Anthony, QA Tester
Marvel Heroes Forums: GazilliAnt
Anthony was born and raised in the Bay Area – he attended city college in Fremont, CA and worked in the radio industry for ten years (from ages 19-29). He felt like he had hit the ceiling with radio, so he decided to leave and try something else. Fortunately, a friend in QA at EA had encouraged him to give the games industry a shot – and that’s where it began. Anthony worked in EA’s CQC (Customer Quality Control) for ten years. He’d look at beta software and do tests from a consumer point of view.
From there he went to Namco for a few months, LucasArts, and Zynga. After his contract ended with Zynga, he had a hard time finding a new job. “The difference between console testing and mobile testing is that they are two different breeds of people.” He was not only referring to the work, but the type of environment and culture around the two. Eventually in 2013, he got a contract for content QA at Sony, where he met Megan and Ross.
When his contract with Sony was over, he found out Gazillion was looking to bring on another QA tester. Anthony said he had an “awesome” phone interview with Will. “Will and I see eye-to-eye about how QA works.” Anthony provides a different angle on testing for Marvel Heroes because of his experience with EA. “I try to play the game as the users would use it, as opposed to trying to break it, unless it’s a new feature. I like to play it as it’s designed. I don’t like the use of cheats in the QA environment. I feel that they are used for certain situations, but shouldn’t be used for overall testing because that’s not how the game is designed.” He enjoys messing around with all the options and seeing if they create any bugs; even turning on subtitles in certain points in the game can create a bug. Toggling different features make some hard to find bugs float to the surface.
Anthony suggests networking if you want to get into the industry, by attending events and making contacts. He stresses how important that is. “Try and get some schooling under your belt, and just kind of keep your ear to the door and apply to places. Use LinkedIn and other resources to get started. It’s getting harder and harder – John didn’t have a background in QA, Christian came from IT – unless you know somebody, it’s hard to get in.”
