I’ll admit it, when I first started Get Paid to Play Games Now I was after more than just the satisfaction of teaching others how to make money as a game tester, I was after the affiliate income supplied through purchasing the product known as Game Tester Guide, which has since become defunct. The sales helped me to fund the site as well as my own career (licensing development kits doesn’t come cheap, ya know!) And while I won’t lie to you and say I won’t be promoting products that are capable of creating income for me, I will be putting the generation of affiliate income on the back burner. Because there’s so much more that’s important to me now, and one of the most important things is getting to help people make their videogame careers come true.

This post is meant to mark a new age in the life of this blog, as you can guess by its title of “New Game +”. From this day forward I’ll be doing more than just telling you why a certain year is the year to be getting paid to play games, I’ll be going over more in depth techniques for becoming a game designer, reviewing recent products that hit the market, exploring other jobs in the industry (like as a video game journalist or reviewer), and so much more.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still, and probably always will be a hobbyist blog, but that doesn’t mean it can’t provide really interesting information and help people who are just starting to get a foothold into the awesome field of video game designer or journalism or sales or whatever else you can think of related to the games we love.

Look forward to some truly stellar content through 2012, and keep trying to become a game developer, tester, reviewer or whatever. You can do it if you put your mind to it. Let’s press “Start” and make this the best game we’ll ever play!

Make no mistake, I may be a game tester now, but I wasn’t always making money this way. I started at the bottom just like most people, with the most boring jobs imaginable. After I graduated from high school a few years ago, I immediately headed off to college, and majored in game and simulation programming so I could hopefully learn how to make games. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a job and yet the tuition and books just kept costing me. In the end I had to drop out and start looking for a way to live on my own before I could head back to school.

I checked out minimum wage jobs at places that interested me, but even working at GameStop- which I thought would my dream job as a hardcore gamer- turned out to be too demeaning and demotivating.

I had nowhere to turn to for a solid year after leaving school and was barely managing to scrape by while raising money to go back to DeVry. I knew something had to change if I was ever going to become a video game programmer. So I went to the Internet looking for a way out. I didn’t find one…. Instead I found a way IN- into a video game tester career!

Click here to check out my way in.

It took me hours and hours of research and scouring the Internet, trying to find a real way to make money in the video game world with no experience or cash, but I finally managed to find something, Game Tester Guide.

And man was this resource solid! I studied the guide cover to cover and found out more about games than I had ever known. I learned how the testing cycle worked, how to find video game testing jobs, and what I could expect from a video game tester salary. But more importantly, with the info in the guide in mind, I applied to several companies. 3 weeks after sending out my resume I was lined up with a micro developer to test a part of their latest game!

After my first game testing job… There was kind of a drought. But you know what. I didn’t care! I had learned the basics of how to get paid to play games! That was far more important than always having a job, since I would always know how to get one! I learned more from Game Tester Guide, and started refining my resume by learning more about programming and the development cycle of video games.

But the best thing about becoming a game tester was that I was finally doing something I loved. Now, I’ve been a tester for a while and I may not be drowning in cash, but I can finally afford to go to school and get further involved in video game development. Maybe one day I’ll even managed to create my own console video game, thanks to Gamer Testing Ground’s help!

Check out Game Tester Guide by clicking here!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu4iITtInmc

So was that cool or what? There’s a lot more you can learn about getting paid to play games from this site, I like to think, but this post should be okay if you’re just starting down the road of the video game tester career.

In case you missed it, the video walked through some methods of getting jobs as a video game tester who could potentially get paid to play PC games, get paid to play flash games, and all kinds of things. Although the focus was (naturally, as it’s a playstation video game tester vid) on getting paid to play console games. But hey, if you’re not already in the video game tester career field then I’m sure you didn’t care since it was learning all the same, right?

