“Testing is a good place to start in the industry”

would never claim that my experience of testing was definitive – there are as many types of “testing” as there are programming (well, almost). I had the good fortune to work for a developer with substantial in-house resources which made things a lot more interesting for a mere tester (i.e. designers looking for design feedback from testing, personal contact with the development team) than working for a publisher. I would say, though, that this summary of the utility of a testing job is one generally accepted by my peers: if you can’t code, can’t do art and have no development experience whatsoever, testing is your best shot at that oh-so-valuable “foot in the door”. Plus, if you play your cards right, it can lead to some interesting places (junior designers are often recruited from testing departments). Some people may get a boost from work they do in the pubic domain (i.e. the guys who did the original Team Fortress now work for Valve) but testing is the place to be if your killer mod isn’t going beta anytime soon...