QA Firm Encourages Playing On the Job

LONDON, ON Nov. 9, 2009 – It has been said that the video game industry is recession-proof, and while the industry continues to grow and shows no sign of stopping, even the normally resilient industry took a beating over the last year. Just ask Hayley Patterson, co-owner of The Ant Firm, a video game testing company that just launched in London, Ontario last month. Patterson, along with her partners Tonya Constant, Melanie Lagrou, and Denise Matis, were laid off from their jobs with a local video game developer last January, at least partially due to the recession last year.

Says Patterson, former QA Lead at London’s Beanbag Studios, “Obviously, it was disappointing, but we certainly weren’t the only Londoners losing their jobs.”

Rather than feeling demoralized by staggering unemployment numbers and headlines sounding the death knell of the manufacturing sector in Southwestern Ontario, Patterson took a decidedly upbeat tack. Inspired by the overall buoyancy of the video game industry and the growing number of game developers in London and area, she approached some former colleagues with a proposition: how would they like to join her in starting their own video game testing company?

“I was sure they’d laugh and tell me to go away,” says Patterson.

“She ought to be used to that by now,” jokes Constant, former writer and editor at Beanbag Studios. “But we were all game.” Now all four partners have taken their shared experiences and consolidated them into The Ant Firm.

Says Patterson, “Despite the shaky economy, our timing couldn’t be better. London alone has several video game developers: Digital Extremes, Big Blue Bubble, Antic Entertainment to name a few. If London capitalizes on this growth, this city could very well become the city known for health care and interactive digital media.”

She points to the decline of manufacturing jobs in the London area, and agrees with local politicians and economists who say that the technology and services sectors are the future for this region.

“We tick both of those boxes,” she says.

So, what exactly do video game testers do?

Constant laughs.

“Well, people may be surprised to know we don’t sit in dark basement rec rooms eating Pizza Pockets and growing so pale as to become practically phosphorescent.  It’s serious business.”

“Basically, we try to break games,” says Lagrou, head tester at The Ant Firm. “It always surprises 16-year-old, hard-core gamers to learn that just because they’ve played through Halo or Grand Theft Auto a dozen times doesn’t mean they’re cut out for testing. As a tester, you can’t get distracted by the urge to play well: you have to play crazy.”

Matis, Assistant QA Lead, jumps in. “Sometimes the job dictates that you press the START button forty-eight times in a row or press ALT, F2, and the tilde key at the same time and record the results, if any.”

In short, game testers think of ways to play video games that were never intended nor anticipated by the game developer.

“A good tester asks him or herself, ‘I wonder what would happen if I tried to drive my hovercraft through this steel wall?’ If the hovercraft glides effortlessly through the wall without causing any damage, that’s a collision bug.”

According to the Ants, other types of bugs may involve on-screen buttons that don’t light up when a player clicks on them, or Help Menus that are confusing to the player.

They note that a player turns to video games to escape the frustrations of day-to-day life, with the expectation that he or she is going to be entertained. Anything that interrupts the flow of the game, like save-and-load issues or unwieldy controls, prevents the player from enjoying a seamless gaming experience. Hence, the frustration of playing a bug-ridden game defeats the purpose of playing in the first place.

So, what makes The Ant Firm different from other QA companies?

“Well, for one, we can spell,” says Patterson. “It’s sounds so simplistic, but poorly-written bug reports are a huge problem in this industry.”

“It’s true,” confirms Constant. “In my previous incarnation as a video game writer, I was on the receiving end of some of Hayley’s department’s QA reports and they were so much easier to decipher than most of the outside, third-party reports I’d receive. I learned first-hand how much time a well-written report could save our company. And the cliché is true: time is money. It can mean the difference between missing a deadline and meeting it. Guess which scenario the publishers prefer?”

It’s also worth noting that The Ant Firm is owned and operated exclusively by women. Isn’t that kind of unusual in an industry that is overwhelmingly male?

Patterson is quick to answer.

“Yes. But, as we grow, we fully intend to have a balanced male/female mix. It’s necessary because the gamer demographic is shifting dramatically.”

She sites recent surveys that peg the ratio of female-to-male gamers at 40:60. “We believe that the growth in the female gamer demographic should be reflected in the ratio of female-to-male testers.”

Adds Matis, “An interesting fact from a QA perspective is, although the ratio of female-to-male employees at most QA companies is 25:75, much of that ratio represents women who are working in a human resources/administrative capacity, not in testing positions per se, therefore the number of female testers is even lower than statistics would suggest.”

“So, while 40% of gamers are female, on average the departments testing them are over 75% male,” adds Patterson. “When you consider that men and women employ different game-play tactics, it only makes sense that the people testing the games should adequately reflect the gamer demographic as a whole: not just male and female, but young and old.”

Lagrou points out that nursing homes are buying Wii consoles for their residents and many working moms play online, puzzle-type games such as Bejeweled or Facebook games such as Farmville to unwind.

“It’s not just 16-year-old boys playing Call of Duty anymore.”

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]