It had a few interviews with people already testing games and getting paid to play games, but the best part of this video, to me, at least, was the fact that it had so much rich information on video game testing of the past, and made you really appreciate how things have changed in the future. Naturally you guys that aren’t in the video game tester career field will probably think it’s just okay and really informative, but since I do know the testing video games for a living thing inside and out, I can tell you that it’s not as simple any more to get in contact with HR departments and submitting your resume is great, but don’t expect a fast turn around at all. A lot of the trials and tribulations to testing that will help you become better at getting hired are, of course, all fully compiled at my favorite resource (click the link here: get paid to play games, to check that out). In other words, if you try and shortcut to success, you may see it, but it’d be better to check out the guide I link in that past because it will REALLY be a lifesaver for you.

The faster you start making money the faster you realize just how awesome the video game tester career field can be! So stop slacking off and check out Gamer Testing Ground and start getting paid to play games!

But you do have to wonder, why are these multi million dollar companies so willing to skimp on their QA testing salaries? I think it’s probably because they realize they will always have plenty of people lined up at their door looking to get paid to play game. I’ve also talked to some more experienced testers, guys that have been doing this literally since before I was born, and found out that since the industry has evolved and there are both more games addicting games to play and players addicted to playing them, and found out two really Earth shattering things (to me, anyway):

1. Video game testers used to play games for free, practically. They were paid very little back when most development teams were a group of five guys working out of their basement.

2. If you become more experienced, you can become the head of a QA team and earn a permanent position at a game studio which pays like a genuine career (we’re talking $40k a year at least!)

Okay, so maybe it’s not so shocking that you would end up not getting paid much money by a 5 man group back in the late 80s or early 90s, but learning about a true game tester career was humongous.

Imagine making about $20 per hour just playing a game for a company! Or more!

Anyway, I always just tell people basically that it depends, but now that I’ve talked to those guys about their careers in the game testing field, I can honestly say it isn’t a bad salary no matter how you look at it. Who else gets to have so much fun at their job- I know I haven’t heard of any field where you make money by playing great games online or some of the best action games.

Well, that’s about it on video game tester salary. I don’t get to work as often as I like because of school, but if you do manage to get a really nice job and work with a company for a while, you’ll start seeing more money. Right now I’m just kind of freelancing. But getting paid to play games is still the best job I’ve ever seen!

You can easily get paid to play online games and get paid to play PC games from your home, in some cases, despite what people say about this being a security risk. The problem isn’t the availability of jobs or technical skills either. I wanted originally to be a game developer, and I still plan on progressing to that point for my life time career (currently attending DeVry University for Game and Simulation Programming- check them out if you get the chance), but I had NO idea what C++ or Torque or any of that stuff was when I got started about a year ago testing games.

Why do I point this out? To impress upon you if you’re interested in this career that you don’t have to be some big shot programmer or something to play video games for money. Whether you like to play RPG games, Puzzle games, Adventure games or any other variety, you can make money playing them!

I know some guys that don’t know a lick of programming language and just get paid to play flash games or get paid to play games online! That’s how huge this industry is! Low grade indie developers making Flash games will often pay people initially to play games if the tester promises to give them a review. If you were one of the people who went to them and offered a review in exchange for some cash, then you would get paid to play free games.

I’ve done a lot of work in the industry over both the technical side and the more fun testing side. I can definitely say that getting money for playing video games is one of the best decisions I made in my life. There’s really no better way to make money (certainly beats working at McDonald’s by a long shot!). You sometimes get to play really cool games too.

Well I guess that’s it for this post, I just wanted a to clear up the confusion that a lot of people seem to have when thinking about becoming video game testers. So many people don’t believe you get paid well enough, and, truth be told, you aren’t paid a hundred thousand or anything, but you can definitely live comfortably if you work your way up the food chain. And if you hang around a lot of game sites online you’ll probably find plenty of people who want you to review their game and are willing to pay for it!

Made it this far down eh? In that case, check out my article on how you can get started Getting Paid to Play Games!