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Getting To the Video Game Beta Tester World
Have you ever heard of a video game beta tester? A video game beta tester is one of the final steps that is involved
in getting a video game out of someone’s mind and onto shelves, priced to sell. The process of creating and selling
a video game is much more involved, and takes longer, than many of gamers tend to realize.
In The Beginning
To begin with, you’ve got to have an idea! No video game could be made if there wasn’t an idea to start it with. This
is why having an imagination is a great thing when you’re a video game designer. You first have to figure out what
the player is going to do. Are they going to kill things, solve puzzles, or a bit of both? Is the player going to control
one character, a few, or thousands? Will they be able to talk to others, or just take them out? Will there be racing,
or walking, or sports?
Once you have an idea, it’s time to get that idea in detail. You need to sit down and figure out exactly where the
story starts (and if there’s a back story or not), where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there. It’s just like how you
write a written story, except this story is going to be played by the gamer. Figure out real details, like if your
character is male or female, what they look like, and what type of weapons (if any) they carry.
In Design
Next it’s time for graphic designers and programmers to take over the design process. The graphic designers draw
pictures of what you’ve described, including backgrounds and characters in order to make a storyboard layout. This
is needed so that the programmers can understand where they’ve got to make the character go and do during the
game. Everything revolves around that storyboard.
After the programmers have worked their magic, it’s time for the alpha testers to step in. This may be another batch
of programmers, or it might be testers who have worked for the company for a long time. Their primary goal is to
make sure that the glitches are found and fixed. They work closely with the programmers in order to get the game
ready for the next step, which is beta testing.
Beta testing is done only after the programmers believe that the game is ready to be put on shelves. There are
often, however, small glitches or strange things that happen that the programmers didn’t anticipate, which is why the
beta testers are so important to the video game company. They are the ones that make sure that the game is
perfect before it hits the stores. If you like to help solve problems, love to play video games, and think that you
would be a great video game tester, start looking around, as there are always opportunities opening up!
Have you ever heard of a video game beta tester? A video game beta tester is one of the final steps that is involved
in getting a video game out of someone’s mind and onto shelves, priced to sell. The process of creating and selling
a video game is much more involved, and takes longer, than many of gamers tend to realize.
In The Beginning
To begin with, you’ve got to have an idea! No video game could be made if there wasn’t an idea to start it with. This
is why having an imagination is a great thing when you’re a video game designer. You first have to figure out what
the player is going to do. Are they going to kill things, solve puzzles, or a bit of both? Is the player going to control
one character, a few, or thousands? Will they be able to talk to others, or just take them out? Will there be racing,
or walking, or sports?
Once you have an idea, it’s time to get that idea in detail. You need to sit down and figure out exactly where the
story starts (and if there’s a back story or not), where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there. It’s just like how you
write a written story, except this story is going to be played by the gamer. Figure out real details, like if your
character is male or female, what they look like, and what type of weapons (if any) they carry.
In Design
Next it’s time for graphic designers and programmers to take over the design process. The graphic designers draw
pictures of what you’ve described, including backgrounds and characters in order to make a storyboard layout. This
is needed so that the programmers can understand where they’ve got to make the character go and do during the
game. Everything revolves around that storyboard.
After the programmers have worked their magic, it’s time for the alpha testers to step in. This may be another batch
of programmers, or it might be testers who have worked for the company for a long time. Their primary goal is to
make sure that the glitches are found and fixed. They work closely with the programmers in order to get the game
ready for the next step, which is beta testing.
Beta testing is done only after the programmers believe that the game is ready to be put on shelves. There are
often, however, small glitches or strange things that happen that the programmers didn’t anticipate, which is why the
beta testers are so important to the video game company. They are the ones that make sure that the game is
perfect before it hits the stores. If you like to help solve problems, love to play video games, and think that you
would be a great video game tester, start looking around, as there are always opportunities opening up!
Video Game Beta Tester
