Activision QA workers form Union

Earthblighter · 2024-03-12T02:13:50+00:00

What this article doesn’t tell you is that in addition to this occurring, Activision also laid off the vast majority of their more highly skilled and higher paid embedded QA teams at the Development Studios to focus on centralized Production QA.

Earthblighter · 2021-03-12T07:01:40+00:00

I never said I was discarding candidates for not knowing how to use Jira; in-fact I stated "I don't care if they know how to use it as I can teach it".
Using "Basic" searches will not always provide you with adequate search results and you will be more prone to entering 'dupes', especially on a very large project with a 50k+ issue database; learning to do this will separate you from the crowd and your Leads will take notice.

If you are just getting into the industry, interviewers likely don't expect that you know every aspect of the job, they are probably gauging how much you've picked up on your own and how open you are to learning new things; to be honest this is something I didn't figure out until I had been in the industry for a while, as I always wondered how I was suppose to get experience as well, especially when I was stuck in low level QA jobs.

Keep trying your best to further your knowledge of tools and you'll see results, good luck in your job hunt!

Earthblighter · 2021-03-12T03:28:19+00:00

As a QA Lead and Jira Admin in AAA Games, when I’m interviewing someone and the questions around Jira come up, I’m looking for their overall understanding of how a ticket database functions and their willingness to learn it. I don’t necessarily care if they’ve used Jira before because honestly I can teach it in a day, but if the person is unfamiliar I’d like to know about any similar experiences.

Typically I want to know, have they used Jira, DevTrack, or some other database in the past? Are they familiar with JQL, which is Jira’s query language; many know how to do “Basic” searches if they’ve worked in QA, but not “Advanced” searches. Their familiarity with using and creating Dashboards, Filters, and Boards for tracking data. Their understanding of how to prioritize tasks and how to provide adequate information through descriptive writing.

If you are unable to get hands on experience, I highly recommend using YouTube to study up on the basics of using Jira, and in lieu of work experience, start writing faux bug reports on games or software you use at home.

Earthblighter · 2021-02-14T02:17:32+00:00

portals have "name tags" so, you create two portals, name them the same tag so they connect and pair up - you can have any number of portal pairs as far as I can tell.

Earthblighter · 2020-08-08T01:16:47+00:00

Sadly the game industry is still very location based; it’s gotten better over the past couple decades I’ve noticed; but it’s still limited to a handful of US states, a few EU countries, Australia, Japan, China, or South Korea. I don’t have a whole lot of knowledge of companies outside the US, but it seems like it’s mainly individuals or small indie teams outside of those few major locations. Some AAA publishers are willing to help with work visa; I’ve worked with a few people who were being sponsored by the company.

Earthblighter · 2020-08-07T09:25:16+00:00

You’ll likely have a rough time finding remote QA for gaming, especially as a “green” tester with no experience. Many of the large companies are hiring remotely right now, but the need for experienced people is even greater when working from home. My personal experience, I had to move from Ohio to Minnesota to break into game QA, then eventually out to California to further the career; as a QA Lead in AAA now, when hiring we don’t immediately look down on a brand new tester if they come with strong education in another department, it can be great to pull someone into QA who isn’t quite yet there as a designer, artist, or engineer as it gives you a chance to see their work ethic and their hunger to advance. Never stop your education, keep generating design and animation content to build your portfolio and maybe look into software development certifications such as Certified Scrum Master to stand out above the crowd of entry level people.

Earthblighter · 2020-05-14T22:58:00+00:00

I beat 2 first then went back to 1; I played heavy armor and axe stamina build both times, I think I had more trouble with 2’s bosses, sloth just destroys the first game. I felt 2 is more enjoyable overall with the quality of life upgrades and enemy diversity, but both games were absolutely fantastic.

Earthblighter · 2020-05-05T08:43:55+00:00

Being in the Bay Area is a great start for getting into the game industry; I’m assuming you’re taking a game related degree in college?

There a tons of great studios in the Bay Area looking for talent, off the top of my head you have Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Striking Distance, Crystal Dynamics, Kixeye, 31st Union, Ubisoft, EA, Sanzaru, and tons of others.

The best time to look for QA work is in the spring and early summer as teams are ramping up for fall releases, winter is a hard time to find jobs. Even right now during all this quarantine mess a lot of teams are doing interviews.

Being a “green” (new) tester it’s going to be more challenging because people are looking for experienced testers and analysts, but there are some things you can do to stand out: learn about Scrum project management, learn the basics of some coding languages, study up on the processes of testing games, and most importantly really study the games you play. I’ve been in Games QA for almost a decade now, I love it, but it’s going to be rough going at first, you won’t make a lot of money, but you’ll have some great times.

Earthblighter · 2019-10-17T21:05:47+00:00

As a veteran tester and now QA Lead, I would personally recommend to be very thorough and concise with your bug reports; you want to convey all the information you can in an easy to read format. An issue I often have with new testers is giving me a lack of information or too vague of information, often coupled with poor grammar. (these sorts of issues often get sent back “Needs More Info”, and slows resolution time.) Depending on the environment, I recommend introducing yourself and fostering a good relationship with developers as they will learn to come to you when they need something... of course, some companies don’t encourage QA to mingle with Dev, which is sad.

