Michael Lin
Joined the industry as a game programmer, Michael started to take part in quality assurance after undergoing training at Microsoft Game Studios. He once established a cross-border QA team that completed tests for an international large-scale MMORPG. He worked all the way up to management level and accumulated a lot of experience through trial-and-error, in hopes of improving the quality of QA solutions.
As the majority of the industry is still unfamiliar with professional QA process, Lin hopes to share what he can outside the work environment and play a role in enhancing the quality of Taiwanese games, introducing them to a wider international audience.
Work experience:
QA Lead/QA Engineer, InterServ
QA Director, Tonwa Online Entertainment
Current position:
President, 品責軟體服務
Game QA Lecturer, Soochow University, School of Extension Education
Game QA Lecturer, Institue for Information Industry
Quantified experience:
Game QA positions: 1 international large-scale MMORPG, 2 Chinese MMORPGs, 3 browser games, 4 mobile games.
Casino Games: 6 games released.
Professional QA Is Not What You Think It Is
Quality assurance in game development is often considered the most low-level, undervalued role in the industry. Why? Because any gamer can playtest a game? Because testing doesn’t require skills? Because you can’t rake in heaps of cash doing it?
If that’s true, then why do some people earn millions yearly by doing QA? Why are some overseas businesses willing to hire game testers from Taiwan, offering an NTD 80K monthly salary? Is there really a difference between good testers and bad ones? Or that the situation of the industry is just plain bad as is?
Game QA is a job that requires a high degree of logic skill—in fact, it’s a kind of science. A game tester should understand the content of the game and the cause-and-effect behind bugs even better than the developers do, knowing what they are working for.
That’s why game QA isn’t what you think it is—learn more by attending this talk!
* This session will be conducted in Mandarin.