[TRENCHES] Tuesday, June 16, 2015 - Master Plan
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Master Plan
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/need-name
Memento
AnonymousAbout 10 years back, fresh out of high school, I had no direction. I knew I loved games, I was an avid player and in my opinion my skills were tremendous. So I decided to apply for jobs testing games. I had a couple of unsuccessful interviews…mostly because I was young, had no experience, and had a tendency to stay up all night gaming as “research” before interviews, causing me to look like smashed asshole during the interview.
A few weeks into the search however, I got my big break! I showed up to the very small, indie gamer’s office I had never heard of. My first indication should have been that the name of the company matched the Suite number the office was in…but when you’re 18 and broke, you don’t notice these things. I walked in and a fella who I interviewed with met me at the locked front door of the suite and escorted me to his small office where the interview was conducted. The questions were incredibly simple, and after about 10 minutes he held his hand out, I shook it, and I had a job that started the next morning at 6 AM.
I showed up to work completely elated. I found I would be testing a game that was going to be part of a special offer that a popular fast food chain was offering with certain purchases. It was an incredibly basic platformer where you collected cheese burgers and chicken nuggets. It was pretty awful. 2 weeks goes by, and no paycheck. I was given the “oh, it must be because you’re new, the system has to catch up” excuse the first time. Buzzing about the small, 5 person QA team was talk of how BAD the game was. Not just in execution but in concept. I’m sure you all know the type. Also, the most senior tester was hired only days before I was. We wrote our “bugs” down on yellow legal paper and dropped them in the boss’ box. Every morning, the box was empty. I just thought this was normal.
I should have also probably been weirded out by the guy who showed up every morning with a different backpack, walked into the Boss’ office, closed the door, then walked back out of the office a few minutes later with no backpack. This happened EVERY morning. I tried to introduce myself once, and the guy didn’t even acknowledge my “hello”.
A week later, I still had not been paid. At this point I was working about 40 hours a week. A delicate trot of a pace for most QA guys, but for me it seemed like an awful lot of work for no pay. I brought it up, and asked what they could do. Then one day they told me “if it wasn’t sorted out by Friday they’d pay me cash”
The very next day I showed up to work, and just like clockwork, the backpack guy whose name I never learned came in, then left. And within a minute, there were cops everywhere. I was placed on my stomach and handcuffed right beside the “desk” (read: 2 long card tables pushed together) we all worked at. The stupid, repetitive music I’d listened to for the last several weeks straight still be-bopping along, like a soundtrack to my stupidity.
It turns out, these guys had been just taking the same half finished game they got from somewhere, hiring new sucker testers every few weeks without paying them, and using the company as a front to launder money. After a long day talking to cops all 5 of us QA guys were released. The police kindly took us back to our cars and told us they would be in touch. Once there, the “senior” tester got in his car and drove off without a word, tossing a CD-ROM out the window as he went.
Out of curiosity I picked it up, it was a copy of the game. I kept it.
Every once in a while when I get restless in my current industry I pop that bad boy into the computer and remember, with a combination of shame and anger, that it could be worse…
At least here I get paid…
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