As someone who played pro in a couple leagues for a few games, money gaming as a self-support system is really out of the question except for the most talented and experienced. Most of the work you're talking about is not only flooded with other potential candidates, but most already require degrees or previous experience in the related industry... Game testing is very, very overcrowded, and usually means you have to have worked on or playtested several games beforehand. The only way I know to get in is to know somebody inside already, or know somebody who's making the game you want tested, I think. Voice acting usually requires auditions and VA training, usually which come from schooling or special technical schools.
I know next to nothing about just where or how to get the training to get into video games for real, but computer science and programming are usually the degrees to get into gaming, or graphic design and the like. As for writing storyboards and game ideas, that's an almost impossible job market to enter, as games are almost entirely made and creatively designed by people who've already made games before... to break into the market alone is probably impossible. Games usually get inspiration from novels or game designers that've worked on previously successful titles, and beyond that I have no idea.
Basically, getting into the creative process is like, ridiculously hard to break into, and I have no idea how you should go about trying to do that. Meanwhile, getting a computer science or graphic design or some kind of computer-related degree is the way to enter the building and developing process, while doing the menial jobs like testing (which is supposedly way worse than it sounds, spending weeks looking for bugs and playing broken games) is overflooded with applicants and voice acting requires schooling and auditions, usually.
I don't know how to help you, if I could get into the industry I would as well. However, it's not exactly clear just how to do it. Most companies don't have simple application processes or even guidelines for people they hire, cause they go around and look for people to hire instead of the other way around. :/
Thank you for the advice. I would also like to know something else.
I have been online. I have come across websites that advertised some kind of book, with information on gaming companies and how to become a video game tester. And where to look to find jobs as a video game tester. Is this a scam? They want money for the book to. I do not mind paying for the book if is legit.
I do know I have enough talent but from reading what you wrote this is going to take a lot of hard work. However, I could always have a job on the side, so I am not out of money, then in my spare time work on the video games. This book I talk about they say they have list of jobs for video game testers. I have not bought the book to know if this is real, or not.
I would work for anyone, as long as I could get experience. I guess after reading your post I will need a lot of it. However, I do have a lot of experience playing video games, as I have been playing video games for many years.
Tomb Raider AOD:
I have found bugs in the Tomb Raider games. I mean nothing like Lara Croft turning her head back to look at me. Dude I never touched the game pad to make Lara move. This glitch is found in Tomb Raider. AOD. I was able to look inside Lara's head to. Hey, I see your eye ball Lara. Also sometimes when Lara would fall to her death, she kept screaming. After Lara was dead on the floor, she still kept screaming. It just repeated over and over. LOL. Lara stop screaming already, you are dead now. Sorry you died but you didn't jump like you were supposed to.
The game controls are god awful in this game. However, since I played AOD over 500 times it is not so bad now. When I first started playing AOD I thought I was going to throw myself out a window. LOL. Anyway, since I have a lot of experience with this game, now I play it over and over again. It took me about a year to really get used to the controls. It's so easy now but along time ago I would not have said that.
I like the cut scenes to. Has a nice story line. However, if you like to die more than a million times, this game is for you. The Graphic's are are not to bad for a ps 2 game. The puzzles were hard to figure out. Many people on the TR message boards would like to see a remake of this game because the game controls were so bad. People liked the game but it was because of the controls, that some people never finished. Look I am trying to jump. Wait. I fall to my death. This game takes time to get used to. I mean a lot of time. In some parts of the game like in part 1 up on the roof; I would walk real slow. It would not let me move, so I just jumped to get around it. This game really would not be bad if the controls were not so messed up.
I really believe if people want to become game testers they should start out playing Tomb Raider games. I say this because the TR games are full of glitches and bugs. I never seen so many issues with their video games. It's fun, but full of glitches and bugs. I think now I have been trained to find this stuff, although I am not sure what the difference is between a glitch and a bug, but either way something is messed up.
Tomb Raider Underworld.