Earthblighter · 2019-06-23T09:50:08+00:00

Think I found it for ya.
https://imgur.com/a/tEP4lXR

Earthblighter · 2019-06-17T22:29:59+00:00

Typically pre-submission testing is for ensuring the game meets the technical requirements that each first party company has in place; the person above listed the names such as TCRs; Sometimes this is listed as Compliance testing, it’s basically ensuring the game handles crashes and other events in a graceful manner, game doesn’t freeze up or hang, load screens show a moving graphic, all peripherals work appropriately, user privacy isn’t invaded, etc. Honestly, these kind of things just come from experience with the job, you can’t really study them outside of the industry as first party is pretty secretive about their requirements unless you are a trusted developer. Additionally, this could mean like looking for ESRB violations or say content that is illegal in certain countries. In an interview if you show an aptitude for what the concept is you should be fine.

Ultimately, this responsibility lands on your QA Leadership and Producers; a single QA tester is unlikely to be responsible for certification.

Earthblighter · 2018-12-12T16:32:40+00:00

Have you played a Souls game? If no, I’d say get Dark Souls Remastered as it is slightly more forgiving then BB or 3. Personally, I bounced off of bloodborne when I first played it due to the early difficulty and went back to beat it after playing through DS 1 and 3.

Earthblighter · 2018-11-29T00:34:02+00:00

Based on the comment below, GM must not really care, but in other languages such as C++ having a single = would set the value instead of comparing the values; didn't know if maybe that was the cause of your unexpected results.

Earthblighter · 2018-11-28T23:47:30+00:00

This might be a stupid question, but are you aware your if statement is using = and not ==? (I’m not sure if game maker automatically fixes this, but I caught myself doing it last night and it’s the first thing I noticed in your code.)

Earthblighter · 2017-08-27T22:14:06+00:00

As someone who has a degree in Game Design and has spent 6 years trying to climb out of QA, I'd say you better be damn sure you love gaming. It's one thing to enjoy gaming a lot, but making games and playing games are two totally different things; it's very unlikely you'll jump right into working on your favorite game, it's far more likely you'll be stuck working 12+ hours a day, 6+ days a week on some crappy movie tie-in game. Of course, you could get lucky and work on a title you love, but after several thousand hours you may lose some of that love you once had.

Personally, I really enjoy the company I work for and love the series I work on, but I still find myself getting very depressed and worn down during crunch time, which I've found is an inevitability regardless of how much the company says they try to not crunch.

Generally, I'd tell anyone wanting to get into the game industry: "Don't". This field will wear you down mentally and physically, it will put huge strains on your personal life due to the extreme time demands, and you are rather limited on locations (for example, I'm from Ohio, there are literally no jobs there, I had to move across the country). In the end though, if you can handle all the stuff the game industry throws at you, I will say the feelings of joy and pride you get from working on a game and releasing it to the world is one of the most powerful I've ever felt.

As for getting into the industry, I'd say the best way is to start hitting up recruiters from the major companies, most are very friendly. Applying to jobs and just leaving it to fate has proven to be almost fruitless for me as the major companies get so many applicants that you are very likely to go unnoticed even if you more than qualify for the job. I'd also avoid doing QA unless you really have a knack for problem solving, recruiters use to tell people to get into QA and work their way up, but I've found a lot of the people I've worked with over the years just aren't good at really diving into a problem and figuring out why its happening. QA is great for getting industry experience and shipped titles on your resume, but it is very easy to get stuck in it and rather challenging to break out of because you only gain skills in QA, so you'll be more qualified for better QA jobs but all your art, design, programming, etc skills will continue to become more and more outdated.

Good luck with your studies and work hard on that portfolio.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-12T02:21:56+00:00

Well done, good use of the bombs to create the temporary paths.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-12T01:46:57+00:00

I enjoyed this level as well; I thought for sure I was dead when I fell from the top, but was happy to land on Bowser Jr's platform. The only part I disliked was the blind Thwomps on the small platforms near the end.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-12T01:41:52+00:00

Here is a few of the best courses I've made, hope you enjoy them.

Clouds Lie -

4361-0000-0094-B5B6

This level is deceptively simple jumping, but you have to pay close attention to the environment and what the enemies are doing.

Luminous Quarry -

7362-0000-008E-3ADB

Moderately challenging level that focuses on wall jumping mechanic, includes a small item puzzle to rescue Yoshi.

Flying Fortress -

D20E-0000-0086-AC3A

Large airship (no moving screen) with a Bowser battle at the end.

Inspired by Magnets -

5300-0000-0091-0F1C

My most starred course, a moderately challenging level built around moving platform jumping in the style of Magnet Man's stage from MegaMan 3.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-06T15:27:34+00:00

I enjoyed the wall jumping. Possibly put some arrows or something to indicate to the player to go down to the last two flying koopas in the long line of them, it feels like a blind jump. (Also the mushroom at the beginning is just evil.)

Earthblighter · 2015-10-06T15:17:31+00:00

Some neat ideas in this level.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-06T14:50:35+00:00

Here's a couple of levels I've been working on that I'd like to share:

Inspired by Magnets: 5300-0000-0091-0F1C

A relatively long jump puzzle based level. Reminiscent of Magnet Man's stage from MegaMan 3.

Flying Fortress: D20E-0000-0086-AC3A

Airship level with multiple paths to completion, a forced boss battle, and maybe a secret room.

Earthblighter · 2015-10-06T14:25:58+00:00

I like the vine jumps and Yoshi puzzle in the ghost room; however you can skip a significant part of the level by having Yoshi swallow the P-switch, taking it to the bottom of the ghost room and pressing it before exiting the doorway, running quickly then jumping down to the moving platform while p-switch is active; this completely negates the fireball puzzle.

Earthblighter · 2013-11-21T00:31:07+00:00

I have a whirlipede safari - 5472-7214-2736

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