You might be surprised to know that at least 2 of our forum members are former NEC employees!
UPDATE: Both employees have agreed to the interview, and I now (4/14/15) have responses from one on several questions. I will refer to her answers as R1 and to the 2nd person as R2, when I get them.
How to have Timeball of your life
A1 What years did you work for NEC?
R1: I worked for NEC from the beginning to the end. People were hired in waves to start, initially it was three waves of hiring, one group hired two weeks prior to the start of the opening of the helpline, two weeks later, and the following two weeks. This gave people a chance to learn the games, learn how to field the calls. Although knowing the games was key, we had to also be able to talk to customers for the TurboGrafx Customer Service line. Originally the number was a regular toll call. The idea was that if someone was stuck on a game, or needed help with finding games, wanted to know release dates, or anything relating to Turbo games, we would be able to help them. Originally we could not provide codes to games. Later we switched to a 1-900 format which required customers to pay by the minute, so then we could provide programmers codes to people who asked. The irony was that all the magazines at the time (Game Pro, etc.) printed them up anyways!
A2 How old were you when you got hired?
A3 You worked in NEC's Wood Dale, IL location, were you living there before the job?
A4 Were you hired before the launch of the TG16?
A5 How did you find out about the job?
A6 Describe what you remember of the interview process.
R1: The interview process was very easy for me, as they were eager to hire me (probably because I was a girl!) The uniquest question I can recall is they asked me questions about what Easter Eggs were, and what bosses in levels were!
Trail-Blazing Lazers
B1 What specifically did you do for NEC that was Turbo-related?
R1: My specific job was to learn games that were coming out, test new games (sometimes on e-proms or unlabeled CD's, play test games on occasion on the PC Engine and answer calls. I helped critique some of the games that were coming out before they came out. I helped look for bugs in games. I worked on some projects that were early in their development, and some that were already developed but needed tweaking. I was involved in the Play Tour that was a game tour where they featured Turbo Games, console play, and various giveaways at different venues to promote the system when it was coming out. These were so much fun! : ) Actually everything was fun! : )
B2 Describe a typical work-day.
B3 What was the office setup? (Big open room? Cubicles? Games being tested everywhere?)
R1: NEC at one time had two locations that I was aware of, in IL. One in Schaumburg, and one in Wood Dale. To my knowledge, all of the TurboGrafx Dept, including Marketing, was located in Wood Dale. All Reps worked out of the Wood Dale Location. To my recollection, there were around 45 Reps, give or take a few. No one worked from home. All calls went to the Wood Dale location to our call center.
Not all the Reps were passionate about the system. Reps had varying background, most were college students, but there were a few older Reps as well. Our office setup changed as the powers that be changed it. Originally we had open tables with monitors at "stations". There were only a few that had CD players on them, most of us had the basic TurboGrafx system with a TurboBooster to start. Later as more CD games came out, they upped their game with more CD stations. The monitors were NEC monitors, and we basically had phones with headset options. We could play games unless we had calls, but I will tell you some of the guys turned the phones off, or disconnected their phones if they wanted to keep playing the games. Some people tried to transfer calls to other Reps, just so they could play their game. I wasn't like that, but some of them felt they were there just to play the games or test games, and didn't really want to provide customer service, which was supposed to be our goal...to support the TurboGrafx. Just like we had hiring waves, we had firing waves too. We had employees that wouldn't show up, not do their job, or try to take things, because you have to imagine that thousands of dollars of equipment were just laying there...things started to "walk away". Games had to be locked up in a filing cabinet, and checked in and out at some points. Even eproms just kind of "walked away". That was the dark side of things.
We started out in this really prime spacious spot then ended up in what felt like a really big closet with cubicles in the end. I think I knew things were going downhill fast was when our Marketing Dept. in their infinite wisdumb (yes spelled that way on purpose!) decided to launch the phone number as a 1900 number. I remember them coming in to tell us this, and being like, we are now officially the Titanic, because it was such a bad idea! Who wants to pay $1.00 a minute to ask questions about a game that they already paid for?!!! Seriously?!!!! This is when our "Don't give out the codes" policy went out the window. A majority of our calls were "Give me the code to beat the game" calls. Back then 1900 calls were the in thing, so Marketing claimed they were being trendy....my thing was it was yet another attempt to syringe more blood from a turnip. We received less calls, and were less able to have that good contact with TurboGrafx fans...plus it just ticked everyone off!
To summarize...we started out in Neutopia, and ended up in Double Dungeons!!!!
B4 Did NEC make you take work home, and were you upset in any way by this?
B5 How many people worked in your area doing the same thing?
B6 Were any of the testers female?
B7 What is the approximate age range for the group of testers?
B8 Did you pay attention to retail launches of any of the games you tested?
B9 Do you remember testing any games that never got released? If so, what games?
