Every day around the world, some gamer out there is thinking; "wouldn't it be great If I got paid to play video games?" To them, it's just a fantasy and they don't take the thought seriously. That's too bad because it is very possible to get paid to play video games. If you continue to read this article, you'll find out how.

Before you understand why anyone would want to pay you to play video games, you need to understand how the gaming industry works. The gaming industry is a high-stakes industry, with a lot of money on the line; $50 billion a year is taken in by this industry. A singular flaw that slips past programmers and hits the video game market can cause severe consequences for any company; for instance, mass returns, complaints about the company's lack of dedication, negative word-of-mouth publicity as one gamer tells the next and so on and so forth. The result of one simple bug or glitch can cost a company millions of dollars and cause employees to lose their jobs. It may be a bit extreme, but that's how serious the video game industry is.... One screw up with one game could end it all.

Here's how this type of catastrophe is avoided -- game developers pay video game testers to go through their game and look for bugs and glitches. They also pay them for general feedback on the game's interface, design, and it's overall performance & "fun" rating .

The fact of the matter is game developers and programmers approach video games in a very different matter than regular gamers do. Their main focus is writing code and developing the game's engine, not playing the game itself, which is exactly why they need video game testers. The testers job is to basically play the game like a machine and tediously go through all the different levels many, many times while searching for problematic bugs and glitches.

Video game testers can work directly with the programmers and developers, but generally speaking, most seasoned testers prefer to work at home rather than at a video game testing center. The company will send the games they need tested via snail-mail. The video game tester will then sit down and play the game using the instructions given, making crucial notes along the way. If a bug is found while playing, the video game tester must know what actions led up to the triggering of the bug and document those things accurately; he can;t just say "there's a bug in the game."

If you're interested in becoming a video game tester, I urge you to to explore the different resources that are out there. There are certain characteristics you need to have in order to get paid to play video games. Most of them are quite easy to improve upon, while others, not to much. Either way though, the benefits of being a professional video game tester are tremendous; especially when you consider that you're doing something you're passionate about and making good money at the same time.