What Game Makers Really Earn
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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well EA has a very interesting way of sueing minor companies and then eat those minor companies so that they pay them less and under the fear of getting fired... that's a cold strategy though...
XD
XD
That's a goofy chart... And its april 1st... Even if it is posted on march 31, can never be too careful ><
I saw a chart like this on a game designer magazine (who's name escapes me, at the moment) that listed all the main positions, their salary, and a rough set of prerequisites.
That, combined with what I discovered in school, made me realize that I'd much rather be a programmer than a writer or character/map designer. Still, it helps to know your way around, even if it's just a stint or two in the modding community.
That, combined with what I discovered in school, made me realize that I'd much rather be a programmer than a writer or character/map designer. Still, it helps to know your way around, even if it's just a stint or two in the modding community.
w00t, High five on that! *high-five*Megacherv said:
Edit: Also, I love the term 'Quality Assurance'. Reminds of a comic I read on DeviantArt about Game Testers: http://sleepdepjoel.deviantart.com/art/Game-Tester-I-90512581
u say they dont say much, but studying game def as i am there are quite a few places which do, there was a development magazine which released details recently, i think it was develop magazine...
always worth a look if your interested, theres some great games dev things out there to read
edit: Im pretty sure i read the average was around 32k for the entire workforce, and i heard u shoud get around 18k when u first start out in the industry, which would be testing
also, testing isnt playing games, its mor elike running 1 block into another 1 billion times to see if it messes up, nowhere near as fun as it sounds
also im going to shut up now before i bore people to death who dont care
edit 2: i wont shut up, just gonna say i was thinking £ not $ *facepalm*
always worth a look if your interested, theres some great games dev things out there to read
edit: Im pretty sure i read the average was around 32k for the entire workforce, and i heard u shoud get around 18k when u first start out in the industry, which would be testing
also, testing isnt playing games, its mor elike running 1 block into another 1 billion times to see if it messes up, nowhere near as fun as it sounds
also im going to shut up now before i bore people to death who dont care
edit 2: i wont shut up, just gonna say i was thinking £ not $ *facepalm*
90k for programming isn't actually top end for the field. That's average after establishing the career path (5-10 yrs). This is why it takes a special kind of programmer to do games.
It's much more lucrative to fulfill some regional PHB's dreams of an n-tier n-way configurable sales and marketing solution that synergizes collaborative potentials, and a contact manager. It just sucks out your soul, if you happen to find yourself in possession of one of those.
It's much more lucrative to fulfill some regional PHB's dreams of an n-tier n-way configurable sales and marketing solution that synergizes collaborative potentials, and a contact manager. It just sucks out your soul, if you happen to find yourself in possession of one of those.
Dude, $90k really isn't unreasonable at all for someone who's presumably a college graduate and skilled enough to make it into a very, very competitive industry. That's actually a pretty fair wage, depending on where you live. Hell, if you live in an expensive area (like, say, LA or San Fransisco), that might not be that much at all. Nor is that all that much compared to most successful industries. (And of course most of any budget is going to paying HR, that's the same in almost every company)
It's really a horrible thing for people to want to make a decent salary and make their games, huh. That's so awful. How can any company want to pay its employees a good wage for good work? I can't believe them, they should cut all their salaries in half.
Hold on to your change if you want. Don't buy games if it offends your sensibilities that companies are trying to pay their employees what their talent is worth on the marketplace. The rest of us will feel good about supporting an industry we're enthusiastic about and those in it.[/quote]
Actually I notice how quickly things are shifting from "they don't make that much money" to "well it's not unreasonable". I hate to point this out but a college degree isn't worth much today, all it does is give you a slight advantage over someone who doesn't have one. There is also a glut in certain industries like computers and programming, and have been since I was going to college a long time ago. What's more people with equal amounts of skill and training are not making $90k a year. I had a job where I risked getting shot at or beaten up and I didn't make that amount of money.
