Krishna Bahirwani speaks to Rahul Khatal, QC manager, Ubisoft Pune, to get an understanding of the very popular and highly misunderstood role of game testers
What are the requirements to become a QC tester?
Well we do not adhere to any qualification criteria as such however we do look for specific personal traits be it a student or a graduate. We hire profiles who have good interpersonal and communication skills, Basic knowledge of MS Office, eye for details, logical reasoning, ability to work as a part of a team and the most important is passion towards the gaming industry.
What is a typical career path for somebody starting out in QC?
There are different levels for testers right from the beginning i.e. from trainee level to senior level which can be attained based on the performance and experience they garner in testing.
There are also different specialized test teams we have in which the tester can see his career growth. Testers who are more inclined towards technical side of the consoles can make their carrier in the Compliance testing, Network testing, Epilepsy testing, Sound testing etc.
Someone who is more inclined towards management & leadership can foresee his growth from becoming an Associate Lead to Project Coordinator on a project.
As we are also collaborating a lot with offshore development teams, such collaboration with studios brings onsite opportunities for testers/leads to work with closely with development teams. We have testers/leads who have worked on Test Coordinator onsite handling multiple teams from different test site.
We have also offered our fellow QC members with a great opportunity to be a part of Ubisoft Pune production team. Today in Ubisoft Pune, I've seen people from QC having the right skillset shift into development, design and production. It's not just the story with Ubisoft Pune, but most of the other Ubisoft studios WW.
We at Ubisoft Pune are constantly growing and evolving, there are a lot of opportunities for QC testers in terms of future growth both personally and professionally. With the right balance of passion and skills, the sky's the limit.
What advice would you like to give students who want to enter the field?
Students who have passion towards the gaming industry and want to contribute towards the quality of the games should enter this field. Finding bugs is not the only way they could contribute towards the quality of the games but there are other ways like reviewing the level design, finding major loop holes in the game design, feedbacks on the gameplay, playtests etc.
To put it very simply I would like to say those out there who love playing games, if they want to be part of creating this precise experience which nicely quoted by Crytek's creative development director "A Game that makes me forget that i am playing a game i.e. when you completely lose yourself and not aware of whats going on and around you, this modern magic where you trick people into believing into a certain scenario is taking place and it would be so convincingly that they immediately connect to, which i guess is escapism which is essentially what reading, watching movie or playing games is about. You pretend you are somewhere else someone else doing something you are not doing....
How does a QC tester divide his or her time at work?
A QC tester starts his/her day by planning the execution of the task assigned. Learning and understanding the design & functioning of the gameplay elements. Based on the learning deriving test cases to test the feature. Coordinating with the team to complete the task in case of multiplayer modes. Maximum time of work is spent in executing the test cases with full potential which will help covering all areas assigned. Entering the defects encountered in the bug base. And in the end gathering and generating a final report/synopsis of the work done which includes task status such as completion, major issues encountered and overall view of the assigned task area etc.
A small part of the time of work also goes into some recreation activities like browsing, social networking, having coffee, discussing about games
What is the most challenging part of the job?
The most challenging part of the job for a QC tester is creating new ways to test the game. It is important that the testers puts himself in the shoes of noob player as well as a pro player. This requires high level of concentration and dedication along with the best knowledge of the genre and game design.
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