PS3 Reality Show Where Winner Becomes Game Tester?

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I saw this open casting call earlier today but I thought it was a joke / spoof. Apparently this isn’t a joke, Sony really is having a reality show where the winner gets a contract position as a video game tester. I know unemployment is the highest it has been in decades but a reality show to win an $9 an hour job?

Contestants must have the whole package to take home the coveted prize in this new original series. That's because the lucky winner will earn a contract position at Sony Computer Entertainment's Quality Assurance department in San Diego, CA, where he or she will get hands on time with the most highly anticipated games in the industry.
 
lol this could be a fun train wreck
people do really know how bad of a job game testing really is lol
 
I would love to be a video game tester.

However $9/hr? yea right, I actually enjoy eating and having a place to live. Also I loled at the requirements, they are asking for more resume then jobs that pay significantly more. :D
 
its funny when i say ill volunteer and test bugs in their games as free volunteer they don't want those either

what happened to the good ol days of gaming where you could beta test games? i use to beta test 1-2 good games a year. now all the beta tests are contests or horrible games.

i once beta tested 3com and got a 200$ modem, 56k ftw!
 
ahaha what the hell

A TV show where the prize is in fact a one way ticket to poverty and frustration.

Thanks, Sony!
 
I haven't met a single person that worked in QA and enjoyed it. It was nothing more than a stepping stone or a foot in the door, that's great, but as a desirable job or a frigging prize?

Hilarious
 
Is seeking:

Game Test Analysts (GTA):

The GTA will perform various duties involving the QA testing of hardware and software for SCEA game titles. They will be working within a team-based environment along with SCEA employees.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Tracking of defects (bugs) within a game application
• Proficiently researching and writing bugs
• Using and inputting bugs into a Defect Tracking System

Requirements:

• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills
• Excellent English verbal and written skills
• Positive attitude, self motivated individual
• Proficiency in playing Playstation / console games - Must be an avid gamer

Bonus skills:

• C/C++
• Linux
• Networking

Sports gaming experience and familiarity in the sports of basketball and baseball a huge plus.

Must be dependable and dedicated to long hours and weekend work. These are long term assignments (3-12 months).

OH GEE WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
 
I haven't met a single person that worked in QA and enjoyed it. It was nothing more than a stepping stone or a foot in the door, that's great, but as a desirable job or a frigging prize?

Hilarious

Well how many people have you met that does QA ? -_-

Most people who freak out about how horrible it is, haven't done it at all and just make assumptions, or have worked in some really bad studio that had horrible standards.

It's honestly less stressful than some misc retail job of equal requirements/pay, especially since your only job is playing some random video game. The environment is pretty relaxed, and you're surrounded by like minded gamers. It's not half bad.

I've risen up from basic QA at this point, and now I do leading on projects, but I did my share of hours as a grunt.

That being said, this job is for Sony's department, which means you're either going to work on 1st party games (which is great) or their submission department which receives ALL games from other publishers for approval (ie. every game that's going to be released on a Sony product, so lots of bad and some AAA titles), which isn't a bad gig at all. The fact that it's contractual is funny, since they should have something to do 24/7, 365 days a year.

Being in the industry, this is something I'm gonna watch just on principal alone :p
 
jynxycat - I know people that at some point have done it at Activision, Blizzard, Pandemic, Sony, most of the places here in SoCal.

That's cool that you enjoyed your time doing it. I'm not knocking the process of paying your dues, I myself had to do it in my career. Was it a valuable part of my learning curve and professional growth? Absolutely. Is it something I want to do again? Absolutely not. :)

The bottom line is that I think it is funny that getting a QA job is being offered as a prize, its weird. Its as if a company I worked with offered a PA job on a film set as a prize. Again, its weird. "Here's your prize, bottom of the food chain, enjoy it." Not the first thing I think of with contests. :)
 
playing the same game over and over and over and over and over and over looking for flaws and creating feedback. Screw that. It sounds like the winner is getting a life sentence.
 
