What is your favorite aspect of working in QA?
TL;DRFavorites are constantly learning about games and development, working with a vibrant group of people, the camaraderie of shared unstable builds, and helping shape a game's development without being a creative.
Oh, I would have to say the amount of things that we learn. We learn so much in QA, whether it's parts of dev and just the game, and just generally how games are put together. I love learning things. So that's what I love about QA. It's just being a sponge of knowledge.
For me, there's a lot of different things. The thing I think I enjoy the most is the people. It's such a good, vibrant group of people who, even when you're having the horrible crashes, you'll be able to have a joke and have a laugh. And if it wasn't for a good group of people, I don't think I could do it. But it's such a good group of people.
I should have gone before George, because I was going to say the same sort of thing. I think, especially on the game dev stream, which does tend to have some minor issues with stability, you do form a real sense of camaraderie with the people around you, because it's not just you that's having a horrible time, and you've been trying to get into game for four hours and you've not made it past the main menu yet. It's you and seven other people who are also having a horrible time and haven't made it past the main menu yet. We're kind of friends for life, forged in that fire together.
I guess as well as being able to do the same things as those guys, I love learning stuff. I love picking the brains of all the different developers, especially the big-brain people like the directors who just know so much about how to make everything cutting edge. I guess just generally being able to work to support games is something that I really enjoy. When I came out of university, I did an animation degree and I hated animation. I came out of it and I was like, never again in my life. But I knew I still wanted to support developers, and I knew I wanted to support games development and do that kind of stuff, because that is something I'm so passionate about. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do, and I just fell into QA by pure chance, because it was something that was entry level and everybody could have a go at. And I ended up staying here because I love it so much. So yeah, I think it is something that really is an interesting career, and really is a way to get your fingerprints on a game and put your influence on a game's development without having to necessarily be a creative or something along those lines.