<!--quoteo(post=1663805:date=Dec 13 2007, 03:01 AM:name=Browser_ICE)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Browser_ICE @ Dec 13 2007, 03:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1663805"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You basicly do the followings :
- test specific situations and write down the result vs expected results - you may test games that not all graphics have been done (just gameplay coding). - you may wind up in annoying bugs that have nothing to do with what you are testing and therefore do not report about them (like falling through a 2-3 pixel width whole and falling into void) - you have a deadline and possibly a maximum trial amount to do it <b>- if you do not report enough bug reports, they may start to come down on you (thinking you are just wasting time playing or doing other non productive things)</b> <b>- they tend to promote people that do very detailed and clear bug reports (constant quality types of reports) - getting your way up the ladders toward development is possible but very slow</b> - you have to report your hours almost like using a punch clock - no benefits and often, misssing hours on your pay checks <b>- expect just about every types of people working with you and therefore, some might get on your nerves or you cannot stand them (but being able to work with Anybody is a quality they appreciate)</b> <b>- expect to see nerds or geek being game testers (saw a few which were like, get a life man !)</b> <b>- office space and equipement usualy is cramped and looking more like a warehouse then anything else (well at least where I was).</b> - and other things which I probably forgot ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's some things that should be added to the list: - If you voice your opinion about how you dislike a certain feature of a game, you'll get a talking to by your boss. - If you submit too many duplicated bugs (aka Dupes), you'll get fired. - If you submit too little bugs, you'll get fired. - If you submit too many irrelevant bugs, your fired. - If you are given a computer, you will not be allowed to access the internet. If you somehow manage to get on to the World Wide Web, the IT department will track you down and your ass will be toast. - If you want to be promoted, you need to be the one tester that finds all the crash bugs. - You may only have <b>two</b> 15-minute breaks the entire day. - You will put in a minimum of 10 hours a day, including Saturdays and sometimes even Sundays (they generally try to avoid Sundays so they do not want to pay you 2x your normal pay. Saturdays is 1.5x your normal pay). Towards the end of the project, the minimum number of hours per day goes up to 12. - Testing leads, Devs, and Producers there are all ######s (with a few exceptions here and there, of course). - People who have Blue Badges, indicating permanent employee status (with benefits), will generally be afraid of you if you have a Green Badge, indicating temporary employee status <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I once worked for a company doing EA testings on WII, Xbox, Xbox-360, PS3 and that portable PS thingy. That was about 2 years ago.
...
I worked there for about 2 weeks only because I had found something else closer to my current career. I took that testing job because I was curious.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I worked at the EA headquarters out here in Redwood City, CA on a 6-month contract. I went through all 6-months of hell; everything you described is exactly how it was for me. Now, would I go back there and work again? Hell no!!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Salary was low ($8Cdn).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> $8 cdn. Hmm. During the first interview, they ask you how much you would like to get paid per hour. I asked for the maximum amount at the time and they decided to give me like $1 or $2 less, so I was getting $11/hr. Some of my other co-workers were less aggressive and let the company choose for them. Guess what? They got paid $8 an hour. Man, I felt bad for them, lol.
At EA, the workplace is pretty much a Zoo; you'll meet all kinds of people. Most of the dudes (as there were only 3 girls or so working there) I worked with were pretty cool. Dunno. Maybe it's b/c it's the Bay Area or something. I'd say that only a few were, at most, irritating. I never encountered anyone there that really pissed me off.
As for the 'nerds' comment, I estimate that around 60% of the testers were hardcore gamers and 40% were 'normal' people that just needed money (I'm including my testing leads in the 60%).
At the time I was working, I recall that EA got sued hardcore and also had to cut thousands of employees. The headquarters got hit the hardest by the slashing. I recall some of the artists there, who I believe did the art work for some of the James Bond games, were complaining about losing their jobs due to outsourcing. There was this one girl in the break room who was hysterical and whining about how EA was holding all these "worldwide meetings" to move the artist jobs to S. Korea or something o_0. Poor thing.
One thing I have to say is that the funniest experience I had while I was working there was when people would get fired for taking excessive or extended breaks and would be absolutely baffled the day they got called into the big boss's office. I don't think anybody knew at the time (besides me, hehe) that the chip inside their card generated a time log of when they entered/exited a certain part of the building. Basically, if the boss thought or noticed that one of their underlings was under-performing or screwing around or if the boss just plain hated this person, the boss could ask security to bring up these records and have their ass BBQ'd. Bad times.
The only one thing I liked about working there were the perks: movie and game rentals for up to 2 weeks, awesome cafeteria food, clean (but cramped) work environment, discounts on EA made games, and free tickets to events every once in a while.
A lot of those problems are specific to your experiences at EA. At SEGA I get 3 breaks during a 7-hour shift, during which I can use the internet, and my deskspace is about as wide as a 20" Sony Bravia and a 15" LCD monitor side by side.
Unlike you guys I can't be specific because I haven't left the company and because I don't want to be known as an NDA-breaker since it could harm my chances with future employers in the industry, but all in all it sounds like SEGA is a much better environment than your experiences with EA. I know someone at work who worked at EA in the UK, and it didn't sound quite as bad as what you said. They are super-strict about internet use (i.e. none), they even have security personnel watching internal cameras while you work, but he didn't say anything bad about the hours.
