Hey Sonic fans, we’ve got a special treat for you – a fanart contest that will put your art in a Sonic game!

That’s right, we’re picking the top 20 fanart submissions and adding it to the Sonic and the Black Knight game, plus the winners will receive the game itself (once it’s released of course)!  We’re looking for artwork that best shows Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Shadow, Blaze and other characters (or any combination of one or more of them together) in your favorite scene from your favorite Sonic game.

Submitting is easy!  Simply head over to our Sonic Fan Art Game Gallery Contest page and sign up.  We do have some restrictions, so please read carefully to be sure you meet the requirements:

- You must be 13 or older to enter; we cannot accept any younger artists.

- You must also have a SEGA Pass account to log in and submit with, if you don’t have an account the process for setting one up is extremely easy.

- You must live in the US or Canada to submit on the North America contest page. Do keep an eye out for the European page updates, as this is a worldwide contest.

- We cannot accept any art that contains characters that do not exist in the Sonic universe. If you are having trouble thinking of what to draw, pick up your favorite Sonic game and draw your favorite moment!

If you think you’ve got what it takes, head over to the contest page and submit your masterpiece!

Best of Luck!

The next interview in the series is Demetrius G. He is a QA Supervisor here at Sega and has worked here for about seven years. Here is what we talked about:

Q: How do you define a gamer?

A: A real gamer is that guy that knows about a game’s release date way before it comes out.  They are very informed when it comes to release dates, schedule slippage, features that a new game is going to have. They are very knowledgeable about franchises. Someone who is at work all day thinking about going home so they can power up their system and beat the next level of the game they are playing.

Q: Are you a gamer yourself?

A: I would consider myself a gamer although I’m not as hardcore as I used to be. There will be some stretches where I go home and not play any games at all. But I try my best to stay as in tune with the industry and all the happenings of the industry as possible whether it’s by reading magazines, or electronic media I’m really big on forums and stuff. It’s really interesting seeing what everyone is talking about and what titles people are anticipating. I try to stay as plugged in as much as possible: I subscribe to a lot of publications and try to read them as much as I can.

Q: What kind of games have you been playing lately?

A:  Recently I’ve been playing a lot of Soul Calibur IV. It’s weird because if I stop and try to think of my favorite game is it’s difficult for me to do so I break it down into genre. Soul Calibur IV is definitely my favorite fighting game. It has come a long way from the Playstation. The latest edition really just blew me away on how much they can improve it yet not make it feel foreign to people who have been playing the game for a while. I think Namco did a really good job.

Q: Are there any games in particular that you are looking forward to?

A: It’s kind of hard to pick out of all the different ones that are coming out. But the Bionic commando upgrade is intriguing to me. Just because they’re basically reimagining the whole thing you know that’s like a twenty year old game. So I’m curious to see what changes that make to it to try and keep it fresh but at the same time, like I said with Soul Calibur, don’t alienate those people that played the old one; and not only that but it opens that franchise up to a new generation that have never even played the original one. I think that along with the remade version they just released on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network will get them set for this new one.

Q: Do you think that there are too many sequels these days?

A: That’s always an interesting thing to think about because you know if something is popular and makes a lot of money then from a business perspective obviously they would make a sequel.

But my thoughts on it are again, I hate to keep going back to Soul Calibur but that’s pretty much the only thing I’m playing right now. I think that sequels are fine as long as you don’t keep coming out with the same game over and over again but don’t make it too radically different so that the hardcore guys who have been playing it since day one feel alienated like “What did you do to my Soul Calibur?!”

There’s definitely good things and bad things about sequels but I think that if an intellectual property is popular and the company stands to make money from it then it’s a no brainer to make sequels but if you’re just turning out games every nine months then it kind of just loses its impact.

Q: So what is your job here at Sega?

