They don’t play games — they test for computer glitches

Pauline Bell

Monday, Oct. 7, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

THE heart of Westwood Studios is a large warehouse-like test room brimming with computers and kids.

Here, up to 30 gamers -- mostly boys and young men between the ages of 16 and 30 -- sit for hours in front of computer screens. Their job is to find glitches in the games.

But, visitors don't dare suggest that these guys play computer games for a living.

"We test the games. We get in trouble if we play them," said 18-year-old Eldorado High School graduate Errol Campbell of his first job.

"There's a difference between playing a video game and testing a video game," said Glenn Sperry, brother of company co-founder Brett Sperry and Westwood's director of quality assurance.

"When you're playing the game, you're not being observant to the errors that are happening around you. You don't really care. You're getting into the storyline or the way in which the game runs. When you're testing a product, you don't care if you win or die, you just run tests over and over and over again until there are no errors in the product. Then you play the game to make sure it's playable and fun and winable, but that's the last stages of testing," he explained.

For that reason, he stresses to his workers that they are not playing the games, but testing them.

"If you tell them they're playing, they won't stay as focused. Their job is to find bugs," he said.

It takes between 5,000 and 8,000 hours of testing to work out the glitches in a game. And, as the games get more complicated, it's going to take longer, he predicted.

Sperry said he looks for gamers to find people to fill the testing positions.

"A gamer knows who he is. He or she gets home from school, does their homework, then jumps on the computer and is on the computer anywhere from two to five to seven hours a day. They're fanatics. They join clubs. That's all they do, they live for games."

But, it's not enough to say you're a gamer. Sperry makes the applicant prove it by putting them through a rigorous testing process before he hires them. Otherwise, they might actually think they're going to get paid for playing computer games.

Sperry said the testers are paid $5.50 an hour. While the rate is small, testers actually end up taking home what he describes as substantial pay checks because they work so much overtime.

So that they don't get fatigued from all the testing, Sperry keeps a Frisbee and other sports equipment on hand. Frequent breaks tossing the Frisbee or a football rejuvenates the testers, he explained.

He has employed about three young women in his eight years in the position. Women are interested in the games, but young men are more interested and that's the company's target market.

"It's a great place to work. The people are nice, the atmosphere is friendly. It's pretty easy, there's no intensive pressure," said 18-year-old Christopher Holloway, a 1996 graduate of Western High School.

"Where else do you get to test computer games before anybody else gets to see them?" asked Campbell.

But neither Holloway nor Campbell plans a career as a computer game tester. Holloway aspires to a career as a theater sound designer while Campbell wants to be a sports agent. Both say they plan to enroll at UNLV in January and hope they can keep working at Westwood during college.