My two earliest jobs in the games business were for industry leaders Nintendo of America and Acclaim Entertainment. As an avid video gamer just recently graduated from high school, Nintendo was a dream job for me. Unlike QA, as a game counselor, you really did get paid to play games, although I’m including it here under “testing” because I nonetheless found and reported a great many bugs. Several years later, my Nintendo experience proved highly valuable when cutting my QA teeth in Acclaim’s testing trenches. In turn, my time at Acclaim became a building block for later QA positions with increasingly greater responsibility.
Acclaim Ent., New York, NY: www.acclaim.com (link redirects to Playdom)
1995-1997: Tester, Game Analyst: Dragonheart: Fire and Steel (PSX, Saturn), Cutthroat Island (all SKUs)
As acting lead tester, led project-based testing on the above named titles, to include regression and ad hoc testing.
- Documented and reported all issues, and worked closely with the production team to resolve critical gameplay issues.
- Delegated and coordinated tasks among additional testers assigned to the above-named titles.
- Assisted in functional and regression testing on other projects, as needed.
- Assisted in submission testing for release to console manufacturers.
- Maintained project bug databases, and kept a version history.
Nintendo of America, Redmond, WA: www.nintendo.com
1988-1989: Game Counselor
Played and mastered the best-selling NES titles. My first job in the game industry.
- Assisted callers with a variety of gameplay related questions.
- Took orders for Nintendo Power magazine.