What you are asking for is what we do at
http://PowerupGames.com Quick answers first. Your Resume, cover letter and portfolio. Make sure it sounds like a game tester and has the game tester speak. If you are going to get a game testing job, this is how you do it.
What do you need to get a job as a game tester?
For the quick straight answer about education... College classes needed... -- NONE --- !!
With that said, it is good to have good communication skills, good team skills, to know about technology and how games are put together. foreign language, etc are all good education to have on your resume and you could use in a game testing position.
I have personally helped over 1000 people get into the industry through becoming a video game tester. I developed training and education for people to become video game testers.
It has been made into online self paced training on the PowerUp Games Website.
http://powerupgames.com/videogametester.html If you go to School, Take these types of courses and consider
http://powerupgames.com/videogametester.html too , It has a certification course for Game Testing at a lot cheaper price than a single college course.
The reason people get more education is that it is becoming competitive to get a game testing position. The better your resume and cover letter and references and portfolio.... the better your chances. Remember 300 people will apply for a single game testing position. How do you get your resume to the pile to be considered?
Types of testing
Stay as home game testing should be considered an Urban Legend. Winning the lottery would be easier than finding this as real employment. You can find these once in a while, you know as often as winning the lottery. Basically if you don't know someone, or have another way to get one of these 1 in a million positions, you have to contact all the publishers you can, with a nice letter, resume, etc and be sure to do followups and post follow up contacts try to find the person in the company that may do this and trying to get through all the other people who don't care, don't want to be bothered by you , etc...
beta testing: if you do it right it can help your resume if you do it wrong, it will sink your chances of getting a job.
Becoming a game tester is do-able but sometimes you need someone to show you the way.
of the people offering help, this will help you avoid SCAMS...
Here are some articles
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=488864http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=488665http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=250978&reply_id=3291165http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/09/why_game_tester_guide_sucks_in.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/03/game_testings_incredulous_road.phphttp://www.affiliatebling.com/gamer-testing-ground/ ALSO:
Never pay for a job or job list.
Never pay for a subscription to find a game testing job. They are usually scams.
To see if they are... Email them and see how long takes them to respond to a specific question.
Make sure you get 2-3 phone numbers of people who have been with them for 6 months or more
and call them to see if they think it was worth it. Ask these people 2-3 specific questions about what they got for the money, how helpful was the staff, what jobs they applied for etc...
Who they worked for.
Has their education ever been used by some company involved in the industry?
How industry connected are they?
Do they have a phone number to contact them? (If not, they don't care about you, do work with them)
Is there site just a bunch of hyping up game testing? Be careful...
To increase your chances of getting a career game testing position...
become familiar with what game testing is, terminology, etc and build out a good cover letter and resume.
Get some good experience and be able to talk about what you did in with the knowledge and terminology you have learned about Game Testing.
Become familiar with the basics of game testing so after you land a position, you can keep it.
(there are some companies that will hire 10 game testers knowing that after 2-3 days, they will know the best of the group and will lay off the rest. It is cheaper than doing a deep interview process)
Remember, there will be several hundred people applying to any game testing position and you have to get your resume to the top for a phone interview and past the face to face interview so you can get the position and show that you know what it is and that you know what you need to do to become a Game tester.
Have someone in the Game Industry review your resume and cover letter. Get someone who was a game tester or even better, someone who has hired game testers.
If you want help completing the above steps, please investigate our Training at
http://www.powerupgames.com/video-game-tester-faqs.html -