A: I am a QA supervisor now. So that basically entails any supervisory role you know things like: look after our employees, generate reports for my boss, make sure we have enough people here to test our stuff, make sure we have the right people here to test our stuff. We have to work with our production department a lot so we make sure that we have the latest milestone dates for games so that we can plan accordingly, and just deal with day to day office stuff like meetings and sending a lot of emails.

Q: How long have been working here?

A: I’ve been with Sega permanently for I would say about six years. And I did one year as a temporary employee so seven years total roughly. When I got here I started off as just a regular tester and just kind of worked my way up to where I am now.

Q: How did you get the job as a tester?

A: Ok well once upon a time way back in the day, I was sitting at home and I wasn’t working because I had just lost the job that I had. So I was looking through the newspaper you know, job hunting and then I saw this ad for game testers. It turned out it was for Sony so I gave them a call and went in for an interview and then I got the job. I thought it would have been more complex than what it really was. I mean literally all I had to do was send them in my resume along with a list of all  the games I’ve played and then go in for an interview and give them a writing sample and then I was working there like probably the next week. It was awesome because it was the last thing I was expecting to see in the newspaper.

These days they actually blast it out a lot more. You would be able to find some on craigslist or even some other temp agencies use facebook and other social networks. So it’s really out there now but back when I got into it, with the exception of that rare ad in the newspaper, it was usually just by word of mouth or if you knew someone that could get you in touch with the right people. So I think it’s a lot easier to break into now just because it’s like everywhere. I mean I think it was just recently they did a study and found out that people are spending more money on videogames than any other form of entertainment so it just kind of blew up. I bet you if we go to craigslist right now we would find postings for it.

Q: What other jobs did you have before you were a tester?

A: I did security. You know just like a variety of security jobs like for an office building or something. I used to work for Southwestern Bell the phone company. I was an installation and repair technician for about a year. And I did a ton of customer service for SBC before that. I was also a freight conductor for Union Pacific. And that’s about it.

Q: So what kind of projects are you working on right now?

A: We’re testing all kinds of stuff. We’re working on Golden Axe for Xbox 360 and PS3. That’s going really well. We’re working on Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. It’s kind of hard to say what that game is. I mean it’s just amazing. Its different I mean it’s a little bit of all those different types of games but it doesn’t hit you over the head with just one of those things like it really balances it out and has a good story. To be quite honest I really think we have something with that. It’s just such a rich game. I think I played it maybe about twenty hours and I was shocked I was like “Wow there’s more?!” so I’m actually looking forward to how that is received.

FEARMYSKILL: Yeah I didn’t really think I would get into it when I saw it but once I got my hands on it I got way more interested and I can’t wait for it to come out.

Demetrius: Yeah when I first saw it I was like what kind of game is it? And when they said” it’s like a real time strategy” I was like “OHHH GOD” because I’m not a fan of that genre, but then I was thinking okay I’ll give it a try and then I was like “oh… Okay I can do this I like it!

Q: Is there anything in the past that you worked on that you are particularly proud of?

A: This is going to sound really corny and cheesy but I’m proud of everything I’ve worked on. I mean regardless of what I think personally quality wise about it I think that the fact that myself, along with a group of other people were able to achieve a common goal is great. It’s not like winning the Superbowl or anything but I think it’s probably the closest thing a normal person like me will get to that feeling. It’s a good feeling sitting down with a finished, retail version of something that you are working on and saying “we’re done”. I’m a big fan of teamwork and just working together with other people to accomplish something because a game can’t make it out of QA with just one person. It’s usually with a team of like a dozen people, if not more depending on the project.

Q: What is the testing process like?

A: Well depending on the game we will generate a test cases document which could be as simple as “complete level 1” but then there’s sub objects as well that could be like “complete level 1 without getting hit, complete level 1 without killing any enemies, complete level 1 killing every enemy, let every enemy hit you”. So it really goes beyond how you would normally play a game. Let’s take Super Mario Brothers  for example. It’s a left to right side scroller and you can’t go back. The average consumer would just be going to the right jumping over stuff getting mushrooms and the usual thing. But us, its our duty to make sure that you can’t go back at any time and make sure that each one of those destructible bricks that are on screen at any given time can be destroyed. And if they can’t be then we have to write a bug about it.