Making sure it’s a Victory Run
C1 Do you know if every NEC released game got tested in your group?
C2 Did you get to test/collaborate with any of the third party developers? (Working Designs, Accolade, etc)
C3 Were each of the game testers assigned specific games, or did everyone get to play all the games?
C4 What measures did NEC take to ensure the quality of not only the games being tested, but also the testers themselves while on the job to ensure their in-house standards for game quality were being met?
C5 How did NEC train you to meet their in-house standards for evaluating game quality?
C6 Do you still have any of NEC's QC documents?
C7 Were you also testing for sound effects and game music quality?
C8 Did you have a nice audio setup for testing audio during gameplay?
C9 Were you expected to complete each game you tested?
Crew of Silent Debuggers
D1 Can you think of an example where a game was originally presented to you with glitches or bugs that made it potentially unplayable? How was that situation handled?
D2 How did you officially give feedback? Written? Oral? Was there a rating sheet/score system?
D3 Are there any particularly memorable Class A (soft-lock/hard-lock/crash) bugs that you remember?
D4 Are there any particularly memorable Class B (standards compliance) bugs that you remember?
D5 Did a developer ever really and seriously respond to a Class C (it-would-be-better-if) bug report?
D6 Do you remember any game getting released with known Class A bugs?
D7 Do you remember any particular games and/or developers as having to go through round-after-round of submissions to get a product passed?
D8 Do you have any memories of particular late nights trying to get a developer's game approved before a production deadline (usually for a Thanksgiving release here in the US)?
D9 Were most of the games fully translated at the time you tested them?
D9a If yes, were you able to provide feedback on grammar or storyline?
D9b If no, were you given any written translation to help with gameplay?
D10 Were you allowed to give input on gameplay mechanics?
D11 What was NEC or your supervisor's reaction if you had negative feedback about a game?
D12 Since NEC ended your group, have you been in touch with any them?
D13 Were you allowed to bring visitors (family/friends) to the office?
D14 Were you sworn to secrecy or allowed to brag about what you were playing?
Outside the Boxyboy
E1 Did NEC encourge feedback about the product that was outside the scope of your job description?
E2 What is your opinion on why the TG16 was not more successful in North America?
E3 Did you get to give feedback on the packaging artwork, and what did you think about it?
E4 What did you think of NEC's marketing strategy?
E5 Did NEC ever ask your group for feedback on marketing strategy?
E6 Did your group's feedback help approve or block a game for release?
E7 Did you get a chance to test games that were going to be released in the U.S but never came out?
What R-Type did you use?
F1 Did you test on a standard Turbo Grafx 16?
F2 Did you test on a standard Turbo Grafx CD?
F3 Did you test on a standard Turbo Express?
F4 Did you test on a standard Turbo Duo?
F5 Did you test on PC Engine Hardware modified to play US games?
F6 Did you test on any developer or custom hardware? If yes, can you describe what you remember about it?
F7 Articles have indicated that in the era before CD-R technology, the expense of pressing sample discs resulted in NEC using modified hardware with PC technology for debugging, did you use or see any of this type of configuration?
F8 Assuming only one custom hardware setup was available to the group, were you assigned shifts for using it?
F9 Are you familiar with the Super Grafx, and did NEC discuss integrating that system into the US market?
F10 Did you test hucards on EPROMS?
F11 Did you test sample hucards?
F12 Did you test retail pc engine hucards using a region adapter?
F13 Do you have any memory of how test CDs were marked (handwritten? Typed? Codes? Names?)
F14 Since this was before CD-R technology, did NEC have strict handling practices for sample discs?
F15 Did you get to test any Super-CD Rom titles?
F16 Did you point out hardware issues? (ie Using the 6' extension between the tap and console causes controller lag)
F17 Did you test games using a Turbo-Link with two Turbo Express setup?
F18 Did you test four and five player games within the group, how were those sessions?
F19 Do you know what language the developers used to write the games? (C or Assembly?)
F20 Do you know if NEC's development toolkit made a big difference for game developers?
Life in Fantasy Zone
G1 Do you remember the first game you ever tested?
R1: The first game everyone had to pass was Keith Courage....I HATED THAT GAME! It was horrible...You had to pass it before you could play any others. We had to pass games in a certain order in the beginning, because we needed to know everything about them. All the guys were beating it so quickly and moved on, but here I was still stuck on stupid Keith Courage. Don't get me wrong, I was a gamer, but this game was so aggravating! They promoted that it was this great game they were going to throw in with the system, because they wanted to appeal to a wide audience. I was dying because I just hated the game so much, (sorry Keith Courage Fans!), and just wanted to move on! So some of the guys were like hey you want the code to win....I didn't do it, but apparently a lot of them had, just so they could pass the game! Finally I won, and so I was so excited to get my next game, and what do they put me on? Victory Run! Seriously? Could I not be tortured any more? LOL!