I find the rules of games testing vary from company to company and project to project. My first tester job I was told "you're here to test technical problems, not gameplay" while in my current one (which is full time and stuff) my suggestions get some airtime :D
I'm crossing my fingers a junior design position comes up because I've heard talk that if there was I'd be in good stead to get it :3
I'd agree with what liku said about sega not producing much since PSO but they're a publisher now as well as a developer. They're taking on some stuff from other companies that could be promising in the future... hope you enjoy testing that stuff crisps : )
Comments
- test specific situations and write down the result vs expected results
- you may test games that not all graphics have been done (just gameplay coding).
- you may wind up in annoying bugs that have nothing to do with what you are testing and therefore do not report about them (like falling through a 2-3 pixel width whole and falling into void)
- you have a deadline and possibly a maximum trial amount to do it
<b>- if you do not report enough bug reports, they may start to come down on you (thinking you are just wasting time playing or doing other non productive things)</b>
<b>- they tend to promote people that do very detailed and clear bug reports (constant quality types of reports)
- getting your way up the ladders toward development is possible but very slow</b>
- you have to report your hours almost like using a punch clock
- no benefits and often, misssing hours on your pay checks
<b>- expect just about every types of people working with you and therefore, some might get on your nerves or you cannot stand them (but being able to work with Anybody is a quality they appreciate)</b>
<b>- expect to see nerds or geek being game testers (saw a few which were like, get a life man !)</b>
<b>- office space and equipement usualy is cramped and looking more like a warehouse then anything else (well at least where I was).</b>
- and other things which I probably forgot ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's some things that should be added to the list:
- If you voice your opinion about how you dislike a certain feature of a game, you'll get a talking to by your boss.
- If you submit too many duplicated bugs (aka Dupes), you'll get fired.
- If you submit too little bugs, you'll get fired.
- If you submit too many irrelevant bugs, your fired.
- If you are given a computer, you will not be allowed to access the internet. If you somehow manage to get on to the World Wide Web, the IT department will track you down and your ass will be toast.
- If you want to be promoted, you need to be the one tester that finds all the crash bugs.
- You may only have <b>two</b> 15-minute breaks the entire day.
- You will put in a minimum of 10 hours a day, including Saturdays and sometimes even Sundays (they generally try to avoid Sundays so they do not want to pay you 2x your normal pay. Saturdays is 1.5x your normal pay). Towards the end of the project, the minimum number of hours per day goes up to 12.
- Testing leads, Devs, and Producers there are all ######s (with a few exceptions here and there, of course).
- People who have Blue Badges, indicating permanent employee status (with benefits), will generally be afraid of you if you have a Green Badge, indicating temporary employee status <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I once worked for a company doing EA testings on WII, Xbox, Xbox-360, PS3 and that portable PS thingy. That was about 2 years ago.
...
I worked there for about 2 weeks only because I had found something else closer to my current career. I took that testing job because I was curious.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I worked at the EA headquarters out here in Redwood City, CA on a 6-month contract. I went through all 6-months of hell; everything you described is exactly how it was for me. Now, would I go back there and work again? Hell no!!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Salary was low ($8Cdn).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
$8 cdn. Hmm. During the first interview, they ask you how much you would like to get paid per hour. I asked for the maximum amount at the time and they decided to give me like $1 or $2 less, so I was getting $11/hr. Some of my other co-workers were less aggressive and let the company choose for them. Guess what? They got paid $8 an hour. Man, I felt bad for them, lol.
At EA, the workplace is pretty much a Zoo; you'll meet all kinds of people. Most of the dudes (as there were only 3 girls or so working there) I worked with were pretty cool. Dunno. Maybe it's b/c it's the Bay Area or something. I'd say that only a few were, at most, irritating. I never encountered anyone there that really pissed me off.
As for the 'nerds' comment, I estimate that around 60% of the testers were hardcore gamers and 40% were 'normal' people that just needed money (I'm including my testing leads in the 60%).
At the time I was working, I recall that EA got sued hardcore and also had to cut thousands of employees. The headquarters got hit the hardest by the slashing. I recall some of the artists there, who I believe did the art work for some of the James Bond games, were complaining about losing their jobs due to outsourcing. There was this one girl in the break room who was hysterical and whining about how EA was holding all these "worldwide meetings" to move the artist jobs to S. Korea or something o_0. Poor thing.
One thing I have to say is that the funniest experience I had while I was working there was when people would get fired for taking excessive or extended breaks and would be absolutely baffled the day they got called into the big boss's office. I don't think anybody knew at the time (besides me, hehe) that the chip inside their card generated a time log of when they entered/exited a certain part of the building. Basically, if the boss thought or noticed that one of their underlings was under-performing or screwing around or if the boss just plain hated this person, the boss could ask security to bring up these records and have their ass BBQ'd. Bad times.
The only one thing I liked about working there were the perks: movie and game rentals for up to 2 weeks, awesome cafeteria food, clean (but cramped) work environment, discounts on EA made games, and free tickets to events every once in a while.
Unlike you guys I can't be specific because I haven't left the company and because I don't want to be known as an NDA-breaker since it could harm my chances with future employers in the industry, but all in all it sounds like SEGA is a much better environment than your experiences with EA. I know someone at work who worked at EA in the UK, and it didn't sound quite as bad as what you said. They are super-strict about internet use (i.e. none), they even have security personnel watching internal cameras while you work, but he didn't say anything bad about the hours.
I'm crossing my fingers a junior design position comes up because I've heard talk that if there was I'd be in good stead to get it :3
I'd agree with what liku said about sega not producing much since PSO but they're a publisher now as well as a developer. They're taking on some stuff from other companies that could be promising in the future... hope you enjoy testing that stuff crisps : )