The City College Brighton, NCSoft Europe, PartnerTrans and Skillset is piloting the very first Apprenticeship in Quality Assurance and Games Production - in other words: Game Testing. The City and Guilds are awarding the apprenticeships, which lead to a level 2 qualification.

The pilot scheme has already placed three apprentices with Guild Wars: Nightfall, City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa maker, NCsoft Europe.

The College now hopes that the course can continue with the involvement of other games makers - and is looking to 2007 for greater input from the industry.

Chris Chilton, Computer Games & Animation Manager at Skillset, said: “(The course) offers a structured entry point outside of the games industry’s traditional academic routes. The apprenticeship is led and delivered by the games industry, with the trainee spending the majority of the time with a company being mentored by an experienced practitioner.”

Four trainees were enrolled onto the pilot scheme, which has seen three of them enter into the QA team at NCsoft in Brighton for a year long work placement supplemented by regular college training at the City College Brighton.

Sam Watts, QA Manager at NCsoft Europe says, "Being involved in the shaping of the future Apprenticeship and mentoring the candidates allows me to pass my experience on to potential future full-time employees; or just be happy in the knowledge that they are able to gain employment elsewhere with a sound understanding of the fast-paced games industry."