By Seth 4:10

It comes to you out of nowhere, the opportunity of a lifetime. A one in a billion shot to do something you’ve been dreaming about for as long as you can remember. Getting paid to play video games! What could be better!!! Just. About. Anything.

So the case could start in any fashion, let’s say a friend of a friend’s Grandma knows you like to “play those games that show on the TV” and she read in the church bulletin that as inexplicable as it sounds, an internationally renowned and successful video game company has an office in your home town! Not only that, they are looking for bug testers! They want to pay you ten bucks an hour to play their new game!

You sign on the dotted line and they sit you down in a conference table-less conference room lined with small tables, each stacked with the latest game system, a small TV and a VCR. Your mission: play the latest build of their new game, and try and break it.

Seems simple enough, when you find a bug (something like a clipping error, or a move that locks the game) you recreate for the tape, jot it in your log and move on to the next area…but there is no next area. The programmers aren’t nearly done with the game, they are just working on the basic mechanics, and there is nothing to do but wander a small corner of the game for hours. Suddenly it all registers with you: the dull glassy stares of your new coworkers, the aesthetically sterile environment, the cheap coffee. You’re at work!

You love video games; in fact you’ve spent hours trying to master a small section of a game like this a dozen times at home, what’s so different about this? You should love this! But hours drag by as you listen to the endless bitching of your fellow drones. Your boss yells at you when you’re goofing off by NOT playing games at work, and you hate him/her for it! They are paying you good money (for your age), but still you feel like you’re mucking out the fryer at the local Big Kahuna Burger. As you reset the embryonic game over and over and over you try to piece together in your head what went wrong

What’s the point? That work isn’t fun? Well you knew that, who doesn’t know that. But the feeling that something that you love can be transformed into the kind of endless drudgery that fills the rest of your life (and no, I’m not projecting, thank you very much) can be so disheartening as to make you want to turn in your system for good. Nah.

Just remember this the next time you’re looking for summer work: Be careful what you wish for; you might just get what’s coming to you.

THE RIDE BOARD:

CLINTON LEAVES FOR BASIC TRAINING

A Special Message from your columnist: Word has just reached me that my friend Clinton is headed off for Basic Training and possible deployment overseas. I met Clinton just before PAX 05 when he offered on the PA Forums a ride from SEA-TAC to the DoubleTree. This guy never met me before, and let me into his car, not knowing if I was some kind of crazy person (no comments please) or something. He even refused payment for this service, and only under duress did he except my small offering of cash. I wish him all the best, and encourage him to keep his head down. Clinton exemplifies the Gamer as human being, and I look forward to seeing my new friend again at PAX 06 or at least 07.

In the Xbox: X-Men Legends 2. Go get yourself at least one friend and get to work on this game. If your anything like me (gulp) after Nineteen hours and Twenty Seven minutes you will have had yourself a X-cellent (ugh, I cant believe I just did that, and I even have the option of deleting it, and I just can’t, its that bad.) time. And I won’t tolerate any Cyclops bashing, he’s the man, and your just going to have to deal with it.

Did You Know: A group of rhinos is called a crash.

This is my stop.

Comments? Questions? E-mail me at seth410@gamertransit.com. Complaints? Put it under your pillow and the Complaint Fairy will bring it to me, I promise. Back of the Bus is © 2005 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.