QAuDHD #1a - Getting To Know Me
The Neurospicy Bit
OK so that’s a mess of an acronym, but I wanted it to represent everything this article series is about. Originally it was going to be called “Quality Done Quick” and the first sentence was: “OK, so there are no shortcuts when it comes to real quality” (which is true), and I was going to “give you some quick tips and pose you a few different thought provoking-ideas that will help you in your games quality efforts.”
But then recently I wrote a couple of neurospicy brain-dump posts about the more relevant parts of whatever was going through my head at the time (recruitment, QA and remote working in the videogames industry) and they really seemed to resonate with people. So while I’m largely going to be writing about the same topics, the plan is to weave in a bit more of my experiences as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent quality expert in gaming. And the plan is to try to get my point across each time, and you should know that succinctness is one thing that can be tough to achieve when you have ADHD or ASD nevermind both like me, in less than 500 words each… starting now.
The Actual Topic
Whether you're just starting your career as a Junior QA Tester, a Studio Head looking to mitigate risk, or just a game developer looking to make your game the best it can be; hopefully this series can help. And if you’re neurospicy and wondering “is it just me, or…?”, hopefully I can at least confirm that it’s not just you! In fact, the last UKIE census in 2022 reported that almost 20% of the games industry workforce in the UK is neurospicy in some way!
But who am I? As I’ve already mentioned, I'm autistic (“high functioning”, although that term is falling out of favour), and I have ADHD; which is a fun combination - sometimes they team up to give me superpowers and sometimes they team up to leave me barely able to do anything. Also, I'm a cis/het white middle-class male; and if you're thinking “what difference does that make?”, then you have a point - it really should make no difference at all, but sadly for many people, it still does (and if you’re one of those people, you probably also don’t understand the attraction of bears either). The fact that it does is maybe a topic for a whole separate series of articles, so instead - let's move on.
My gaming career started at Xbox Certification (VMC), rising through the ranks from Compliance Tester to Senior Lead, before I moved to SEGA Europe as their Compliance QA Lead (where I also doubled as a Functional QA Lead, tripled as a Mobile QA Lead and helped to implement a range of Best Practices, including Accessibility). I took a brief step out of QA (well, mostly) when I took on the Release Manager title at Curve Games (then Curve Digital), although in that role I also acted as Submissions Manager, helped with managing equipment, builds, tools and some production, as well as generally managing 1st Party relations.
And now, I'm back in QA, heading up the department at the multi-award-winning Roll7, where I also founded the Accessibility Advocates group and the Diversity Committee, and have been able to dabble in some voice acting and even co-wrote and performed a sea shanty.
So I've worked from the bottom of QA to the top, across 1st Party, Publisher and Embedded, with 3rd Party suppliers, and in FQA, CQA, MQA and even some LQA.
Does that mean I have all the answers? Absolutely not! But might I have some answers? Might I help to provoke some thoughts that will lead you to your own answers? I certainly hope so!
I'll be mixing in some “here's what I've learned” type tips and tricks, with a few “has anyone ever…?” and “maybe we should…” thoughts on how to evolve our current understanding and implementation of quality in games as we go, but that wasn't a very informative start, so rather than keep you waiting, let's move straight onto a topic I've discussed recently with some other QA folk in the industry.
And boom, that’s 500!
