Get paid to live your passion

Gaming is no longer a pursuit to be frowned upon as it has emerged as a lucrative career option.

It’s extremely common to have a passion for something which is frowned upon by others, who think it’s a waste of time and fits the profile of a good-for-nothing fella. Gaming, as far as India is concerned, fits well into the above description. Yet, it remains one of the most sought after career options as, here, you actually get paid to live your passion.

In fact, during our last Google search with the keyword ‘game testing jobs in India’, we were presented with about 10 lakh results and about 4,800 listed jobs on Naukri.com.

Take, for example, Raghavendra Madhavan, who has really made it big in game testing. From testing games for free with Bangalore-based RelQ Software to becoming the project leader of Gameshastra, a game development outfit in Hyderabad, Madhavan has gone a long way.

“Back then, gaming was still a nascent industry and I was just happy playing games,” he says. In the last six years, Madhavan has been involved with testing over 300 games across all gaming consoles. “It’s great fun to be part of a game project from start to finish,” he says.

Sharing his enthusiasm, Mihir Shah, product head at www.Games2Win.com, narrates a similar story. Shah, who began as a game tester, now brings home a ‘fat’ paycheck and loves his job immensely. “Game testing is great fun but don’t overlook the hard work and concentration it demands,” he insists. Just like gaming is a serious business, so is game testing. According to Shah, game testers are unsung heroes. Though they spend countless hours testing games and making them bug-free, they don’t get so much recognition, he adds.

Typically, a video game tester analyses video or computer games to find software defects, commonly called bugs.

Shah’s twin brother Milind also started off as a game tester but now works as an activation head at www.Contests2Win.com. “Testing is a lucrative career but it often tends to become a stepping stone for bigger things in the gaming industry,” feels Milind.

According to a NASSCOM study, the Indian gaming industry, which was $212 million in 2008, is set to touch $1,060 million by 2012 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50 per cent. Professionals who can create, deliver and satiate the growing gaming appetite are an integral part of this sunshine industry.

No wonder that young men and women are now looking at the gaming industry as their first career option soon after completing graduation.

Take the case of Ashutosh Ingle, who finished his graduation in computer engineering and decided to take up gaming as a career. Today, he works with an animation outsourcing company and draws a salary of close to Rs 50,000 a month. “You have to work on all the nuances and think from a gamer’s point of view,” says Ingle.

And, this job of game testing is not always idyllic. It brings difficult moments too. Citing an example of a recently-developed game, Ingle says he wasn’t too impressed by the game, but yet was required to devote endless hours testing it and communicating the glitches to the developers.

Gameshastra, points its CEO Prakash Ahuja, is always looking out for game testers. Finding dedicated game testers is often a tough task and keeping them happy is an even bigger challenge, he notes. But Rohit Sharma, chief operating officer (COO), www.Zapak.com, feels that the industry needs a deeper talent pool to consolidate its growth.

“It’s an industry that stands on the cusp of explosion, but we need more professionals who can play new games and assess them for the customer,” says Sharma.

So, the next time you are frowned at for playing video games, you might just end up having the last laugh.