Now generally I wouldn't care, and agree with you about "supporting an industry that makes products I love", if it wasn't for the fact that we as consumers are being abused. All those complaints about DLC and how it's handled, and the industry nickel and diming us, never mind the coordinated price hike from $50 to $60 and people jonesing for a hike from $60 to $70, not to mention the whole issue of digital downloads which according to 1C is motivated by a massive increase in profits (none of which cooresponds to lower prices for us consumers).
All of this is justified by "well games are so much more expensive to develop nowadays", what is making them expensive is Game Developers driving Ferraris (as per the article title, though I doubt it's literal). I do tend to think that at one time the rate of pay quoted by you and other articles WAS accurate, and the industry likes to present itself that way so it doesn't seem like we're being gouged and all of these money grab schemes can be presented as nessecity rather than greed (it's typical of a lot of industries to do similar things).
The point is, does it REALLY need to take these massive budgets to make these games, or is it developers demanding increasingl extravagant lifestyles and then passing the cost onto us "gullible" consumers?
As I said before, I'm all for capitolism, but I also believe it's balanced by consumers going "hold on, wait a second, you expect me to pay for WHAT?!?!?".
It's not an issue of me individually boycotting games, but rather a belief that gamers should ourselves start putting massive pressure on the industry, spawn our own consumer watchdog groups, and otherwise represent our own interests to keep games affordable. Price gouging in other industries has been successfully "checked" by similar behavior before.
What's more I believe that if the game industry is going to coordinate (which I have issues with on another level entirely, but it's another discussion) they could also do things like agree on a general "Cap" for what people in specific positions are going to be allowed to make. Heck, many industries have one (the casinos I worked for did). That way one company won't risk simply having all their employees go elsewhere since nobody will be paying
massive wages for minimal work.
Generally speaking, slice what these guys are making in half accross the board, which will slice game development budgets in half, and then also if we watch things carefully will cause games to also have prices sliced in half.
Now I understand you (John Funk) have your own perspective and motivations on these things, but I don't think I'm being any more unreasonable than consumers who have complained about any other industry doing similar things through the years.
I mean think carefully about this: Modern Warfare 2 might be a great looking game and all, but do you REALLY think that result should have cost half a billion dollars? That's more money than many developing nations probably make in a year. You could probably train and equip enough soldiers to conquer one of those developing nations for that price as well.
Ahh well, opinions vary. The bottom line is that when people try and justify some of this DLC and unlocking things already on a disk for extra money as "nessicary due to rising game development costs" it makes me cast a careful eye on why those development costs are so ginormous. In general it seems to be misdirection with them basically saying "we're not greedy, it's just we're greedy", defended largely by the fact that these guys aren't releasing their books to the public and most people probably don't think about how much of these budgets go into the pockets of the human resources.
It's really a horrible thing for people to want to make a decent salary and make their games, huh. That's so awful. How can any company want to pay its employees a good wage for good work? I can't believe them, they should cut all their salaries in half.
Hold on to your change if you want. Don't buy games if it offends your sensibilities that companies are trying to pay their employees what their talent is worth on the marketplace. The rest of us will feel good about supporting an industry we're enthusiastic about and those in it.[/quote]
Actually I notice how quickly things are shifting from "they don't make that much money" to "well it's not unreasonable". I hate to point this out but a college degree isn't worth much today, all it does is give you a slight advantage over someone who doesn't have one. There is also a glut in certain industries like computers and programming, and have been since I was going to college a long time ago. What's more people with equal amounts of skill and training are not making $90k a year. I had a job where I risked getting shot at or beaten up and I didn't make that amount of money.
Now generally I wouldn't care, and agree with you about "supporting an industry that makes products I love", if it wasn't for the fact that we as consumers are being abused. All those complaints about DLC and how it's handled, and the industry nickel and diming us, never mind the coordinated price hike from $50 to $60 and people jonesing for a hike from $60 to $70, not to mention the whole issue of digital downloads which according to 1C is motivated by a massive increase in profits (none of which cooresponds to lower prices for us consumers).
All of this is justified by "well games are so much more expensive to develop nowadays", what is making them expensive is Game Developers driving Ferraris (as per the article title, though I doubt it's literal). I do tend to think that at one time the rate of pay quoted by you and other articles WAS accurate, and the industry likes to present itself that way so it doesn't seem like we're being gouged and all of these money grab schemes can be presented as nessecity rather than greed (it's typical of a lot of industries to do similar things).
