Survey determines average U.S. game developer income

by Griffin McElroy on Apr 13th 2010 11:30AM

The results of Game Developer Research's ninth annual Game Developer Salary Survey recently surfaced, giving us our yearly reminder that we're totally on the wrong side of this industry. According to the survey, the average "American mainstream videogame industry salary" is $75,573. Over here at Joystiq Inc., we're only pulling in $75,571.42. We're thinking about going on strike until parity is achieved.

The survey also breaks down average salaries for the different disciplines which compose our beloved industry. The highest-paid gaming professionals are PR and marketing executives, earning $129,167 a year on average. The lowest head on the totem pole is that of the QA tester, whose average annual income is $37,905. We're betting the recent winner of The Tester wishes he had chosen to participate in The Public Relations Professional instead.

Source

Tags: game-developer-research, game-developer-salary-survey, income, industry, marketing, money, pr, qa, salary, survey

Reader Comments (64)

wow...

Spam is getting innovative...

next they will using the Picard facepalm

as long as the QA guys have the opportunity to move up then they will be good.....in 10 years

WTF!?! I was replying to a spam comment with a finger in it....and it was deleted while I was commenting and yet somehow my comment got attached to my comment....strange indeed

I'm actually starting a QA job at a gaming company in a few weeks. Lets hope it doesn't take me 10 years to move up. Haha.

I have a little software testing experience under my belt, but I still won't be making a ton of cash.

Brodo....EFFIN DIE ALREADY!!!

I'd consider the perk of expenses-paid trips to places like E3, PAX, GamesCom, TGS, and GDC to make up the difference...

Haha! No.

I don't think it's super awesome fun time for them. Besides, it's not like the whole dev team goes, only key people & the PR dude.

I was talking about the Joystiq staff. I thought that was rather obvious.

Yeah but down they all pay their own way for these things to keep their journalistic integrity?

Trips to E3 have been known to pay the bills

/s

38k still isn't bad. I'm actually surprised by the numbers here.

When you consider where most game studios are located and the cost of living in those cities $38K is pretty paltry. Then again, you're getting paid to sit around play games all day...quid pro quo.

$38k is around what? $3k a month?

Even for California that's a fairly good salary. I mean in LA/Burbank rent for an apartment is only around $1,200-$1,800 a month (some of which includes indoor gyms, jacuzzi, swimming pools, etc.).

So $3,000-$1,500 stills leaves you with half of your check for groceries, games, and other bills (in that order).

Heh, you make me laugh when you say $38k is paltry. I make $25k after taxes and I live in the Boston area and I have a nice apartment and eat well and I still save a bunch of money each month. It's called not living beyond your means and actually giving a damn about saving money and not buying expensive shit all the time.

Yeah, I would love nearly 40k a year.

if you're on the west coast, then 38 isnt much, considering you have taxes, 6% going to social security(by law), which isnt going to leave you with 1500 every two weeks. Combine that with rent, utilities, food, and miscellaneous things that come up. It's not much at all. Do you have loans from school too? then you might as well forget about having some fun for awhile.

I'm also betting that the 38k is before taxes, so don't forget to subtract 27 - 33%, bringing your yearly income to around 27.74 to 25.46. So, that's about 1067 to 979 dollars a pay period (there are 52 weeks in a year, assuming that they are paid once every other wek. There will be 2 months where they will receive an extra pay period). That's gonna be pretty tough to survive in S. Cal. on.

I live in Manhattan, smack dab in New York City. & I know plenty of people making less than that and still living fine. I work real estate, so I've gotten to see a lot of people's income in the city. They live fine, staying away from certain expensive neighborhoods.

Dude if you guys are really getting paid $75,571.42 a year, tell me when there's a job opening...

I think thats what They get as a whole divided by 15....

haha

$129,000?! Wow, It's crazy they get paid more than the people making the games.

well they have to make the game look appealing to people who have to decide whether or not to buy food for the week, or a game.....and that takes some skill

Kevin Butler must be loaded.

Remember It's not the people who design the game, program the game, or test the game that make it good. It's the people who design the box and make commercials. Those are truly the important people. Well them and the middle management who don't even know what a video game is.

The sooner we can get rid of all the creative types involved with video game creation the better.

Anyone trying to decide between a game and food... and it's a debate in their head, have got some seriously screwed up priorities.

You obviously buy the game and eat the instruction booklet. DUHH

@ Shagittarius - You say this yet think of all the really great games that never had a chance at commercial success because they weren't promoted properly, if at all.

Buy the game and eat the book?

More like, live off of ramen noodles so that issue never comes up in the first place.

Well, there are a lot of programmers (good ones even), but not a lot of companies, so labor supply exceeds demand, lowering salaries. Good PR guys, on the other hand, are much rarer, and aren't limited to the game companies (the same guy can work in any industry), so labor demand is much higher, meaning higher salaries for the good ones.

...please move to Cuba.

I only make $18k a year at my main job...

But I only work 30 hrs a week too, and I do side jobs.

30 hours a week?

BEING A PLANETEER IS A FULL TIME JOB...EXPLAIN YOURSELF

Hey, who do you think keeps Gaia off your back huh Captain?

She didnt give me these penile powers for fighting crime T_T.

JUDAS!!!

Hey, I was helping you! Saving you trips down a rocky vagina, so you can be free to rid the world of trolls and flaming fanboys.

Fight on my captain!

Heh, even QA makes a little more than I do. At least it's not expensive to live here.

Naturally, I'm sure that the Lead QAs are bring in a pretty nice chunk of change, while the lower level QA guys that have been there for 1-3 years don't make near the average.

From what that survey usually shows, after 3 years is when QA starts getting a much nicer salary.

Does Activision pay theirs in peanuts?

Then later they sue them for all their peanuts back plus cashews in damages.

Only to be hit with a countersuit for macadamages and beech of contract.

$1000? What are you doing, mowing lawns and shoveling snow?

:p

I pay him $20 a week to do me....uhhhh....some errands...around my pants...I mean my home.

"Over here at Joystiq Inc., we're only pulling in $75,571.42."

That's between three or four of you, right?

I don't know... I've had a few years of experience as a QA tester at a few different devs and that number seems pretty high... I doubt they were including the average temporary full-time tester.

I was part of this survey and my salary was well below the average for my experience bracket for artist.

People can wail on marketing/sales, but look at how some of the best games have died in obscurity and tell me it wouldn't have been worth paying a room of suits a couple million to triple the sales figures.

Other than letting people know a product exists and is for sale I don't think it matters what you do with the advertising. Word of mouth in the game industry is by far more important. So the people that make the game in my opinion should be the ones with the big salaries, not the people with all the teeth in marketing. They can go suck an exhaust pipe.

Word of mouth doesn't always work. They can't remain profitable selling games to the core hardcore, they need some outsiders as well.

"Other than letting people know a product exists and is for sale I don't think it matters what you do with the advertising."

If that were true, do you really think game companies would spend millions, if not billions on developing these ads?

"Hey guys, I don't think ads work. Let's give 10 million dollars to an ad agency instead of building a working replica of our game's coolest gun."

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Survey determines average U.S. game developer income

Reader Comments (64)

Posted: Apr 13th 2010 11:35AM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

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