Pokemon Go players roast Niantic over Quality Assurance job posting
Niantic is advertising a Quality Assurance Tester job, and Pokemon Go players are shocked at the hourly wage being offered for the role.
Pokemon Go is by no means a game with a small community. Its fanbase is expansive and genuinely dedicated. From long walks in hopes of finding specific Pokemon to involvement in special events, players from all over participate in the features offered by the game.
It is hard to ignore the love and work that is poured into making an experience like Pokemon Go so valuable. Understandably, players have great respect for the people behind their most beloved games, and they hope to see them fairly compensated for their hard work.
Unfortunately, wages are not always fair when compared to what a company is asking or where the job itself is based. Niantic has advertised a role as a Quality Assurance Tester, and Pokemon Go fans are not at all happy with the salary the company is offering.
Pokemon Go fans shocked to see wage for Niantic job
Niantic’s job opening for a Quality Assurance Tester was advertised on Twitter in a post describing the role. The job location was marked as Los Angeles, California, a city notorious for its high cost of living. It was also stated to be full-time, open to applicants with at least two to five years of experience.
The detail that stood out to the public most, however, was the laughably low hourly wage that Niantic is offering for the role. Marked at $19.04-22.21 an hour, Pokemon Go fans are struggling to understand how the pay could ever be interpreted as fair.
When taking the job location, LA, into consideration, the salary seems even more unbelievable. One player commented that the pay is “laughably low,” especially “in LA of all places.” Most other commenters agreed, citing the sad wage as the reason for unresolved in-game issues.
There was one person under the job post who perfectly summed up the public’s response to the job offering in a Tweet. Expressing his utter shock at the pay, he asked Niantic if they were serious about the job, mentioning their required experience and the location.
Are they serious with this job? ALL of that experience for basically no money AND you have to live in LA? Ridiculous
— Kali31337 – Hear Us Niantic (@KnPokemon) April 28, 2023
Other players are replying to the post to express their frustration with the job offer in general, seeing it as “too late” due to the continuously worsening state of Pokemon Go. Fans from Oceania are discussing this aspect in particular as they feel they have been working the role for free.
Every new event or update rolls out first in Australia and New Zealand, meaning that players there must deal with and report on any bugs or errors. Fixes are then applied to Pokemon Go before it reaches the rest of the world, meaning that fans in Oceania are basically play-testing for no pay at all.
Hopefully, Niantic looks to fans of Pokemon Go and sees the unanimous response to their offered low wage. It seems that most players would like to see the company’s workers fairly compensated and are expressing this publicly in hopes that the beloved game will pay the great minds behind it well.
With a role like the Quality Assurance Tester job posted by Niantic, fair pay is especially important to ensure good work. No Pokemon Go player wants to encounter bugs or issues more than they encounter Pokemon themselves.