I have walked through walls in the Tomb Raider Underworld game. I have super powers, yes! I like this game but the controls are weird and I found too many bug and glitches. I like the game though. It is fun to play. The Graphics are very cool. I read the reviews on the TR message board and no one complained about the graphics. Very nice, now just take out all the bugs and next time use better controls for movements, so I can see around ledges. Help, I am blind. LOL.
Let me say right now this is not a game you want to play on the
ps2. The controls, dear god. shoots myself. Bad I tell you and half of the game graphics are missing. Just try playing on Xbox 360, then play TR Underworld on PS2 and see for yourself the difference.
Oh and one game glitch I remember quiet well in Tomb Raider Underworld, because other people had a problem with it. There was supposed to be a ramp for Lara's bike to go over and if the wheel was turned the wrong way, it made a glitch. Not the motor bike wheel. The wheel Lara had to turn to open the gates, once inside the gate I had to turn around corners using my bike. When I came to a stop. I noticed there was no ramp. So when Lara went to go over the ledge with the motor bike, there wasn't a ramp to go over. I kept falling to my death. I went to the Tomb Raider message boards and found out many people had that same glitch. I thought I was doing something wrong. No it was not me, it was a game glitch. I think I spent about 5 hours trying to get over that hole, with no ramp. Well it was not happening, so when I found out it was a glitch I did not feel so stupid. I had to restart and do it all over again. I had to read how to get around the glitch. I did get the ramp but it was not easy to fix this glitch.
I know when TR Underworld first came out I did not have the full game, it was a trial. I was able to jump and land to the bottom, this was tricky to do though. I had to jump a certain way and make sure I was in the right position standing on the ledge. Some people used to the pole to land down to the bottom from what I read. The pole that Lara pulled out of the wall. If this was not done correctly I would die. It was one long fall. After the game trial I bought the game and I was able to go down using a rope, that I had to jump to. Though, in the game trial I already went to the bottom. When there was no rope. Hey, look I made it past the game trial. LOL
Also in the game I could keep swimming, and if I reached a certain point the game just locked up. If I tried to keep swimming as far out as I could.
I found game glitches for the time trials in Tomb Raider Legend. I just jumped a certain way and ended up behind the water fall, which works on the Xbox 360, but not on PS2. So in less that a minute I was done with the time trial. I know going through the whole puzzle for that one area would take over 15 minutes. I beat it in one minute. The thing is one is not supposed to go behind the water fall, it would not let me but I found away around it.
FF XII
This is a cool game. However, I stopped playing. The game is very long and somewhat confusing. There are tons of mazes and I just so happen to get lost easy. The map is small, and for me was hard to understand. FF XII has a very deep and long story line and has many places to explore. It's a fun game, just hard to play.
Some of the bosses are very tough to beat.
I thought the graphics for the ps 2 were outstanding, with this game. This game had a lot, and I mean a lot of cut scenes. I think FF XII, could of done with out all the cut scenes, as I like to fight. Not watch movies. I like watching video game movies but not while I am playing a game. I want some action.
I like the monster selection though, and I like that I can control other game characters. To me that is fun.
I am not sure about bugs and glitches because I did not play the whole game, from what I did play, I do not remember any bugs. This is not an easy game to play but it is fun and kept me busy for days. I could not fish, or do crafts. I wanted to though. I could ride a chicken for a little while.
If you like mazes and believe me it will feel like it. If you like long cut scenes, a very long game, and if you like hard games to beat, then I suggest this game.
I thought the game controls were ok, not too bad. However, I had to keep switching back and forth to change certain jobs and play different characters. Or to change spells, or weapons. There is a board to unlock job abilities and certain stuff you may want to use in the game. I could cure, use haste, protect and so with this game I could use spells, and fight and all at the same time. There are other spells used in the game.
FF XI,
I did play FF XI, which is an online game for about 8 years and I never found any glitches, not saying there isn't any, just that I never found any glitch in the game. This is my favorite game, though I do not have a gaming computer and really not enough memory to play it without the game lagging bad. This game last for a long time, as I played for 8 years and I still didn't complete all the missions and quest. I met some nice people in my link shell to. The graphics are outstanding in my opinion. I loved using magic spells. I could chose if I wanted to heal, or fight, or summon, or blow things up. There are many different classes to chose from. Dancer was fun to.