I know people who have playtested games and from their experience it's a tedious robot job that will eventually kill one's will to live. ;)

There are other kinds of software QA though, but not that you'd ever assign to a reality TV contest winner.

I have experience in testing software for safety critical systems, and unit testing software requires programming skills as good as the original programmers' else very few bugs will be discovered. This type of testing pays considerably more $$$...
 
I have done this job for a few companies it all depends on who you work for honestly but overall its a shit job that is just a stepping stone.
 
Ha. This is hilarity.

CONTRACT position. That means not only is it going to be $9/hr, that's $9/hr WITHOUT taxes taken out, WITHOUT health care, WITHOUT benefits, WITHOUT paid vacation.

But I'm sure they'll find plenty of people stupid enough to not read the fine print.
 
LOL IRONY.

OMG OMG IRONY ALERT.

They've laid off a bunch of game testers in the past few months and in addition to that, they've also laid off other people in the SOE division for people who moderate games. I find this funny because most people who work there are contractors and as such are not employees and dont get benefits.
 
LOL IRONY.

OMG OMG IRONY ALERT.

They've laid off a bunch of game testers in the past few months and in addition to that, they've also laid off other people in the SOE division for people who moderate games. I find this funny because most people who work there are contractors and as such are not employees and dont get benefits.

Sorry for not being more detailed, my friend is someone who worked for SOE and got laid off in the past few months. So this show is pretty funny considering how many people they've laid off in the past.
 
Just so it's clear, this "show" is for the Playstation Network, not national TV.
 
Yeah, QA for the most part is a very tedious job.

The funny thing is, if you go over to Playstation Blog, most of the comments are people saying how amazing and awesome this is and they're signing up immediately.

Ah, can't wait to see the look of disappointment on the winner once he understands what game testing really involves.
 
Play testing for a lousy console? For minimum?

Anything Sony touches...
 
playing the same game over and over and over and over and over and over looking for flaws and creating feedback. Screw that. It sounds like the winner is getting a life sentence.

It's not that bad if it's an MMO methinks.
 
Really? Game-tester? I think once they realize that all they are doing is following a bug-list documenting, taking screen grabs all day and looking for legal issues, they will quit. From what I heard the only good thing about being a tester is the crazy amounts of OT you can get. Specially near the end of a cycle as teams push for release.

One of my favorite bugs that I got was:
Description - In ______ arena expecting to see handrails in corners, characters can fall off/safety issue. Looks unsafe.
We laugh at those kinds of bugs.
 
Game testing = playing games when they suck. Over. And over. To the point that once they're good, you're so sick of them you can't play them anymore.

And that's if we only look at it from the point of what's wrong with the work itself, and not everything else also associated with the job.
 
Game testing = playing games when they suck. Over. And over. To the point that once they're good, you're so sick of them you can't play them anymore.

And that's if we only look at it from the point of what's wrong with the work itself, and not everything else also associated with the job.

QFT

SOME one has to bug test all them tweens games and it COULD BE YOU!
no thanks
playing barbie horse adventure over over does not sound like fun
 
People don't know what they are signing up for. Reminds me of the beta for a game. There were hundreds of beta testers even thousands who signed up. All of them seemed to have thought that beta just meant they could play earlier, not that it would be a totally broken game that would run on your C2D as if it was a P133mhz because only about half a dozen of people actually filed any bugs and such even though the game was full of them.

Testing a game is a job, not a privilege.
 
I posted tons of bugs in fat princess's forum... and they gave me a congrats on their dev blog... i think this is the best way to do it ... for free... and if they dont want to fix their own games they can be like age of conan and go bankrupt...

in age of conan i helped post tons of bugs in their forums... and they just let the post die/get burried.... they didn't fix anything until it was to late.

sadly alot of games are like this. the devs refuse to sticky important threads... then post random BS on the forums which everyone responds to negatively.

the fat princess team has been pretty positive in their forum... they too tend not to lock posts.
 
9$ an hour? LOL wowzors. Yeah... No wonder the games come out with bugs these days. Their tester pool is shit.
 
I thought its the norm now for QA testers to actually be software engineers with CS degrees
 
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