SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched the final episode of “The Tester 2”, stop reading and jump over to PlayStation Store to download the season finale and see for yourself who takes home the winning prize. Otherwise, look out below…
It was an exciting second season of “The Tester” and after the intense challenges, rivalries, and competitions, one victorious winner will soon be working for Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Please join me in congratulating Matthew Brown (aka Gaymer) on his victory! Throughout the series, Matthew demonstrated consistent performance and leadership, beating out the 11 other dedicated gamers who were all fighting for this unique opportunity to join the PlayStation family. His quick thinking and gaming skills in the season finale helped bring home the winning prize: a job at SCEA’s San Diego Studios as a Quality Assurance Tester, a $5,000 signing bonus, a limited edition ‘The Tester’ PlayStation 3 signed by all guest panelists, and a brand new 46” Sony Bravia 3D HDTV.
Brent Gocke caught up with Matthew after the conclusion of season to ask him about the experience, what the show was like, and what he’s most looking forward to on his first day of work. Check out the interview!
And, if you’re looking for more about Season 2, we’re getting select members of our cast back together for a special reunion episode, presented by Ford. We’ll relive favorite moments of the season and find out what they thought of the series. Look for more details on the reunion episode coming soon.
Matt will be following in the footsteps of several noteworthy players in the video game industry when he begins his career as a QA Tester. There are countless opportunities. We talked with a few folks that started in QA testing and found out where they are now.
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Will Powers |
“The gaming industry is a very strange beast. Most every position requires at least X amount of years experience within the industry. When it comes down to it, being a Tester in QA fulfills these qualifications and can be a very rewarding opportunity. My favorite aspect of the job was getting my hands on games more than 6 months before they are released. So, to anyone looking to break into the gaming industry that doesn’t know where to start, QA is a great option!”
Currently working on: Killzone 3, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Dead Nation |
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David Jaffe |
“Testing games was a stepping stone for me because it gave me access to the people who could allow me to design my own games, namely Sony game producers and executives. Once I was in, I used my creativity and my ambition to pitch ideas, design maps and suggest new games. Eventually, that caught the eye of a few producers within the company who promoted me out of test to be their assistant. From there, it was more of the same: hard work, not keeping quiet and working on designs for the company with no guarantee they would get made or even read. All of that eventually put me in enough ‘right place, right time’ moments that I was able to get my first game to design. I worked hard and long and brought all my abilities to the table and that, along with working with an amazing team, gave me a hit. After enough hits and enough good relationships, Sony rolled the financial dice on Eat Sleep Play and I am now the proud owner the company!”
Currently working on: Twisted Metal |
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Kyle Shubel |
“I was lucky enough to start my video gaming career by getting into QA. As a tester, I was able to leverage communication skills, not only through bug writing and email, but also through developing relationships with the development staff. Attention to detail and organization skills also proved to be indispensible once I moved from QA to production. I truly feel that my experience in QA has made me a better producer and a better game developer, and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything in the world.”
Currently working on: LittleBigPlanet 2 and Killzone 3 |
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Edward Kim |
“When other kids aspired to be astronauts or ninjas, I often dreamt of working in the video game industry since my early childhood. I got my first taste of the industry when I was 12 and became an unofficial tester for Tecmo providing feedback and reporting bugs for flagship titles such as, Tecmo Bowl and Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2. It was at this point that I realized that spending five hours a day playing videogames while my parents yelled at me to do my homework could actually lead to career opportunities.”
Currently working on: Resistance 3 |
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Sam Thompson |
“When I started testing for SCEA back in 1997, I was honestly shocked that Sony was going to pay me to break their games, and I really didn’t know what to expect. What I quickly realized was that getting into QA didn’t always require a College degree in computer engineering; you simply had to have an aptitude for gaming, be an effective communicator and thrive in a team oriented environment. Through it all, I still look back on those days with a sense of pride and accomplishment and to this day I still enjoy improving consumer experiences. As a Producer, in addition to managing a wide variety of aspects relative to the development process, we spend a lot of time sorting through player metrics, game play feedback, and applying different usability strategies in order to provide our development teams with useful data that will help them refine and improve the overall game play experience within our products. I can’t begin to express how incredible my job is; not only do I get to work on some of the greatest first party franchises in the industry, but I also get to work with industry leading development teams like Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, Sucker Punch Productions, Nihilistic, and Bend Studio. These experiences have been instrumental in defining my role in the industry and continue to shape the type of person I am today, and I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without the years I spent in First Party Quality Assurance.”
Currently working on: UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception |
Finally, one HUGE thank you to all of you who watched “The Tester 2” this past season. We hope you enjoyed the season as much as we enjoyed producing it!
Looking forward to season 3 and if you actually keep that promise to include Canada in the contests and whatnot.
Well actually you promised nothing and I expect nothing but I’m hoping you will surprise me.
I dont watch this, whens the store updating today?
Congratz to Matthew Brown. that was one hard win :)
Great show seen all episodes :D Congratulations Matthew
Congrats on winning.
I was cheering for Ches-ka, but I felt the three who made it to the finals all deserved the tester job.
Looking forward to season 3, and don’t be surprised if I’m on it.
Sam Thompson continues to be bad ass. Will Powers, take notes.
lol reunion episode to selected members. well big fazeek is not in this haha
Congrats again Matt!!
I started watching the tester a few weeks ago and got hooked. Great show. Its very similar to every reality show you see where there is competitions and eliminations but made specifically for gamers.
