My 9 Months at 2K Games
Alright, for the last 9 months, I’ve been working at 2K Games as a Quality Assurance tester. And I gotta say that it’s been one of the more interesting periods of my life. Well, now that I think about it, I haven’t really had too many periods in my life. Just 4 periods really: K-12, the on-going puberty (cracking voice, bad acne, and constantly discovering hair where there wasn’t hair before), college, and my time at 2K. All this can be seen graphically in the timeline below. Dood…you gotta admit that this is a pretty sweet timeline. I think this line’s even cooler than the Geological Era Timlines in all those science textbooks. Precambrian Era? Get the hell outta here, you’re old news.
[Move aside Geological Era Timeline…there’s a new sherrif in town.]
Well…basically I get paid to play video games. Well…more accurately, I get paid to play video games and eat fried foods all day. Even more accurately, video games, fried foods, soda, talk about comic books, movies, hypothetical situations of which comic books would make the best movies, more fried foods (fried potatoes, fried cheese, fried meats, fried chips), countless hours of “your mother” jokes with the occasional “your father” jokes, all while on the clock. Fart jokes, poop jokes however are done on our time. Don’t get me wrong though; it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. Working at 2K is all about finding all the problems in the game and trying to get them fixed, to take games to the next level. We’re doing this for you, America. We’re doing this for you, rest of the world.
[The first two games I worked on…[sigh] I really need a PS3.]
We work day and night to try and find all the problems in these games so you won’t ever see them. Some of the guys at work have worn their fingers down to improve gameplay, and a lot of the people I work with are damn good at what they do and find bugs with a passion. We’re like a combination Tae-Bo Workout Video and George Foreman Grill wrapped into one; we punch and kick out bugs and cut the fat. (Sorry, it’s 3am and the only thing on right now are informercials.) But look at the next picture. If video games were people, we’d help turn 19th century British orphans into 21st century rock heroes. He went from asking, “More soup, sir?” to “I CAN’T HEAR MY FREAKING ROCK BANJO…CRANK IT UP HIGHER OR YOU’RE FIRED, SOUND TECH GUY!!”
[This is what 2K’s QA does with video games: We turn them from Oliver Twist into to James Hetfield. He’s rocking a FREAKING BANJO!!]
So, after all the long hours and hard work, I do feel a sense of pride in what I did. I work with a great team to make a product that’ll make thousands of people a little bit happier than they would be without it. Plus being in the credits rocks too. When friends come over to play the game you worked on, there’s nothing greater than making them sit through 10 minutes of credits to show them your name. Well…there’s probably better things, but I wouldn’t know.
[The occasional ‘booklet credit’, also called ‘Boodits’ in the industry.]
[And the occasional ‘swag’, which is an Austrailan portable shelter. I looked up that fact on Wikipedia. Citation needed.]
And then there’s all those zany times. Beer Fridays, moments of delirium, trying to catch a nap during the 10 minute breaks when we were pulling in crazy OT. Man, too many to mention. But good times were had by all. I’m gonna look back on this period and totally see it as one of the more interesting 9 months of my life. So to all the people at 2K Nigh Shift, just want to let you guys know that you guys freaking rock. Well…tomorrow’s Friday and I’m planning on making it a special Friday, a Beard Friday. My body really can’t produce facial hair, but I’m gonna find a way to rock a monster beard, and rock it all Friday.
[Post to be concluded…]