The point is, does it REALLY need to take these massive budgets to make these games, or is it developers demanding increasingl extravagant lifestyles and then passing the cost onto us "gullible" consumers?
As I said before, I'm all for capitolism, but I also believe it's balanced by consumers going "hold on, wait a second, you expect me to pay for WHAT?!?!?".
It's not an issue of me individually boycotting games, but rather a belief that gamers should ourselves start putting massive pressure on the industry, spawn our own consumer watchdog groups, and otherwise represent our own interests to keep games affordable. Price gouging in other industries has been successfully "checked" by similar behavior before.
What's more I believe that if the game industry is going to coordinate (which I have issues with on another level entirely, but it's another discussion) they could also do things like agree on a general "Cap" for what people in specific positions are going to be allowed to make. Heck, many industries have one (the casinos I worked for did). That way one company won't risk simply having all their employees go elsewhere since nobody will be paying
massive wages for minimal work.
Generally speaking, slice what these guys are making in half accross the board, which will slice game development budgets in half, and then also if we watch things carefully will cause games to also have prices sliced in half.
Now I understand you (John Funk) have your own perspective and motivations on these things, but I don't think I'm being any more unreasonable than consumers who have complained about any other industry doing similar things through the years.
I mean think carefully about this: Modern Warfare 2 might be a great looking game and all, but do you REALLY think that result should have cost half a billion dollars? That's more money than many developing nations probably make in a year. You could probably train and equip enough soldiers to conquer one of those developing nations for that price as well.
Ahh well, opinions vary. The bottom line is that when people try and justify some of this DLC and unlocking things already on a disk for extra money as "nessicary due to rising game development costs" it makes me cast a careful eye on why those development costs are so ginormous. In general it seems to be misdirection with them basically saying "we're not greedy, it's just we're greedy", defended largely by the fact that these guys aren't releasing their books to the public and most people probably don't think about how much of these budgets go into the pockets of the human resources.
I started at 24K with no experience, and that was ten years ago. Also, that salary doubled really quickly. But I am not really sure what is the norm. I'm just tossing out my experience.Angron said:
Heh.Angron said:
Software testing gets an unfair rap both ways. People who think it's a great job refer to it as "playing games all day!" and people who think it's a rough job say that it's "doing the same thing over-and-over, a billion times."
Really, it's neither; or rather, it should be neither, but not all companies view QA in the same way.
Good companies (that is: companies who accurately view QA as an asset that can save them millions of dollars) will integrate QA into the development process from pre-production and let Analaysts really shape the process; they are not (as bad companies would have you believe) exclusively tacked on at the end to find a few bugs before a game ships, viewed as expendable, generally ignored, and paid in peanuts.
I would say that a good QA is to a game developer as a good editor is to a writer. The writer has an idea of what he hopes to accomplish and a talent for writing, but an editor really understands the process as well, knows what the community wants, and knows how to get the most out of the writer for whom he is working. When they work together, and lean on each other throughout the process as complements, the end results can be really special for the fans.
QA as a career is filled with challenges and rewards, and the best QA have or develop skills in programming, writing, art, animation, sound, production, and so on. If you can find a good company with which to practice your craft and develop, then it is a very satisfying career field that leaves you with a sense of ownership and pride for every released title. Yes, there are moments filled with redundancy and frustration, but what career isn't?
Game testing certainly is too high, take 10k off the annual salary, and that's more realistic, and it's normally not a long term job, they will only need you for 3 months on average, unless you can get a fixed position at the agency that hired you.
Again, it really depends on to what you're referring. The terms "game tester" and "QA" are often used interchangeably, even though the duties are as different as, to use my prior example, an editor for a publisher -- and the friend who reads your book and tells you how good it is while pointing out a few typos.Outamyhead said:
I love how the comments on the page with the chart repeatedly say it's screwed up. Really adds to the whole thing.
Im actually surprised, i thought that the game designers avg payments were a lot lower than that