90-hour work weeks, free coffee, rad haircuts...working for Sega’s testing team in the mid-90s sure looked like shitty work.
Not that it’s any better now—indeed, in many ways it’s probably worse—but not even the thrills of this internal “trainumentary” video (via Attract Mode) and its glorious 90s-ness (Soundgarden backing music, Nine Inch Nails shirts, Seinfeld posters) can help shake the sensation that of all the jobs in the video game business during the height of the First Console Wars, this is one of the worst.
Then again, maybe I’m coming at this the wrong way. Maybe it’s not supposed to be glorifying the job. Maybe it’s just being honest.
This 28-minute video was directed by John Jansen, and filmed between June 1995 - February 1996 on location at Sega’s offices in Redwood City.