Develop: One third of devs aren't satisfied their wage covers cost of living

by Alexander Sliwinski on Feb 24th 2010 10:30PM

Given the current economic climate, most of us go to bed praying we'll have a job in the morning. However, what's a job when you can't live off the wage? Develop's salary survey found that nearly 36 percent of developers aren't satisfied that their income covers their cost of living.

Of course, given the immense variety of jobs, locations and lifestyles that people can have, grasping exactly what that statistic represents isn't easy. For example, a Junior QA, scraping by on an average $23,000 annual salary, is likely having a fairly rough time no matter where they live. However, a studio head, making an average of $106,000, could also be struggling -- with a coke, hooker and ego habit. It's all relative.

Over 400 industry members from around the world participated in the survey. If you're a member of the industry or want to be, check out the average salaries.

Source -- Third of devs unsatisfied by wages [Develop]
Source -- Salary Survey: Are you getting enough? [Develop]

Tags: business, develop, industry, salary

Reader Comments (54)

Too subjective to have a poll this simplistic.

I can draw only one conclusion: 2/3 of devels have no time to spend their money.

just remember this every time you buy a used game at gamestop

and also when i buy a used car from the dealership? should we all feel bad when we buy used items? then i guess we should just stop using ebay now

*_*

You should feel bad when you buy used and it's only 5% off the price of brand spanking new.

meh

Cars vs. Games is a moronic argument and it needs to stop. Do you buy 15 used cars a year? Do you have a special card that gets you 10% off of used cars and 10% more when you trade one in? Can you get a new car used for 11/12th's its price a week after it comes out? Sorry, but arguing that these business models are the same is like comparing apples to picture frames.

What the hell is a 'used game' anyways? Unless the disk is scratched and the game is affected by it, then it's the same damn experience anyways and should not be worth *too* much less than if it were brand new.

My beef is with new game prices. Why do only 3 games (combined) cost the price of an entire console?

"Can you get a new car used for 11/12th's its price a week after it comes out?"

Err you do know that a car loses LOTS of its value the moment you drive it out of the dealership right?

I would say that yes you can get a new car used for 11/12th of the price not long after its released, maybe not a week but quite damn soon after its released.

before you make that statement, maybe we should ask how many of us are satisfied that our wages are enough to cover the cost of living.

Considering I have to pay $160 a month for crappy health insurance, and $204 a month for student loans I'm not satisfied.

I'll stop selling my games online, but you can be 100% certain that I'll only be able to afford 1 or 2 games a year. How's that for supporting the Publishers and developers?

I read @ gamasutra once that game coders generally make about 60k starting which is actually on par with a developer who works for business apps and being a business apps developer I can speculate that my job for sure seems easier than what game coders have to do. I therefore totally understand their dissatisfaction.

Also, I think when game developers say they dont have time to play their peers games, I think they mean they cannot afford their games since buying all good games is becoming close to impossible on a developers salary.

Well, the thing you don't consider is a LOT of game studios have "libraries" where you can borrow the latest and greatest games, gratis, on the company you work for. This serves a duel purpose. First, it keeps people happy. After all, how bad can a job suck when you can just grab a game off a shelf, check it out, and blast through it over a weekend. Second, it helps with the actual evolution of game design. When companies work in bubles, games don't march forward but if designers, artists, etc, look at what their peers are doing, it does bleed over.

Sucks when you can't play said games because you're too busy working unpaid hours over the weekend.

You know, here is a sad fact. I work as a 3D artist at a flight simulation company that is below my industry peers average. Boo hoo. Fortunately, the cost of living in my area more than makes up for it. The sooner these developers get out of states like California, the better off they'll be.

well here's the thing...companies in North Dakota don't have the same draw as companies in santa monica, or boston, or austin. You'll get more talent if you are located in a place that is desirable to live in.

At least they have a job.

yeah lets FACE it MAN alot of people are losing their jobs...

In other new, I'd too, like a raise.

23k a year is atrocious, wow. What are the job qualifications for Jr. QA?

Eh, nevermind. 23k is liveable. Now I sound like an ass.

i would be pretty happy with that for my first job ever.

and at a salary like that, i don't think you would need a degree (if you do, then it's low as shit)

Junior QA = High school diploma + has played a video game before. The second part is not really required that much with about equal computer skill as is necessary to fill out an internet form on Joystiq or use facebook. The hardest part about the job is its extremely boring trying to do the same thing over and over again in slightly different ways to reproduce a bug. When you do reproduce it, then reproduce it while a debug app is running and sending that data to the development team. Repeat, all day long for eight hours.

Really, being a Pizza Delivery Man requires a bit more work as you actually need to have a working car, a lisence in most cases and possibly some customer service skills. Agreed 23k US isn't that great, but, what can you expect with absolutely no education required? 35k a year max?

23k a year doesn't buy you the one thing that matters in life: video games. After rent, food, traveling accommodations, etc... (I put that in for all the 12 year olds who use "mommy's" credit card.)

I suppose a guy named Terminator wouldn't know that the one thing that matters in life is actually love. LOVE!!!

I actually made quite a bit more than $23K a year when I worked as a pizza delivery driver, and part time at that.

Some of the jobs I could have taken once I had my bachelor's actually offered less than I made as a pizza delivery guy.

@Courtney

Why is your name Courtney and what you said actually made me want to apply at papa johns.

