Play video games for a living

You need mad skills to get into the clique that shakes down the 500 major game titles slated to hit the shelves each year. The life of a video game tester isn’t all fun and easter eggs, but it may be the best way to break into the industry. Once there, though, gamers turned producers find that scripting, game logic and making virtual worlds is a lot more difficult than fragging zombies. The hours are long and pay can be surprising low for an industry that is racking up serious cash and benefiting from battling console makers.