Many players are curious about the prospect of becoming a xbox game tester. They think it would be awesome to try out new games on their xbox 360 for lots and lots of cash. Is it as cool as you think? Generally speaking, yes: paid game trials are great and pay pretty well. How well does it really pay? Take a look below and find out.
Let’s face facts, you’re not going to start at the top when you start playing video games for the first time. So don’t expect to live like a fat cat when you land those first 2-3 Xbox game tester jobs. They’ll be nice checks to cash when the job is done, but you won’t be able to buy that 10-bedroom mansion just yet.
The Real Annual Figures: A new video game tester can expect to earn between $18,000 and $24,000 a year. With hard work and regular trial jobs, you can increase that figure to $60,000 a year and beyond. Of course, this all largely depends on whether or not you stick to game testing and keep applying for jobs with game developers. If he doesn’t, well, he won’t squat.
The downside to the annual figures provided above is that most testers do not work on a contractual salary, they work on a job-for-job basis. This means that once they finish a game testing job, they get paid and move on to the next one; as a freelancer. With that being said, let’s break down the game tester salary into an hourly/weekly figure to get a better look at what these game testers actually earn.
Figure per hour/week: New appraisers tend to earn $10 to $12 per hour, depending on the company that hires them. If the tester is much more experienced, they can get a substantial increase in pay of $16 or even $18 per hour. If the xbox game tester is on top of his game, he can be paid up to $30 or more per hour.
Let’s take those numbers and do some quick calculations with the typical minimum weekly workload (35-40 hours). quick note: These estimates assume that the tester will get a new test job each week; which, unfortunately, is not usually the case for most.
new testers
$10 x 40 hours is $400.
$400 x 52 weeks in a year is $20,800.
Mid-level testers
$17 x 40 hours is $680
$680 x 52 weeks is $35,360
expert testers
$25 x 40 hours is $1000
$1,000 x 52 weeks is $52,000
ultimate tester
$40 x 40 hours is $1600
$1600 x 52 weeks is $83,200
Do you see the potential here? If you build your way up and become a well-known and highly experienced xbox game tester, you could do almost $100,000 a year!
The best part about the whole job-for-job basis thing is that you can actually double your hourly wage just by doing your job faster (IMPORTANT: You should not sacrifice quality for speed.!). If you can break down what is supposed to be a 1 week (usually 40 hour) game testing job into a half week (20 hour) testing job, you will have doubled your hourly earnings for that job!
So what do you think? Is this salary good enough for you to get involved in pro game testing? Well, you better make up your mind quickly as thousands of people have already made their decision and are now working towards becoming the “best” Xbox game testers. Remember, if you don’t act soon, someone else is likely to take your place!