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合同制QA:入行的敲门砖还是死胡同?

发布时间:2013-06-06 11:40:30 Tags:,,,

作者:Patrick Miller

上周,我在Kotaku网站上读到一篇Nathan Peters写的、标题为《不要签QA合同》的文章。该文作者叙述了他作为合同QA人员参与测试《光晕4》的经历,结尾呼吁“但愿那些希望成为游戏行业的正式一员的人不要接手合同制作QA的工作。”

自然而然地,我很好奇读者们,特别是那些在签约开发游戏方面具有丰富经验的业内人士,对此有何看法。所以,我在此提出一个问题:为了帮助上述作者成功地进入游戏行业,你能给他什么建议?

QA tester(from ign.com)

QA tester(from ign.com)

Tulay Tetiker McNally(BioWare工作室QA主管)

我能对他说的东西都已经写在我之前的文章中了,我曾经解释了QA在BioWare中是一条有效的职业进阶道路,并希望其他行业的QA将来也能有出头之日。

在其他许多行业中也存在合约工作,不只是游戏开发或QA。保护合同工的法律也已经在制定了。部分问题是,许多人自己不好好阅读合同书或条款协议,或者天真地幻想着只要自己表现良好就会被对方雇用为全职员工。不过,如果你好几年坚持不懈地当合同工,在AAA游戏测试方面积累了大量经验,再加上你本人在QA方面的天赋和热情,你当然有可能从合同QA变成全职QA。但对于学徒工或实习生,情况肯定不一样了吧?

Matthew Burns(Shadegrown Games创始人兼创意总监)

读了那篇文章后,似乎钟点工似的QA测试员的处境与我十多年前的经历相比,并没有多大变化。文中提出的许多态度和行为,我都不陌生。

游戏行业的合约工作是“有缺陷的系统”,就如Nathan所说的吗?当然是。但什么公司系统不是有重大缺陷的?(例如,受薪雇员通常不能领取加班费,合同工才能拿加班补贴。)从事合约工作“没有出路”?合约工作没有给他任何前途,并且他似乎也相信他的遭遇是行业的惯例而不是个例。

在这方面,我没有确凿的证据,但我可以说,我的同行中并没有太多人遇到这种情况——有些人现在当成首席设计师了,有些人成了创意总监,还有些人是发行公司的副总裁,甚至有自己成立工作室当CEO的。想当年,按小时收费测试游戏可是这些人在游戏行业中做的第一份工作。Nathan并没有说他自己做某份合约工作的时间是多长,但看起来应该不超过1年。我知道的人中,大多数是做了测试员好多年才上位的。当然,轮不到我说他应该付出多少代价或得到多少好处才是合适的——决心是我们自己给的。

Brian Schmidt(Brian Schmidt Studios)

我从事游戏已经26年了,其中15年是当合同工。不是当测试员(游戏邦注:Brian Schmidt此前做的是音频方面的工作),但听起来他似乎还没准备好从事合约工作。我从来没觉得自己明显是行业中的“局外人”,当我还是合同工时,我只是努力表现,并不是干坐着幻想他们继续雇用我。见鬼,他甚至说那个工作室主管亲自询问他的工作,所以听起来他似乎是想引人注目。

合约工作并非适合所有人。你必须喜欢你遇到的各种人和各种项目。是的,有时候你会觉得有点儿像局外人,但我认为90%是因为你自己的行为,而只有10%是因为你客户的行为。但比较拥有在不同项目之间转换的自由和成为全职雇员,我认识的合约工作做得成功的人会立即选择前者。

我也认为他所说的事也有难以服众的地方。其中,他们的“承诺变成空头支票”的原因之一是,他解约了,没有继续工作。听起来似乎是作者自己没有坚持到底。当处境变得艰难时,没有人会雇用一个不能继续工作的人(全职员工)。坦白说,他好像也放弃了他之前的工作(音乐方面的);出卖你的设备并不能真正体现你自己的“重振旗鼓”的态度,所以也许这就是问题所在。

Stephan Beier(Travian Games制作总监)

最终,似乎是作者自己对他的人生阶段感到不如意。我认为他的工作条件对于刚走出大学校门的人来还是可以接受的,但对于到了而立之年的人就不行了。

文中描述的情况对入门级员工来说是个重大机遇。如果你的工作是合同测试员,那么你就有机会见识到开发团队中的许多资深员工。如果你的表现确实突出,寻半脱产你还有机会得到固定职位,开始你的职业进阶道路。我不知道作者的工作能力,但显然他在声音和玩游戏方面确实有天赋,但他缺少技术和成功的机遇。他的合作方唯一的失败是,没有与他进行评估谈话。至于这是开发团队的任务还是他自己的职责,还有待商榷。

(另一方面,我个人见过许多比文中描述的更糟的情况,比如在EA德国每周工作90小时且没有加班补贴,有些独立开发者没有加班费,当外包测试员提交QA报告时被完全无视,在育碧收购我所在的公司后,整个QA部门都被从游戏工作人员名单中删除了……这样的例子还有很多。)

Matt Hansen(Double Fine Productions资深制作人,曾经的合同QA测试员)

打入游戏行业需要技术、运气、毅力和态度。因为AAA工作室太少,而经验丰富的开发者又太多,没有经验的人自然很难从初级合同工变成全职员工。

我发现,那些态度端正、能适应游戏开发严酷环境的人更有机会成为团队中的重要一员。但在一个人人都有热情、人人都想上位的团队中,并非所有人都有机会展现自己的才能。从事没什么机会做自己理想的职业且报酬很低的合同工作,要冒很大的风险。但与人生的其他成就一样,有时候你就是要冒险才能看到希望。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Contract QA: A dead end or a foot-in-the-door?