G1A: SO, IT SOUNDS LIKE NEC "PUSHED" KEITH COURAGE INTERNALLY. DID THEY TAKE ANY CRITICISM ABOUT IT?
R1: NEC seemed to promote Keith Courage as a fun family game, basically because it was coming with the system. They had decided (to my knowledge) that it would appeal to most audiences, especially younger players. There was some statistic about the average gamer age that was repeated, however I do not recall what the actual statistic was. They were originally seeming to market it to that bracket, but I found through my rep experience that it was actually appealing to a different demographic as the games evolved in complexity and became more sophisticated. It seemed to appeal more to the hardcore gamers because of the games offered.
G1B: DID NEC JUSTIFY WHY THEY FELT KEITH COURAGE WAS THE MOST APPROPRIATE PACK-IN?
R1:I did hear quite often that Keith Courage was not a favorite from many older callers, and that it did not accurately showcase the TurboGrafx graphics or abilities. Quite honestly, as much as I personally disliked the game, I was of the opinion that most systems did not usually include their best game with their systems "starter pack" anyways so that you would want to purchase more games. I was more of the thought that it was hard to appeal to a wide variety of interests, so including an Adventure Game category did make sense, because if you think of it, if you included a shooting game or just a role play game, those typically appeal to a certain audience. Adventure games can appeal to a wider audience when you are trying to "sell" a system. Those are just my thoughts on it. I don't recall ever being pushed to promote Keith Courage by itself per se...it was just the game that came with the system. My personal opinion was that a better game could have been included, but looking at it from the marketing perspective, I can see why it was chosen. (That is about where my agreement with any marketing strategies regarding the Turbografx ends!!!!)
G2 Do you remember the titles that were officially available on launch day?
G3 Are there any games that you specifically remember testing?
G4 Can you list your top 10 favorite TG16/PC Engine titles?
R1: My favorite Turbo Games, in no particular order, are Ys I and II, Dungeon Explorer, Military Madness, Neutopia, Dragon's Curse, Devil's Crush, Alien Crush, Blazing Lazers, Galaga, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Legendary Axe, JB Harold, It Came From the Desert (even with all the glitches LOL), Splatterhouse, Sherlock Holmes to name a few. My least favorite is Camp Califorrnia for a million and one reasons...I consider that game our "jump the shark" moment for which I can go into another day!
G5 What was your best part of working for NEC?
R1: The best part about working for NEC was talking to people from all over the country, and playing games before they came out! I met so many interesting people over the phones, and I and a few other reps began to have callers that called for us....they were kind of like turbo "fans", and were excited to know what it was like to work there. I would get regular callers that would call me a certain day of the week, that would only want to talk to me. There were a few reps that had a following.
G6 What were your favorite games that you tested?
G7 What was your favorite drink/snack while you game tested?
G8 When "the boss" bought the testers dinner for those late nights ... was it ever anything more interesting than the industry-standard pizza?
G9 Any good Christmas Party memories?
G10 Of the group of testers, were you the best at 5 player bomberman?
G11 Do you remember the last game that you tested for NEC?
Working with the Lords of the Rising Sun
H1 Did you get to meet any of the executives from Japan?
H2 Were you aware at the time of the PC Engine's successes in Japan?
H3 Did you get to meet any of NEC's North American decision makers?
H4 Were you given announcements of PC Engine titles that were under consideration for importing to the US?
H5 Do you know of any of NEC's plans to market in Europe or other regions, and the fate of those plans?
Getting the Legendary Axe
I1 Were you there when NEC decided to stop support for the TG16? If so, how did they handle your position?
I2 When it was announced that NEC would no longer support the TG16, how did they break the news?
I3 Were you surprised of the announcement?
I4 Do you know if NEC disposed of games or merchandise when the closed your office?
I5 Did Turbo Technologies, Inc. (TTI) offer you or your co-workers a position in their California location?
I6 Do you know if any of the game testers took a position with TTI?
King of Casino
J1 Did you own/get to have a TG16 or games to play at home while you worked at NEC?
J2 Were your friends aware/jealous of your job?
J3 Did NEC give you game or mechandise freebies to give to family and friends as a marketing tool?
J4 Did you get an employee discount, and do you remember buying anything using the discount?
J5 Did you get to keep anything after leaving NEC as a game tester that was not released to the public?
Final Lap Twin
K1 Do you remember feeling as if the system would be able to develop a long term following that it has earned?
K2 Have you played any TG16 titles since leaving NEC?
K3 Since leaving NEC, what types of jobs have you had?
K4 Do you play any other video games? If so, what are some of your all time favorite non-NEC games?
K5 Are you surprised that people are interested in your story?
K6 Is there anything else about your time at NEC or it's impact on your life since that you could share with us?
