10 Biggest Misconceptions You Have About Video Game Developers

Say this to a member of QA, and prepare to watch a grown human being either explode in a hail of frustration and guts, or be punched in the neck.

I don’t know where this preconception came from, but it seems that those images of the Nintendo Hotline ads must’ve played a part (you know the ones, where the rad dudes all sit around in booths playing Zelda and Gyromite, occasionally answering a call to bestow some sick knowledge).

QA is some of the most intensive work anyone in a game development studio will likely ever do. Hell, I had to do it briefly between two different roles in the same studio, and I’ve never worked so hard in my life (I had to try to replicate and potentially fix a bug that required about eight steps before I could attempt each time, which, let me tell you, sucks big time).

When not performing figurative acts of self-flagellation, QA staff can be found in their natural habitat - Microsoft Word, Excel, or Note, where they write exhaustive reports that are only just eked out by Tolstoy in terms of their verbosity and word count.

Does any of that sound like “playing” to you?