gen]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
10:17 AM on 08.15.2007
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As for pay, sure some cha-ching would be nice.
Those of you hoping to use QA as a stepping stone for development better hurry, QA in gaming is quickly going the way of the dodo.
As for the testing over Live it would be amazing, but I'm not counting on it.
http://www.pistudios.com/
They're putting out Quake Arena on XBLA.
Don't think they'd ever need game tester positions, especially anytime soon. I don't even know if they actually have any. But it's cool to know there's a company somewhere in our city.
Coming from QA myself, I must say it's not all as whimsical and crazy as it seems. The repetitive nature of the job might make you lose interest in gaming altogether. In fact from a job perspective, QA is hardly a good way to get your foot in the door of the industry, you're basically the lowest common denominator.
The best way for a gaming company to like you (and I speak from a programming point of view - can't say much for arts and business) is to get your start in any number of software companies located in and around Houston or any other town for that matter. In fact, QA at these other non-gaming related companies can in fact be far more valuable, than a gaming one, as they usually provide a less stressed work environment and do not revolve around a pass time I assume you love. Gaining experience in other companies, as a programmer, lead, or hell even QA and then approaching game studios with a heftier profile to get a higher up position is definitely the way to go.
Again I speak from my experience, which include 2 and half years of QA for small and big companies and 3 in programming, software design jobs. What I've seen are (is?) ambitious, and often talented people, coming into the gaming industry as QA, in order to pitch ideas and move on up, only to be shot down time and time again, and stay stuck in a rut, and never move out of QA.
I must agree though, it is strikingly odd that so few gaming companies have set up shop in Houston, given other Texan cities plethora of these (Austin primarily). I checked for you in all references, and for the life of me could not find anything of interest other than that mentionned by AngelsDontBurn. I'm lucky to live in Montreal with its abundant number of studios (approx 30 - 4 major)
Well, that was rather long-winded of me, though I think it got the point across. Good luck with all this.
PS: I do indeed like the idea of focus testing on Xbox Live, heck even mass beta as well, provided the participants do get some sort of freebie or end reward. I'd partake for sure ;)
[i]I am of the firm belief that eventually game companies will simply stop testing games altogether and just fix what the programmers find on their own, or what public beta/alpha testers find, which believe me, usually isn't that much.
Those of you hoping to use QA as a stepping stone for development better hurry, QA in gaming is quickly going the way of the dodo.[/i]
AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. God I needed a good laugh today, that was at about the same level as the commercial.
Just a quick note: you're an idiot.
I do however like how they implied that they were actually going to do it though.