This company will pay you $41,000 to play games for a year

midian182

Posts: 9,632   +120
Staff member
WTF?! Do you play a lot of PC games? Would you like to be paid around $41,000 to indulge in your hobby/pastime/obsession for a year? That enticing prospect appears to be on offer from a UK system builder, which is seeking a gamer to run its "Overpowered User Experience" department.

As reported by PC Gamer, OPSYS is a recently founded PC system builder from Stockport in the UK. It's looking for someone to play games on its computers, offering £30,000 (around $41,000) for the 12-month-long position.

"Instead of paying some ad guy £30k to promote the most overpowered computers in the world, we're giving you £30k to play games on them," explains the company.

The ad's wording gives you an idea of what OPSYS is looking for: "Game-Addicts only. OPSYS's Overpowered User Experience (OUX) Engineer can't spend the whole day looking up wtf gamers are talking about. You have to know. So, immediately have thoughts on the meta, the memes, and the best way to minmax your way to an easy win, you're right for this job."

It's also stipulated that there should be no trolls or clans, and it appears that disliking your parents could be an asset.

Whether this is a real competition or a publicity stunt is debatable. OPSYS has minimal, albeit positive, feedback, and the application process involves posting a 60-second video on social media explaining why you deserve the position and using a company hashtag on Twitter or Instagram.

What the job entails beyond playing games is unclear, though it sounds like promoting the firm will be a requirement. The full-time position is performed remotely, and there's no mention of it being open to UK residents only. Applications close on April 9, with the final interview taking place on April 12.

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1 year of playing games = 3 years of eating at MacDonald's once a day. That's how healthy it is.

$41,000 will buy you a nice coffin, when are you done.
Depends how long for per day, if it's 7-8ish hours its no different from an office job, and in my case, I do gaming on top of that so it's like 10 hours sat in a chair and combatted by a 1hr walk a day
 
It sounds interesting but not very practical since the games that put out "free beta's" have no shortage of people that will play them and report back on problems. Still, give me an address and I'll apply if they want a tester that runs a little slower than the average 13 year old .....
 
Sure, just as long as I don't have to deal with things like beta bugs because nothing is worth having to deal with that.
 
Not interested thanks. That salary is pathetic.

Where I live that's decent money. You could live modestly but comfortably and probably even afford a small house. I'd happily turn gaming into a job even at the risk of it making me hate gaming. I already spend half my time reporting bugs, finding workarounds for stupid design flaws, modding, etc - at least this way I'd be paid for my time.
 
The average salary in the UK is about £22k so it’s not pathetic. Most people in the UK get less.
Wait I have done some projects in the UK (Ascot and Alderley Edge) and they said the Average is closer to £32k. I'm not trying to correct you just wanting to get the facts from actual people and not some fudged up internet "statistics".
 
Wait I have done some projects in the UK (Ascot and Alderley Edge) and they said the Average is closer to £32k. I'm not trying to correct you just wanting to get the facts from actual people and not some fudged up internet "statistics".

You’re right, my figure is well out of date nationally. That said, in the north of England salaries are massively less than those in the south east and London which skews the national average. Most people in the north would dream of a 30k salary.
 
You're paid to utilize this company's pre-built system to showcase how well the system performs.
They want you to play games on it on a consistent basis so the company can brag about how well their system is and so on and so forth.

As a person working for the company, you would probably have to sign a contract indicating that you couldn't make any kind of money from wanting to setup your own youtube/twitch type channel. You're basically their gaming puppet for a year.

After talking with one of my kids' tae kwon do instructors (he had graduated from college about 2 years ago now and he comes into the stuido every once in a great while to say hi to the kids and spend a day with instructing when he's not tied up working) who took a job with Activision/Blizzard to be a game tester; he said after about a month of playing games over and over again and testing for bugs he was sick of playing games.

Playing games is fun, but 99.99% of people that play games aren't playing them non-stop as a full-time job. The few out there that stream all their game play only do it because of all the retards that pay to watch them play games (which is beyond my understanding). That's just a few out of the millions (maybe billions) of people that play games as their full time job. Most folks play to escape from reality for a bit, but they don't live to play games.
 
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who took a job with Activision/Blizzard to be a game tester; he said after about a month of playing games over and over again and testing for bugs he was sick of playing games.

The few out there that stream all their game play only do it because of all the retards that pay to watch them play games (which is beyond my understanding).
Any manual software testing job is tedious, games are no different.

So the fact that I like to watch streamers play games (not paying directly, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it for some) is something you don’t understand, but it seems you have concluded means I’m a “retard”. Do you always jump to conclusions about things you don’t understand?
 
Any manual software testing job is tedious, games are no different.

So the fact that I like to watch streamers play games (not paying directly, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it for some) is something you don’t understand, but it seems you have concluded means I’m a “retard”. Do you always jump to conclusions about things you don’t understand?

Nope. It just doesn't make sense logically to sit there and watch someone else play the game when you could be playing it yourself.
 
Wait I have done some projects in the UK (Ascot and Alderley Edge) and they said the Average is closer to £32k. I'm not trying to correct you just wanting to get the facts from actual people and not some fudged up internet "statistics".
The estimated median income in the UK in 2020 was £30,800 (source). The mean is slightly higher and the gender gap is roughly £10k; it also varies enormously depending on where one works in the UK. For example, where I work, the median income is £24,600.

Given the skill set and background requirements of the advertised position, £30k is very reasonable - it's not that much different to what I get lecturing in mechanical engineering.
 
That said, in the north of England salaries are massively less than those in the south east and London
Yeah, when I was there last I took a few days to tour the north and drove up to Carlisle. A nice town but yeah things sometimes got kinda bleak along the way, though being from America I have seen worse.

The mean is slightly higher and the gender gap is roughly £10k
Wow, I didn't know the wage gap for women was so big there. Fully a third less? Sheesh. I think it's 25% less here so not a huge difference I just wouldn't have thought it would be as wide in the UK.
 
Don't worry. They'll extend the pandemic to the next year. After all, every artificially produced economic crisis lasts for at least 2 years. This one probably won't be an exception.
Watch out brother, Q is in your yard. They are not happy you haven't paid your dues lately. They sent 1 alien and 2 Gubment talking dogs to collect from the Pizza Hut in town where they are guarded by Hillary Clinton and Mitch McConnell.
 
There are a s**t-ton of games out there. What are the requirements relating to gaming itself? What kinds of games doe one have to play? Who pays for the games? And, who pays for the system you use? De debil has de tails, y'know?
 
Nope. It just doesn't make sense logically to sit there and watch someone else play the game when you could be playing it yourself.


Precisely this; I can understand why video walkthroughs on YouTube have replaced the cumbersome Gamefaqs, but I have no idea why people tune into some random person live-streaming their pointless gaming.

I cannot comprehend why folks will tune into video game and watch the same game that hundreds of thousands are already playing, instead of just joining in themselves.

Highlights getting passed-around on social media. I can totally comprehend (uploaded by the person recording, but previously seen by no one except those originally involved in the raid), but it boggles my mind why you would watch hours of doing the same old ****, different day.

Is taking a crap now also acceptable to be recorded and shared online on my new Twitch channel? I want to get in on this new pointlessness on the ground floor!
 
Nope. It just doesn't make sense logically to sit there and watch someone else play the game when you could be playing it yourself.
A lot of people watch other people play sport they could play themselves (and may also play themselves at other times), is that different?
 
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