Take This Job and Love It! - Game Tester - Christopher Nelson Feature on GamePro.com

Feature: Take This Job and Love It! - Game Tester - Christopher Nelson

Feature by Dan Elektro | 09/06/2002 | 13:55:38 PM PST

Name: Christopher Nelson
Title: Senior Quality Assurance Analyst
Format Quality Assurance Department
Sony Computer Entertainment America (PlayStation?)

Notable Past Projects: QA for the Backwards compatibility feature of the PS2, Augmentation and Project Lead for SCE internal policy documents, Demonstration of PS2 Online feature at COMDEX during SONY COO Ando's key note speech & presentation, appeared on a past release of PS Underground for a collision bug I found that could be used to cheese through a combat racing game made by Ubisoft that I can't remember the name of.

Current Project: Building a Quality Assurance process for final approval of software for our online group. Getting the microwave fixed or replaced. World domination.

Schooling/Degree: High School Diploma, 4 Years of College at the College of San Mateo, CA, no Collegiate degree yet. I would like to say hard knocks, but my life was not unlike Beavis or Butthead's, lots of TV not much else. Also, Star Trek TNG (you would be surprised how scientifically accurate some of their stuff is).

Salary Range (not necessarily what you make, but what the average person can expect to make): I started as a temp (contingent/contractor) at $10.50 an hour, but some more experienced analysts are starting higher now. The current salary cap has not been disclosed to me. As a conservative estimate, a fully qualified analyst probably can shoot for around $30,000 a year base without overtime. During the launch preparations of the PS2, I had personally worked over 1,500 + hours of overtime (I will let the readers do the math on that one).

General duties of your position/title: We are the approval group for all North American releases of all SCE platforms' Hardware and Software. Mostly we playtest the games, and make sure they work as intended, and report any problems we find using a database. That is the fun part of the job. Here is the work part of the job, an informal list of my duties are below:

Policy enforcement, policy discussion meetings, interview potential employees, evaluate employees' performance, coordinate analytical efforts, provide feed back to developers on changes/fixes that have to be made or should be made to their software, generate status reports that are used by our Department Director to provide updates to SCE executive management. Also, it is my job to make the employees underneath me fear counter mandates and reprisal for not kissing my feet J/K.

How many people are in your department/team? If you are a manager, many people do you oversee? Senior analysts have by proxy authority over 80 analysts, and a I am an overlord for a team of 17 (32 in the near future) for the Online Group.

What was the most valuable bit of knowledge or experience you brought with you to the job? I went to college to learn about software, how it is made, how it works, and how it fails to work. I took many programming classes in a CIS course study aiming towards becoming a game programmer. While I did this I was a student tutor/CIS Lab Aide at the College of San Mateo personally tutoring 40 students how to understand the basic principles of writing programs, and how to find the problems associated with their code. I had become very capable of analyzing problems without even having to directly see the problem code location. This ability quickly turned into a skill for anticipating where to find Bugs in software. Using this skill, I became a beta tester for a Math education software application called "Mathpert", which unfortunately did not get released. I later talked to a friend from a CIS Class who had done some game QA at SEGA about QA work, and I decided I wanted to do that kind of work. So I applied at EA first then later SCEA, armed with some foreknowledge of QA and some experience with programming, which I think gave me an edge in applying for this type of work. I consider myself lucky, because at the time I was interviewed and hired, SCEA 3rd party QA did not seem have as much need for people as they do now.

What was the first major lesson you learned once you started working in the industry? Man can not live on caffeine alone. QA work involves long hours no mater which company you work for, or which division, you must get sleep to deal with the hours. QA often has to flex around developer/publisher time frames. We would prefer advanced warning of rush deadlines, but we do want the titles on the shelves.

What academic focuses would you recommend for someone who wants to do your job someday? Some business computing courses, lots of English courses, and some form of exterior interest in an esoteric field of study. You may find some day, you have to know all the answers, to every Jeopardy question, in the videogame version of Jeopardy, in order to reproduce a software crash on the highest difficulty setting. I had to do it once, I have witnesses.

Common misconceptions about your job? 1) It is all play and not work. 2) I get to do what ever I want. 3) I can get free games for everyone that meets me on the street and knows I work for PlayStation. 4) It is entry level work. 5) I get to play every game. 6) I always get to play games I like.

Everyone I meet, or interview, or make recommendation to hire thinks these things when they walk in the door. When these people learn the truth, they learn they need a resume, that this is a job with professional standards, procedures, policies, rules of conduct, and reports to be done. They may choose to leave and find another job, try to stick it out, make it in as an SCE employee, or end up getting lead out the front door. It is up to the individual to take this job seriously enough to turn it into a professional career.

Is college a necessity, a really good idea, or not required for your line of work? College is a really good idea. Having a high school diploma and lots of gaming experience will get you an interview, but you have to be able to prove that you are everything that is wanted in our department, and you have to have the ambition to be come more than just another contingent/contracted worker who is here to claim a paycheck.

What tools and software do you use on a regular basis? Databases, Word processors, Spread sheet programs, Flow Charting Programs, Email, the PlayStation? systems, controllers, memory cards, TV sets, VCRs. We have to create a plan, distribute copies of the software to analysts to QA it, analyze it, generate a report, and sometimes send VHS video cassette recordings of our findings to developers if communication verbally or written is not sufficient to describe the problem.

What's your advice for breaking into your line of work? Knowledge about games is important, being computer literate is excellent, strong communication is important, you must be very analytical (we have tests), and knowing who needs people helps too. We are a Japanese based company, so knowing the Japanese language may give you a leg up in some places. Also, I could use a house and a new car, so give me a buzz and keys if you come by :).

Artist	Designer	Game Tester	Producer	Programmer	Sound Designer
Chad Dezern Sal DiVita Lorne Lanning	Mark Turmell David Jaffe Brian Allgeier Michael Perry Chris Stewart	Colin Munson Christopher Nelson Eric Wackerfuss Sean C. Johnson	Ted Price John Schappert Fred Dieckmann Brian Fleming	Graeme J. Devine Brian Hastings Brian Smolik	Tommy Tallarico George Alistair Sanger Erik Kraber