Its $11.50 an hour, so its more than most retail jobs that pay less than 10.

My name is Courtney because that's actually my name, and I would recommend finding a Pizza Hut in a nice part of town to work in if you wanted to try pizza delivery, better money and better working conditions.

heres an idea, make better games, and then maybe ill feel more inclined to drop $60 on a title rather then waiting for your sh*tty game to drop down to ~$25 used

sorry kids, to me video games is not a charity project, you want my money, earn it

i would have said that in a slightly more polite fashion but you speak the truth

The industry as a whole has NEVER had such a high industry average of gaming quality. Not to mention the "value" for the buck in many new games nowadays goes WELL beyond what was once a $70 NES cartridge. I'm curious, if these companies have already met your demands to a point we haven't seen in the entire of gaming history, then how, exactly, can they improve? And do you hold the rest of your life to such insane standards? I imagine your bowel movements to be incidents of downright alarming disappointments.

Talk about being out of touch with how large corporations work. In actuality, even developers working on quality titles such as Bioshock, Dragon Age, etc don't get paid a lot. The majority of the money a corporation works goes to paying higher ups like CEOs and investors. The money doesn't go to paying developers. In fact, if a game does well or poorly, the programmer basically gets paid the same amount as almost no companies have profit sharing for their programmers. Get it? Your choosing to boycott a game that isn't a quality title might cause the programmer to get laid off and force him to work at another gaming company but your chooinsg to buy the game doesn't in any way increase his salary. Rather it increases corporate profits, gives CEOs big bonuses and investors a good return on investment.

IE. EA, Activition, etc are fairly successful corporations. The programmers? Not so much hence the disatisfication of pay. Seriously, out of the few billion dollars Halo 3 grossed, how much do you think went to the programmers?

Well, I agree and disagree. I mean, sure, make better games. But who can honestly keep up with the glut of excellent games we've been getting for the last, what, two years or so? I think that they're making pretty good games on a fairly consistent basis. But if I can't afford a game new, I wait. Most of them come down in price fairly quickly (Damn you, Nintendo!) and it's not like I don't have a huge backlog. Then again, I see your point. However, I have a personal code of game buying and used games have no place in it.

You're not getting voted down because people want you to think of games as a charity project, you're getting voted down because your rant was completely misplaced for the times.

It's not like there's a universal acceptance that games are subpar in general right now. If anything, it's the opposite. This may be the best era of gaming ever with more great games than we can even keep up with.

@Dr. Tea Bag

So you're saying ebay users only buy "rare" items? since when? i always go there to buy used/new items in hopes of getting the best price instead of buying it at full retail value. Also, my comment was directed at letherclad, which from my understanding, he meant that whenever we buy a used game, WE are to be held responsible for the developers low salary.

You, like 99% of the readers here are condescending of course... *sigh*

i wnat money

$23K?? My Ass! When I started in QA 3 years ago, I was making ~$15K and a year later I got a bump to $16K (both numbers before taxes) which lasted me another 2 years, well into being a Senior QA Specialist!

I'd gladly take $23K compared to my measly $13.5K right now.

A studio head makes only 106k? A studio head like Mark Rein or Todd Howard? Man, i thought those guys would be rolling in dough. Doesn't cliffy B have like 4 ferraris? Well, then again i do recall epic being generous with their profit sharing

Epic has 70 employees and licenses their engine to like everyone as well as make awesome games that sell heaps.

I would think that Epic are more of an exception.

I thought that seemed low too, but with only ~400 people in the survery, probably only a handful were studio heads. Not a great sample size, and I imagine the ones willing to respond to this kind of survey are from very small studios.

Epic is a pretty small company for all the money they've had coming in recently.

For instance, one guy wrote all the net code for Gears 2. ONE GUY for a major hundred million dollar release like that! (and it shows, heh).

Or, two thirds of devs are satisfied their wage covers cost of living.
Or, the majority of devs are satisfied their wage covers cost of living.
Still the same stats.

Shock news.

Hardly anyone is satisfied with their wage. Which is why CEOs who already earn $500K a year will happily take another couple of million in bonuses.

The real news should be that 2/3 _are satisified_ because I would guess that's 2/3 higher than it is in most companies.

fact: one third of devs officially spends too much money.

My conclusion is that 2/3rds of developers live in California.

Er, 1/3.

2/3rds live somewhere they can afford to live.

It's too early for this shit.

To be fair, developing video games is a "dream" job for many people, and on average it still pays much, MUCH more than many other "dream" jobs like acting, or being a fireman.

The industry has no incentive to pay out tons of cash, because the supply of people who want to be game devs is much higher than the demand. Sure, money buys talent, but unless your name is Blizzard, Nintendo, Gearbox, Valve, or one of a handful of other AAA devs, top talent isn't really a priority. I mean, have you PLAYED some of the shovelware out there?

This poll is ridiculous. It is basically asking if the devs are satisfied with not making more money.

Why would anyone NOT want to make more money? Even though only 1/3 answered no, I am sure the other 2/3 would not argue against a raise.

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Develop: One third of devs aren't satisfied their wage covers cost of living

Reader Comments (54)

Posted: Feb 24th 2010 10:33PM calgaryaltahotmailcom said

Posted: Feb 25th 2010 6:46AM Dummy00001 said

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