If you're a gaming nut like me then you have probably spent hours and hours playing games like Call of Duty 4 switching up your strategy, training like a prize fighter getting ready for Call of Duty 5 World at War. I love video games! If you're a true hardcore gamer you tough it out for the most boring parts of the games so you can get to the good stuff like bonus levels and cheats. There have been times when I've literally fallen asleep next to my PSP or Xbox. I live for that stuff. The way I'm able to switch up my strategy and playing _style_ in just about any video game got me thinking that I would be really good at testing games. I started looking around to see how I could become a game video game tester. Finding good information isn't easy, so I thought I would share some advice that helped me break into the industry. First off, you won't get rich testing video games. If you hear something different it's simply not true. To tell you the truth it can be a really tedious job. Imagine sitting in front of a screen for 6 hours straight playing the same scene over and over again. This type of situation isn't uncommon and I hope it helps you understand that this job isn't all glamourous. You should really look for another type of work if you think it's gonna be easy playing games. In fact, I would ditch the word play and think of it as testing . There is some fun and games to it though. The best part is I get to play unreleased games, which is a big reason I decided to get into it. Another reason is that I'm a student and don't have a college degree. In fact, most game testing gigs don't have any college requirements. A big bonus for me. Probably one of the best ways to get into it is to sign up with a company like Artisan Game Testers. They basically do all the heavy lifting for you by finding you jobs and knocking out some of the grunt work you don't want to do anyways. The membership costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 some bucks, which is a drop in the bucket considering how much time it will save you. Once you get the membership you're on the lowest rung of the ladder, which means you have to take some of the lowest paying jobs. That was fine with me when I first got started because I knew this it was only temporary and it was a business that I wanted to jump into. They take you through some of the basics you'll need to know like how to make yourself known to the companies. If you're persistent and stick with it then you should have no problem scoring the higher paying jobs and using this as a launch pad into a great career opportunity. http://groups.google.com/group/gtnebc/