You know you look at a game and it has to be tested out in certain areas. It’s not like just “Hey I beat the game I’m done”. Now you have to go back and beat it again. And do it faster. And then the next time do it slower. Spend all your time running against every solid object to make sure a character can’t go out of world or anything like that. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of creative thinking. As a test lead you have to kind of guide your guys encourage them to think creatively as well because a test lead is not going to be able to come up with every scenario. And even sometimes I will have a tester find something that we didn’t have on our test plan and say that’s going to be in our test plan from now on. It’s good to see people thinking outside of the box and going beyond the basic instructions they are given.

Q: What is your favorite part of your job?

A: To be honest I like it when someone starts off in QA because QA is really a springboard for any job in the industry. To see people start of as a tester and then branch off into production or people who are art students that want to get into graphic design or something like that. So to see people branch off from this into something they want to get into and taking this opportunity. And it’s always better when I can kind of guide them in that direction like I may hear about an opening in graphic design and go and say to them “hey I know you are into graphic design. There’s an internship available over there you might want to check it out.” So for me it goes beyond just testing games.

Yea we test games that’s our job but I’m more into the people aspect of it as well because these are people who may want to branch off into something else, all types of people, like even musicians and people who want to do 3D modeling. For me the best part is finding out what these people want to do here and ask them “why are you here?” it’s a pretty straight forward question and I think everyone should ask themselves that  with any job. And on the flipside you have those people that just want to be here. We mentor them and maybe give them a little more responsibility over time like we have squad leads and assistant leads and things like that. The happiest moments for me are these. We have like three or four leads here now that were my testers at one point. To see them progress along with me is just awesome.

Q: If you could change one thing about the videogame industry what would it be?

A: Good games that don’t receive proper marketing support. A lot of times I play a good game and ask other people if they’ve played it they’re like “huh? I’ve never even heard of that.” Games like Beyond Good & Evil; there’s a whole bunch of games out there that are like what you would call hidden gems you know: Games that you and your homeboy know about but the majority of the gaming population is kind of just like “Huh?!”

Q: What kinds of things do you like to do outside of gaming?

A: This is going to kind of help perpetuate the whole “videogamers don’t do anything”. For one I’ve been working six days a week probably for the past year or so just because we have been doing a lot of weekend work. But when I’m at home I just like to watch TV, I know exciting, I play videogames every so often, but I like to watch movies and hang out with my kids when I can. Stuff like that. Nothing too exciting, no skydiving or anything like that. I’m pretty laid back and I think the reason I’m so chill is because we have fun here. You know some people have those jobs that just kind of stress them out so when they aren’t at work they are doing things like: jet skiing, and parasailing but it’s so exciting here that I just kind of look at being at home as a break from this. It’s like a zoo here and definitely not in a bad way it’s in a good way.

Q: Do you have advice for anyone that would like to get into the videogame industry?

A: Play tons of videogames. Play the ones that you don’t even like that much. Read every videogame magazine that you can get your hands on. Visit videogame sites frequently. And just be informed about stuff. Don’t worry too much about the technical side about it but also try to get a feel about marketing and things like that and franchises. Be able to call those things out and identify them. If someone came up to me and asked how to get into the industry, like I mentioned earlier, I would just tell them to check craigslist and job forums. And when they find them apply for them. And even if you don’t get it you’ll probably find more because, especially here in this area of California, there are a high percentage of game developers around. So there are tons of opportunities. You just have to be looking in the right place. And once you do get in there, your brain needs to be a sponge because there will be a lot of information, very fast. So try to absorb it all. And also don’t be afraid to ask questions!