Should Game Testers Specialize?

If you are entering the exciting world of testing games for a living, then there is one factor that's not only puzzling but also one of the most debated amongst games testers. Should you specialize as a games tester? Whether you decide to specialize or not, there are pro's and con's to either specializing or generalizing your skills as a gamer. Lets briefly look at the pro's and con's of both to help you make a better decision as to where you are steering your career testing games.

Specializing:
Game testing jobs come a dime a dozen these days. With thousands of games being launched every year the market is expanding with every piece of technology that hits the market. This leads to even more options for you to specialize in.

You can either specialize in different genres of games or you can specialize in different game platforms. Game platforms are expanding rapidly. PC, console, mobile and even online games are all different areas that require different expertise and by specializing in any of these areas you can make yourself unique and become a specialist. If you want to you can go very specific. For instance you can specialize in online MMORPG's.

When you specialize you will stand a much better chance of getting games testing jobs from specific developers and specific games. If you can establish yourself as an expert you can get paid much better when you specialize like this.

The downside is that if you specialize you narrow down your opportunities to a very select area of the market. You might struggle to find jobs if your focus is too narrow - especially if you are first starting out.

Generalizing:
The obvious advantage of going after any and all games testing jobs is that you will have a ot more jobs to choose from. If you are a jack of all trades then you will find that there's an immense amount of jobs to choose from.

The obvious downside of this approach is that you will have very little that sets you apart from the rest and you will just be "another tester" with a resume that just blends in with all the rest. The pay is usually mcu8h lower and you will find yourself getting jobs testing games you may not like that much.

However, this can be a great way to get into the testing world. If you need to find your feet and get your feet wet, then this is probably a much better approach. If you have a long term strategy and if you are serious about turning this into a lucrative career then I'd suggest you start specializing as soon as possible.