Game developer salaries in 2010 tracked, fills us once more with regret

I've been set for a while now on working my way into the game developing scene. I've been working on a Fallout 3 mod for the past two years, essentially a new game in itself, so I know what I'm getting myself into, that's for sure. This article is definitely appreciated!

money, money, money, moooonay...

Wow, I had no idea QA guys made so much. I thought it was like, 15,000 a year, not 50,000 a year! Geez, I'm going to college for programming, but if i can get $50,000 a year for filing bug reports I might just drop out!

Here's a dollar.

http://www.marshu.com/articles/images-website/articles/presidents-on-us-paper-money/one-dollar-bill-large.jpg

Go buy something to drink while you're questioning.

I might start college over for this.

In other news, the increase in indie developer wages is almost entirely due to Notch making $holyshit off of Minecraft.

I would think that these days range is more important than average. People want to know what their salary might start off as and what their salary could potentially be. Not necessarily an average that could be skewed either way by outliers.

Meanwhile...Bobby Kotick's greedy ass made 6 gagillion dollars last quarter. But of course he is still bitching that it isn't enough, so COD map packs are now increasing to $30 per pack so he can buy a unicorn.

@kgoo867 - Some along the production chain make less money. Junior developers, for instance, as well as voice actors, script writers, etc.

Never has my decision to go for a business degree instead of a CS degree been more clearly vindicated. I could have busted my ass for four years, learning advanced math that had NOTHING to do with 3D modelling, or many other video game related positions, just to make less than the person managing the operation. Sometimes it seems like there is more money to be made marketing and managing games than there is in actually creating them.

(I've got a ton of respect for anyone that did go the CS route. I'm terrible enough at damned algebra, much less trig or calc. I don't think I could have passed those classes even if I paid for a tutor and spent literally all day every day drilling)

@kgoo867

One thing not mentioned is job stability. How many of these guys have a steady full time position, not a contract one? All but the core group of devs I assume go through series of hirings and layoffs between phases of projects, and do not necessarily have a job all parts of the year. Sort of like the average contract electrician or millwright -- I've talked to some of those guys who gloat about easy 100k+ pay, but that's also hugely dependent on them having a job to go to. That was before the whole 2008 stock crash, after which a lot of construction jobs came to a standstill. Doubt many of those guys are still singing the same song.

This is the second gaming website I've read that has reported this news as if it were bad news. The rising salaries are actually quite good for the games industry, believe it or not.

> "Indie developers saw a year-to-year increase of around $6,000, bringing their average wages up to $26,780"

What happens if you remove Notch from the Indie developer pool? :)

@kgoo867 - I go to a pretty good business school. Still though, it is obviously often more about who you know than what you know, in a lot of fields. You could be the best programmer in the world, but if the studio heads boss has a friend in need of a job, you know which one of you is getting hired.

It wasn't just the unnecessary math that kept me from a CS degree: It was the knowledge that my entire career would have the specter of outsourcing hanging over it. You can't outsource a manager (well...you could try I guess...) or a PR guy, or any of the other fields that a generic B.A can get you into. It's a pretty good pre-law degree as well (or it will be, when I finally finish it) should I choose to go that route.

I really do have a lot of respect for anyone that stuck out a CS degree, but I don't regret my decision. My only regret is that I couldn't get a degree saying I know how to create games without also learning how to do advanced math that never would have applied to my field. That predicament seems to have gotten better in the three years since I began college (my school didn't even have a CS in video game development at the time) as more universities figure out what game developers actually need in a graduate (that isn't going to be a programmer)

By the way, I'm always shocked by the numbers I see for game developers and developers in general since I work in the industry and have never earned that much. I wonder if these are skewed by San Francisco and New York where the cost of living is much higher. I also wonder what the average number of hours worked per week is for game developers.

Additionally, I noticed that much of the salary gains were earning-back declines in salary seen in 2009.

The 2009 survey had "an average American game industry salary in 2008 of $79,000", " programmers .. an average annual salary of $85,024.".

The 2010 survey had ""an average American game industry salary in 2008 of $75,573", " programmers .. an average annual salary of $80,320."

The 2010 survey had ""an average American game industry salary in 2008 of $80,817", " programmers .. an average annual salary of $85,733."

Compared to 2008, developer salaries over the past two years have increased by between 0.5% and 1.0% per year (i.e. less than inflation).

@BananaBoat What kind of degree are you getting specifically Banana? And at what school? I'm a cs major, and while I'm not having the kind of trouble you're dreading, yet anyway, I wonder if a business degree for games wouldn't be a safer idea. Also, man, i've never even though about outsourcing for games, does that really happen? Never would have thought of developers doing that.

@TheDarkWayne - I realize that you probably won't read this (since this story is old) but I've just noticed your questions so here it goes:

I'm working toward a Bachelor's in Business Administration at the University of Missouri.

As for outsourcing, it does happen in video games. Look at the credits list for any major title, and you'll notice a lot of outside companies that are brought in to do work on the game. Outsourcing to other countries may not be a huge issue currently (though it does happen), but outsourcing to other companies (that will do it cheaper than in-house staff would need to be paid) is rampant. Instead of paying you a decent salary all year long, they can pay a contract worker peanuts for only the amount of time it takes him to complete the work. Obviously they wouldn't need to pay benefits, or anything like that either.

I'd fear working as a game developer in general. Crunch would kill me, for starters, but then there is the issue of being laid off once the game is finished (hopefully to be rehired at a later date, but that isn't a guarantee). It just seems like a never ending nightmare to me. I guess it is fine if you can get hired by a developer that doesn't treat its staff like dirt though (Valve, Blizzard, and Bioware come to mind).