2005 St. Petersburg <i>Times</i> Newspaper Article
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Games people work:
Playing video games for a living sounds fun. But testers must find several glitches everyday to keep jobs where long workdays are common.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 18, 2005
MAITLAND - In high school, David Ellis did part-time yard work. But then he grew up, graduated from college and got himself a real job: playing video games.
"It's great down here, coming to work and hanging out with your friends and talking about video games all day," Ellis said.
Ellis is a game tester for EA Tiburon, the company that develops the blockbuster Madden NFL series. He and about 80 others come to work each day just north of Orlando and enter an office with no windows and hundreds of screens. They turn on new versions of Madden, NASCAR or other popular games and furiously punch their controllers, looking for bugs and glitches.
For the multibillion-dollar video game industry, testers do a job as essential as quality control at a factory, and not unlike the people who slip "Inspected by No. 15" into slacks you buy at the mall.
When Graham Northcote was hired by EA Tiburon about two years ago, the long-time gamer and sports lover told himself, "It's too good to believe, it can't last."
Since then, Northcote has worked his way up to a managerial position over about a dozen testers. He is the lead tester for the Madden NFL 06 game for the yet-to-be-released Xbox 360 game console.
Northcote, 35, explained all this at work one recent day while wearing Nikes, no socks and a T-shirt emblazoned with "Pickled Pig Rhythm & Blues Grill." He said he was overdressed, because he had jeans on instead of shorts.
His friends are envious.
"They're like, "What? You work where? You do what?' " he said.
Is there some sort of catch? Absolutely.
"We have to explain to everyone coming in here that it's not just playing a game," said Justin Morgan, head of testing at EA Tiburon.
Good testers spend hours, days, weeks testing mundane questions: When you kick a field goal, does 3 points appear on the scoreboard? Does the field goal register in the player's statistics? When you turn off the music on the NASCAR game, does it really turn off? Can you turn it back on?
In some cases, "you look at the same three screens every day for 30 days," Morgan said.
New games are rife with glitches, and testers are expected to find several each day. Those who don't lose their jobs, so testers are under pressure. They are considered temporary employees, so they can lose their jobs after a three- or four-month cycle, although they often can get hired again. Pay starts at about $8 an hour.
"It's extremely difficult to stay here permanently," Northcote said. "It does happen, but you have to excel."
Adds Ellis, who is 27 and married: "When you're here working 85 hours a week and you go home and sleep and shower and come right back, that's the hardest thing."
Some glitches are easy to spot. One tester working on an unreleased version of Madden recently watched New England Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri run down the field with one noticeable problem: His head was floating behind him.
The best testers "see it as a puzzle, where they have to dig deeper and break the game," Northcote said.
Testers need to think the way a regular player would or wouldn't. For example, what if you send your quarterback into the back of his end zone, something a player usually would never want to do? Does this cause the game to "crash"?
Morgan, the head of testing, said that when he hires employees, "we look for people who have quite a lot of video game experience."
But that's not all. Prospective employees are brought in for interviews, and asked to find the bugs in a sample video game. They also take a test designed to gauge problem-solving skills.
Although many genuinely like the idea of testing video games, others aspire to move up in the world of video game production, which is becoming a significant economic force in the Orlando area.
Ellis, who has a two-year degree in graphic art, would like to work in the computer animation side of the business. Others hope to become video game producers, who help schedule and coordinate the creative forces that develop games.
For any tester, the most time comes near a game's deadline. It's understood that everyone may be called to work a marathon shift of 20 hours or more.
Exhausted and bleary eyed, they go home and let off steam in the way they love most.
"I'm telling you," Northcote said. "They go home and play video games."
WANT TO TEST?
EA Tiburon in Maitland intends to hire game testers soon. Applicants need to be at least 18 years old and must have a high school degree or the equivalent. Resumes can be sent by e-mail to: [email protected]