In my personal experience at Blizzard and at EA, there isnt much of a future for a QA Tester... Unless you work extremely hard and seriously go out of your way to perform tasks out of the norm for a tester, then you might be considered for a more permanent position. Database, repetitive work, long hours and sore eyes are a requirement for QA work. It is fun work on some occasions but its definately not you sitting there 6-8hour day playing a game for fun. If you think that your sitting there playing a game your entire time then you really need to do more research on the position. Most companies are searching for temporary workers and by that they do mean temporary. You might be placed on a project only for that project and the pay is usually per hour. All work is usually NDA so you wont be able to talk about it much outside of your work... The key to knowing the role is that you pretty much know everything about the project your working on from the very beginning before you even play testing- so playing it for 6-8 hours a day isnt much "fun". Don't get me wrong, I loved doing everything I said above only for the sole reason that I felt like I was part of a team and that I got to see things normal gamers dont normally get to see. Names are listed in manuals, you get yourself into the industry BUT just remember that as you can see from the number of responses to this thread that there are a ton of people seeking this type of work.... its not as easy as you guys think and it takes someone who is really used to long hours of repetitive work to truely enjoy this job. To advance to maybe a manager position (which I think may be the highest position ) you need to set yourself apart from the rest of these other potential testers and know that you are always replaceable. Stable jobs that can last a lifetime if your good at it always are jobs outside of QA. Quality Assurance is a very vital part of the game development but you do not see the development team or anyone outside of QA offering to work on any testing. This is not a reply bashing QA but its giving honest information about QA for those who are interested because this is really how it is even if you enjoy your work as a QA Tester.
