nintendo

by Eli

so, at this point, it’s been almost 3 weeks since i started working at Nintendo as a game tester. i feel that i really have a grasp of how things work there and what things are to come, so i felt that it was now appropriate to let you in. a quite preface though, i will not be revealing any sort of sensitive or confidential information, so don’t get your hopes up. i figured that the best way to accomplish what i want without getting into too much detail would be to give you a “day in the life” as a tester. here goes:

the day begins at 6am when i wake up to get ready. that gives me a bit of time to snooze, take a shower, eat some breakfast, read a little bit, brush my teeth, and anything else that is required. bookis comes over around 7:00 and we hang out, read, play video games, or just sit there until brandon arrives at about 7:15 to pick us up. the three of us carpool to and from work everyday.

the drive there is pleasant without much traffic. our first step is the security desk where we pick up our badges. the amazing thing is that the security guy knows just about everyone within about 3 days of working there; there are at least 200 people that work there and this guys can match just about every name to every face. we get our badges, hang out for a few minutes, clock in, and get to work.

the term “work” is definitely used lightly here. we play for 2 hours, have a 15 minute break, play for 2 more hours, and have lunch. that is followed by 2 more hours, another break, and then the final 2 hours. most days just fly by and i can’t even believe that it’s over when it is. some people might ask, “how do you ‘test’ a video game?” that all depends, but usually it involves playing the game like normal, playing the game backwards, trying to get into areas that you aren’t allowed, saving the game and reseting, etc etc etc. we basically do everything we can think of and see if anything breaks.

the entire time we are playing the game, a VCR is recording in case something crazy happens and we need to rewatch it (the VCRS have frame by frame playback as well). if we find a bug, we write it up, and turn in the tape so that it can be referenced when trying to fix it. new versions come out, we check the bugs we wrote up against the new version, and then it starts all over again.

one of the coolest things about the job, however, is lunch time (and not because of the Mario Café, either). the reason being: ultimate frisbee. almost everyday at lunch somewhere between 6 and 10 of us go outside to the parking across the street and play ultimate. it is amazingly awesome, an incredible work out, and it totally breaks up the day. i love it.

at the end of the day bookis and i clock out and head outside to find brandon. he works at a super secret building on the completely other side of the Nintendo complex, so we never see him during the day. we see him at the beginning and at the end. either way, we all load back up into the car and drive home. one of the major advantages of the three of us working at Nintendo together is our carpool: it works amazingly well for everyone involved. bookis and i pay for all of the gas to and from work (~$25/week) for a stressless ride to work, and brandon gets his gas paid for and gets to drive in the carpool lane for the added responsibility of picking us up and dropping us off. i think that we all win in the end.

overall, the job is awesome. it rarely feels like a job, but when it does i try to remind myself that i play video games and get paid for it.