A day in the life: Video game tester

Many people are jealous of Alan Curtis. Especially 10- to 17 year-old boys. Alan Curtis is a 24- year-old art student and a video game tester for Electronic Arts. We sat down with Alan to find out if our childhood dream job was everything we hoped for.

Signpost: Can you talk about games that are coming out?

Alan Curtis: Yes ... no. A little bit. We are allowed to say what has been publically released but we're not allowed to discuss any specifics like levels or the story. All of that is supposed to be top-secret.

SP: What is the biggest difference between testing a video game and playing a video game?

AC: The biggest difference is that when you are testing a game you're trying to break it. By jumping into corners, setting off explosions, getting four people into one game and all pulling the trigger at the same time during the loading screen, anything that will cause a crash or a hang up or a freeze.

SP: What is your work environment like?

AC: I work in a really big cubicle for six people. My team leader works on a 52-inch plasma TV. Each one of the testers has a 22-inch TV with a monitor and our own computer. Right now we all have Nerf guns because we're working on the Nerf game and we all shoot at the clock every hour.

SP: What are the people like that you work with?

AC: They are all the Dungeons and Dragons nerds who played fantasy role-playing games. We have three girls that work in the whole company out of 75 employees and one of them is a secretary. Two actually work on video games. Most of the employees are 25- to 40-year-olds and they are all really funny people. A lot of them quote YouTube videos.

SP: Do you ever dread going to work?

AC: No. I enjoy crashing games every day.

SP: What is the worst part of your job?

AC: Having to sit down for long periods of time gets tedious. Also it's very mind-numbing playing the same game for three months straight repeating the exact same levels - nothing's new.

SP: Have you already beat the game you're testing right now?

AC: Yes. I beat it four times today. The crashes are fun though. The other day we had a race to see who could beat the game first and we were trash talking the whole time.

SP: How much time do you spend playing video games outside of work?

AC: Probably about three hours a week. That's only because I play Halo with my buddies once a week. I do my best to avoid video games outside of work.

SP: In that case, what do you do outside of work for fun?

AC: Since I go to work and have so much fun I figure I have to do something serious outside of work so I practice doing math, I do my taxes for fun.

SP: How do you know if you're doing a good job?

AC: You know you're doing a good job if you can report a lot of bugs, glitches in the game that the programmers have missed. You're supposed to report around seven glitches a day, but also, that doesn't really determine how good you are. I guess if a lot of glitches can't be found. I guess basically when your boss tells you you're doing a good job.

SP: What do you think about sex and violence in video games?

AC: There's a lot said about it. Well, they've got ratings on video games just like they do on movies. There is no real difference because they are checking IDs now more often on video games because they are getting more graphic. Honestly, it's a way of venting all of your rage too. If a kid goes into a video game and kicks a person out of their car versus actually going and doing it, um, I guess you're keeping kids off the street, right?

SP: What is your favorite game of all time?

AC: Of all time, the best video game I've played is Xenogears. That was because the gameplay was really fun, the story was amazing, and the bosses were extremely challenging. So it had all the elements.

SP: Do you think that you'll play video games for the rest of your life?

AC: Yes. Yep. Yeah, I'm going to be playing video games until the day I die.