The monster selection is quite good. I did enjoy fighting crabs, Goblins, bees (Not really). If you do not like bees, please never own this game because their are nasty looking wasp that fly around. I had to farm to make decent money and all I did for 5 hours a day was kill mean looking bees, or I fished for game money, which I liked better. There are avatar fights and the mobs are cool looking. There are all kinds of monsters to fight. I liked killing the imps. Ok I lie. Just because of all the spells thrown on me. I really had to get experienced to fight the imps on my own. Nasty little imps. Now die. Stop throwing Silence, or sleep on me. This is not all, these bad imps threw out. Help. I am stuck and can't move and my pet just died. Yep, happened a lot, until I got the hang of it. Exp loss is not good either. In higher levels I lost a shit load of exp. I wanted to cry, but still I did make it to level 75 Summoner, with all merits capped.
To get to level 75 will take some time though. True now there are parties that can level synche, it never use to be that way. It is easier to get into a party. However it still takes awhile to level. Some people level faster than others, it took me a few years to get to level 75, some people a few months, so the say. I read not too long ago FF XI is going past level 75 to level 90, not sure about that but that is what I read.
Still there are many quest and missions and always game expansions coming out. This game is very time consuming. It took me 4 months to get my Lu Shang fishing rod. It took me a few years to get to level 96 fishing and I never made it to level 100.
However I do visit the FF XI message boards and accounts get banned left and right. I never had my account banned but people were complaining about it. Also a person has to have a secure CC to play. It never used to be that way, well it is now.
I also kept having problems with Steam, or it could just be my slow Dell PC with 512 ram. I know pretty sad huh. LOL.
I went to update FF XI through steam and then I kept getting error messages. Steam did get back by email and told me how to fix it but this has not been the only time I had problems playing FF XI, through Steam. Although, I had to save the game on my External drive, which might be the problem. I do not know for sure.
World of Warcraft is really computer friendly. Even with my slow Dell, yes there was some lagging, but not too bad. The support staff is very helpful. I had to buy an external drive as I do not have enough hard space for memory. I then downloaded the game. Easy to set up to. I was told I could keep my gaming character forever. Unlike FF XI, after a year the gaming character is deleted. This is if you quit the game for some reason. I really enjoy this game, but right now I can't afford 15 dollars a month. I played on PC and the game is easy to use with help in game tutorial. Quest and maps are easy to read. The game is explained well, once logged in and playing. I still think FF XI graphics are better but WOW's graphic's are not too bad. I think the gaming characters look a little weird, but like I said not too bad. I do enjoy the flying mounts and all the animals I could ride. FF XI just has chicken's and air ships. However, for many levels you will probably get stuck fighting hogs, yep. I know sounds exciting. At least that is the way I did it on my own. Maybe in higher levels there might be better mobs but I never got that far to know. Hey, I am level 30 and still fighting hogs and birds. Oh, and I could fight other players which I liked, that can't be done in FF XI. I could fish and cook and do crafts as well, just like I could in FF XI. However, it does not take as long to level the crafts. This game is rather addicting.
Primal:
Primal had a few glitches. I remember walking out into space, which seemed like eternity. It was all black and I could not find my way back. I was stuck for hours, so I just restarted the game. I was lost in space man. Some of the walls would appear, then disappear in the house. Sometimes Scree would repeat the same voice, over and over and get stuck, or the game would lock up.
I thought the graphics were decent. The story line is cool. The ending is a little confusing. I never will know if her rocker boyfriend died, or not. I really enjoyed this game and I wish there would have been a Primal 2. I did not think the controls were bad, just my opinion. However, I did find a few glitches. I think it is a fun game to play and the puzzles are hard, for me anyway.
I play a lot and no I never was paid for finding all these glitches and bugs.