By Patrick Miller

Last week, I read an article on Kotaku by one Nathan Peters called “Don’t Sign That Contract”, in which the author recaps his experience working on Halo 4 as a QA contractor and concludes with a call “…for all would-be workers to not accept positions as contractors in the game industry.”

Naturally, I wanted to know what Gamasutra’s readers — the vast majority of whom have far more experience working in contract game development roles — thought of this article. So I asked around: What kind of advice would you offer the author for succeeding in game development?

Tulay Tetiker McNally (Director of Studio Development QA, BioWare)

Anything I’d say to the author, I’ve already said in my blog post here: “The End of the Dark Ages for QA in game development”. In my blog, I describe how QA is a valid career path at BioWare, and will hopefully be in the rest of the industry one day.

Contract work is a reality in many different industries, not just games or QA. There are also laws protecting contract workers from getting exploited. Part of the problem is that many people don’t read their contracts or T&Cs properly, or they just quietly hope that people will hire them full-time if they work hard enough. But if you hang in there as a contractor for a few years and build up experience working on triple-A games, that’s certainly a way to work your way up the ranks if you’re talented and passionate about what you’re doing. And what happened to apprenticeships or internships?

Matthew Burns (Founder and Creative Director, Shadegrown Games)

Reading the piece, it seems that working as an hourly QA tester hasn’t changed much since I did it over a decade ago. I recognize many of the attitudes and behaviors.

Is contract work in the game industry a “flawed system”, as Nathan says? Certainly it is. But what corporate system isn’t deeply flawed? (For example, salaried employees are usually exempt from overtime pay. Contractors get overtime for working overtime.) Will doing contract work “get you nowhere?” It didn’t get him anywhere, and he seems to believe it is the rule more than the exception.

I don’t have hard data on this kind of thing, but I can say that not an insignificant number of my peers — some of whom are now lead designers, creative directors, VPs of publishers, and even CEOs of their own studios — tested games for an hourly wage for their first game industry job. Nathan doesn’t say how long he was at Certain Affinity, but it sounds like it was less than a year. Most of the people I know were in test for multiple years before they moved up. Of course, it’s not for me to say what cost/benefit is right for him — we all make those determinations for ourselves.

Brian Schmidt (Brian Schmidt Studios)

I’ve been in games for 26 years, 15 years as a contractor. Not as a tester (I’ve been in audio the whole time), but it sounds more like he’s just not cut out for contract work. I never really felt the “outsider” thing he did in any big way, and when I did, I tried to increase my own engagement, not just sit back and hope they engaged me more. Heck, he even said that the studio head personally asked him for his input, so it sounds like there was reach-out and a desire to have people feel heard. That’s Good Management 101.

Contracting’s not for everyone. You have to enjoy the varied people you meet and the varied projects you’ll have. And yes, you sometimes feel a bit like an outsider, but I’ve found that’s 90 percent because of your own actions and 10% because of your clients’ actions. But weighing the freedom of being able to move from project to project against being a full-time employee, the successful contractors I know enjoy the former immensely.

I also think he has a tough point to sell.  One of the reasons that their “promises came to nothing” was that he stopped showing up to work and was fired. It really sounds like the author just didn’t stick it out to the end. And no one wants to hire as a [full-time employee] someone who doesn’t stick with things when it gets tough. To be frank, he seems to have quit his previous endeavor (the music business); selling your equipment doesn’t really show a “dust yourself off and try again’ attitude, so perhaps there’s a pattern there.

Stephan Beier (Production Director, Travian Games)

In the end, it sounds like the author is not contented with where he is in life. I think the working conditions are acceptable for somebody right out of college, but not for someone in his 30s.

The situation described is a great opportunity for entry level workers. If you work as an embedded tester, you get the opportunity to meet a lot of experienced guys on the dev teams, and if you are really good, then you do have a good chance to get a permanent position and start a career. I don’t know anything about the author’s qualification, but obviously he does have some talent in sound and gaming, but he also lacks the skillset and opportunity to make his own enterprise a success. The only failure on the side of his superior is that there were no evaluation talks. Whether these are the tasks of the dev team, or of his agency is up to debate.

(For what it’s worth, I personally have seen a lot of situations that were way worse than in this story (two back-to-back 90-hour work weeks without compensation for the extra hours at EA Germany, numerous unpaid extra hours at an indie developer, being completely ignored when providing QA support from an outsourcer position, having my whole QA department being deleted from the in-game credits after Ubisoft bought my employer…the list goes on.)

Matt Hansen (Senior Producer and former Contract QA tester, Double Fine Productions)

Breaking into the industry is a combination of skill, luck, perseverance and attitude. With fewer AAA game studios in North America and a large group of experienced developers out of work, it is a very difficult time for someone without industry experience to move from an entry level contract job to a full time employee at a studio.

I have found that people new to the industry who maintain a good attitude and go out of their way to be helpful in the sometimes crazy environment of game development have the best chances of moving on to bigger roles on the team. But like any job where you have a large passionate group of people all trying to advance, it is never a sure thing that all of those people will be given an opportunity to show their potential. It’s a huge risk to take a lower paying job as a contractor with the slim chance of moving on to your dream job, but as with many things in life, sometimes you just have to take a risk to see what is possible.

How would you advise a budding game dev that was feeling discouraged from contract QA work? Tell us in the comments! (source:gamasutra)


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