Great season! Congratulations to the proudest winner! :)
wow,congrats!
This was an awesome season, I remember when he was just applying to get on the show and it’s cool to see his path up til now! I am looking forward to seeing what else he gets into in the game industry but Quality Assurance testing is definitely a great way in. GO CYRUS (Will) AND GO GAYMER (Matt) lol! Oh and GO everyone else who dreams of working in the game industry!
glad that’s over with.. ugh
Congratulations Matthew! Was a hard fought and well deserved win.
congrats to Matthew Brown! my wife was happy to see her favorite contestant win the second season.
New he was gonna win :)
Congrats to Matthew and congrats to PlayStation on another successful season!
@2 i second that question
yay, Matt I luv you ;P
Will Powers, already moved on up to Associate PR Generalist, good work.
And congrats Matt. You handled the competition like a champ all the way through.
Congrats kid, I hope it leads to many more industry opportunities for you
Cool, soo..
’bout that PS Store update.. when is it exactly?
I wanted to say “Cool story, bro.” but I didn’t want to sound mean. XD
When does the 3rd season’s “draft” start? I’m definitely submitting a video. Nothing about these challenges seemed overly difficult… I have confidence!
Congrats Matt for your big win!
Congrats to Matthew Brown, that was a hard won victory down to the wire. Hope you get what you want with working on Twisted Metal, when the game is release any of us Twisted Metal fans will hopefully see you online
This show is awesome and enjoyed every minute of it! Congrats Mathew (gaymer !!!! Cant wait to see the next show.
BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!!
I also started out in QA at Sony San Diego and now work in development for a third party developer.
Cheers!
congrats matthew and now off topic sony when are we going to get Qriosity in north america and anyone else notice psn beta ? when u go to sign in under playstation.com the lil tab to ur left that pops up ? anyways congrats matthew hope it goes well for u
yatzer your probaly a little kid. Don’t be mean and the store update is today.
/Smart
I call BS, the PSeye NEVER has that good quality video!
lol :P
everybody who i wanted to win got voted off so thats why I still have like 4 unwatched episodes
My 2 cents. The TESTER is a waste of time and money Sony.
no LBP2 countdown Jeff?
a new banner for Tuesday update but I expect the update to be late at night
Congratulations.
Can we call the winners “Testes”?
He spelled gamer wrong…
I enjoyed watching The Tester 2, but the contestants general knowledge of Playstation were a bit disappointing. The Tester nails brining different entertaining personalities together. I believe about half of the users here on the Playstation Forums would be more interested in and better at contributing to the quality of Sony’s games. I think it would be even more entertaining to watch people who have heavily based their gaming life around Playstation before they apply for The Tester.
Really enjoyed this season. I really look forward to being on the new season!
Congratulations Matthew, good luck on your new career!
So will the store update today or will we have to wait another week?
@ForgiveMyAim Ummm…no he didn’t. That was entirely intentional.
Congrats to Matthew. The Tester is a show I tried not to like, but it was sort of gripping.
Anyone who could put up with Big Fazeek for eight weeks deserves to work at the UN as a diplomat, not at Sony!
I love updates cause their sooooo delicious but I’m so hungry!
Spoiler Alert! Where is the Store update?
Are you guys at Sony just screwing around, wasting time making a reality show about getting a job for the second time? Really? You would think that there are better things to do than this, examples include cross-game voice chat, better browser support(firefox), playing my music with any game I want too. Have you guys forgotten about the people who are actually playing the games and not watching stupid crap like this? If you keep wasting resources on this kind of stuff than I won’t be buying your next console, I’ll just save my money for a kick-ass PC.
Hey ZariV (#43) I hate to break it to you but…the world doesn’t revolve around you. Just because you don’t enjoy something Sony works hard to put out their doesn’t mean numerous other people don’t either.
Go ahead and work on your “kick-ass PC” Sony won’t miss you and NO ONE will miss that attitude of yours. Get off your high horse and come back to reality. You’re not the only person in this world with needs.
Oh and maybe you should actually give The Tester a chance before you bash it. I know I didn’t like the idea but when I gave the second season a chance I quickly fell in love with it and I can guarantee that I’ll be one of the first people downloading Episode 1 for Season 3 when it releases. Keep up the good work Sony, but please…get the store update out:D
@43:
Have you forgotten your not the only person in the world? Have you forgotten that someone may enjoy things that you don’t? Clearly the show is meeting expectations as we just finished Season #2. Sony is a business and they aren’t in the business of losing money or throwing it away (intentionally at any rate) and to bring back Tester for a second season says something about its success.
In regards to your remaining statements about what they should be doing you apparently don’t realize that the people responsible for The Tester aren’t responsible for bringing X-Game Chat to the PS3 or adding better browser support, Sony has other paid employees and groups who handle that.
A few thoughts…
The “No Mo Chocolate” line was the best thing from the show
Can’t believe Mo Chocolate’s vocal practice was cut from the actual show (the part where he is warming up his vocal cords as he passes by Scooter; even funnier in slow motion)
Scooter looked like he had lost his mind the whole show (except for some part near the end of the 7th episode where it looks like you had to give him some pills)
Episode 7 in general was completely different from the others as it seemed too scripted (seriously, compare it to the others and it just looks out of place)
Surprised Gaymer won because of all the military ads at the beginning of every episode.
The Tester is an AWESOME IDEA and it also makes for a great show.
TY GUYS & Congrats MATT!,..