Good testers are hard to find, and what's even harder to find are good testers who want to remain testers. The pay is terrible, the benefits are usually non-exi

Good testers are hard to find, and what's even harder to find are good testers who want to remain testers. The pay is terrible, the benefits are usually non-existent, and they're quite often placed socially at a lower level than the other game developers. Finding someone who is good at testing and doesn't want to be a programmer or a designer is nigh impossible in the games industry. Even if they don't want to be a designer/engineer, they want to advance their career which leaves them with the option of managing other testers, which as we all know, leaves no time to actually exercise their testing skills. Until testing is treated like a real career, with architect-style career growth options, it will continue this way. Instead, testers spend a lot of their time growing their connections, internally and externally to the studio, hoping that a junior level designer/engineer position will open up. Because there are so many testers, it's quite cutthroat, so spending time at work "showing off" or playing politics is almost a necessity here for career advancement.