Ensuring the quality of an unfinished object

Jobs as testers, which are often considered merely as a gateway to careers in the industry and are relegated to a marginal and subaltern status, have not yet been the subject of much field work. Testers’ work is based on exploration and information codification practices regarding the failures of intermediate versions of the product (“builds”), with an aim to ensure the final version’s stability and quality. Yet, while it is paramount to the coordination and accomplishment of many steps in the production process, this contribution to the worlds of video game creation is largely invisible. Our study in a product development studio allows us to bring to light the ways in which these actors produce digital artefacts though a sensitive and intimate relationship with the product, and play a structuring role in the articulation between the contributions and technical objects of this network.