Testing, like 'Running' in the film industry, is the most common way for non-technical people to get into making games. Many excellent people have been Testers, notably the likes of Alex Garden, founder of Relic and Designer on Homeworld, who started as a Tester at EA. It's also one of the toughest and certainly least glamorous roles in development, a brutal reality check for even the most misty eyed of gaming romantics. It is also one of the most important and undervalued roles in the industry.

Ed Valiente, Elixir's QA Manager, here discusses his own experiences and the qualities required to succeed: "I joined the industry in August 1997, starting with Sony's Liverpool studio. I'd graduated with a gentleman's third in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and was at a crossroads. Given the correlation between my degree result and the amount of time I'd spent playing games, I thought I might try and turn this investment of several thousand hours into something useful. It seemed logical to get a job in the industry. Doing so was tough as there are limited ways in for people who don't possess programming or art skills. I spotted an advert for QA Testers in Edge and successfully applied for a job. I was soon disabused of my laughably naïve views on the nature of testing games. Despite perceptions of the job and endless jokes about sore thumbs, it's a tough job. Whilst there I worked on amongst others, Gran Turismo, TOCA, G-Police, ISS and Tekken 3. I moved on to Square to set up the European QA department. There I worked on Final Fantasies 8, 9, 10 and 11, as well games like Vagrant Story and Parasite Eve 2.

The job, in essence, is simple: identify and chart the deluge of bugs that plague the last months of every game's development. In practice this is a mind-numbing task that requires endless patience and anally-retentively high levels of attention to detail. Patience is a must. The majority of games aren't very good: you must be willing to put the hours in on titles that will unquestionably tank. The ability to communicate clearly and diplomatically is also important. A recent post mortem of one of this year's biggest games revealed that they'd had to fix three thousand bugs in six weeks. During crunch time tired programmers breathe, eat and sleep by their machines. They work day and night to fix a seemingly endless mountain of bugs. A visit from a Tester feels like a visit from Harry Enfield's "Only me!" character. As you can imagine, the greeting rarely involves a nice cuppa and an invitation to share some biscuits. Clear, constructive bug reporting is another crucial skill. Writing a bug report that says 'the game crashed' without giving any further information isn't terribly helpful. Writing that 'the character looks stupid' is unlikely to endear you to the development team. Good Testers understand the nature of bug testing and report in a manner that will facilitate quick solutions."

It is an ideal training ground for aspiring game developers. Ed has no hesitation in recommending it: " If you want to get into the industry, it is a good first step." Many that survive the fierce demands of the job go on to greater things, steeled by the experience. Adrian Bolton, Elixir's Head Producer came through this route many years ago, when conditions were infinitely tougher. Here he describes his own gentle cherry-plucking experience: "Picture the scene: fresh-faced and keen, my first day of employment with an illustrious publisher whose best days were behind them. Within a fortnight myself and five others were sent to Coventry, or Walsall to be exact. Our brief: work with the external developer to put the finishing touches to two separate games on seven formats with five language versions for each. We had two weeks. Of the six Testers only one had more than two months experience and the Lead Tester had eight months.

Our base was what can only be generously described as an office: a 20 x 9 foot room with no carpet, rubble on the floor, no windows, no ceiling lights, no heating, no ventilation and a just single power point. Ingeniously we maximized this power source by daisy-chaining fifteen four-way plugs. You may ask why this didn't prompt some searching questions to our employer. My only defence is that we were new to the industry and assumed that this was normal.

We were put up for two weeks in a Bed and Breakfast. The deadline came and went. The hotel rooms were revoked and we were told that, with just a few more weeks to go, we should commute from the publisher's base every day: a 200 mile round trip.

Undermanned and underskilled, things started badly and got a lot worse. It was soon apparent that our chances of shipping a gold master in two weeks were, as the boxing promoter Don King likes to say, "Slim and None - and Slim just left town." The games were allegedly the product of eighteen months of development. It soon became clear that the team had spent something considerably nearer to six weeks on them.

Productivity was targeted, wrongly some might say, as the chief source of our problems. Working hours were ramped up, to the point where sleep came courtesy of three chairs at the back of the office. Hours started to exceed 120 per week. People began falling asleep at their desks, warm game pads dangling lifelessly from their hands. As winter set in the lack of heat and light began to take its toll. Casualties were inevitable: Two Testers were sacked. When it became obvious that these games weren't coming out for Christmas, two more disappeared, leaving two of us left. The Manager said they'd been taken back to the main office but we weren't so sure. It began to feel like some sort of computer games gulag, a monumental trial of mental and physical fibre.

After Christmas one Tester returned to complete the final SKUs. During this period I managed to rack up 136 hours during one particular week. Six months after setting out I returned home. Welcome to games development.