Survey for Artist Salaries
polycounter lvl 10
Hey everyone!
I don't know how easy/hard it is in other countries to get a rough idea of how much someone can earn in this industry, but in Germany it's really hard to get some hint on how much you can earn (also experience related).
So that's why I had this idea of doing an international survey for Artists in the games industry. Of course this is 100% anonymous and no company related information is asked. It's basically 4 questions:
- Where do you work (geographically)
- Time of experience
- Job title
- Salary
I think this could be interesting for anyone in the industry, no matter where you come from. It could also be very beneficial for students and the ones who may want to start studying in this field. Of course it's also interesting in terms of applications (to get a rough feeling for salaries in your country).
I mean, besides the fact we all love our jobs and are working for the sake of art and joy, we also have to life from something
Again, the survey is 100% free/anonymous and will only last you about 1-2 minutes
Here is the link: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=yhvrwia3iaks5di589820
Thanks everyone for reading through and thanks for everyone who is taking part!
(Results will be shared here after some time of collection data)
I don't know how easy/hard it is in other countries to get a rough idea of how much someone can earn in this industry, but in Germany it's really hard to get some hint on how much you can earn (also experience related).
So that's why I had this idea of doing an international survey for Artists in the games industry. Of course this is 100% anonymous and no company related information is asked. It's basically 4 questions:
- Where do you work (geographically)
- Time of experience
- Job title
- Salary
I think this could be interesting for anyone in the industry, no matter where you come from. It could also be very beneficial for students and the ones who may want to start studying in this field. Of course it's also interesting in terms of applications (to get a rough feeling for salaries in your country).
I mean, besides the fact we all love our jobs and are working for the sake of art and joy, we also have to life from something
Again, the survey is 100% free/anonymous and will only last you about 1-2 minutes
Here is the link: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=yhvrwia3iaks5di589820
Thanks everyone for reading through and thanks for everyone who is taking part!
(Results will be shared here after some time of collection data)
Replies
The sample size is very low, though, and presented in a confusing manner.
Salaries are low in germany, because there are quite a lot of skilled 3D artists, but only a small handful of jobs available. You can count the number of AAA studios that need high quality 3D art on one hand, as an amputee, and the mobile studios usually make due with 2D art.
I guess it's more beneficial to get some information from actual workers in the industry.
Also it would be great to know a rough orientation for the different stages (junior, regular, senior etc.), not only in terms of the salary, but also in terms of the time it needs to get to the next level.
And I searched the internet quite a while without finding anything useful.
(also due to the fact that every studio handles it differently)
Also I guess I'm not the only one who's sometimes thinking about this topic. Therefore I wanted to do it in an international manner, so maybe it can help more people
Perhaps, but other countries have development hubs with various studios competing for talent, and experienced good guys are harder to come by, so they have to make an effort to hold them. Which is more than you can say about german studios :P
As a general rule, dev studios are more likely to work with outsourcing studios instead of individual freelancers. That is, unless you bring something very unique to the table and/or have a very high reputation.
If you are a beginner and want to dive into freelancing right away, I'd consider taking a studio position first if I was you.
im afraid you'll probably have to figure those rates out yourself. obviously you should first figure out where you are skill and experiencewise compared to the competition and then start with just as low as you can sustain yourself, while also taking downtimes between projects into account.
there is a lot of articles online about freelancing, and the theory sort of stays the same no matter where you live.
Hey there Felix, I wouldn't assume that germany is a unique bad case. You guys got it pretty good compared to most places in the world.
If a place is a development hub, and I lived in 3 of them, the experienced good guys are easier to come by due to the nature of what a development hub is. And any studio no matter the location has to make an effort to hold their best people, otherwise it's either a bad studio or the people are really no that good.
as felix said, unless you are really good, usually you can only get this kind of work in some sort of collective. individual freelancers are work for the company, add the timeszones into the play and the less likely it becomes, that you get hired as an individual. But it does happen.
Usually we get more requests for the studio but from time to time I get one just about hiring me. So i try to get a deal that involves more people, if only for the fact that i like to work in a team or strengthen the local market.
There aren't that many clients left here... By now we work more and more for US or other international companies and less and less for german ones.
Just a few years back this was the total opposite.
what has happened to the german market then?
then lots of bad running after ideas, mmo, browser, f2p, moba shizzle
a lot of developers died, in a few cases even in the most literal meaning
so by now most studios are doing mobile/browser games, the bigger ones of these are focussed on growing to sell out for a lot of shortterm cash instead of building a long term business. many of the owners do not care for the games at all it's just an investment. No clue if Crytek will be able to recover from the latest hits. Whats left? Yager and a few smaller places not doing browsergames.
Many of these outsourcing to southeast asia by now, not china, cheaper...
so yeah the market here is special... ^^
It all looks a little bleaker for freelancers than I had hoped though. Do you think one does have a better shot to get freelance work from outsourcing studios?
@FelixL & Goeddy: I've been freelancing as a 2D artist for almost 10 years now, so I'm not completely new to this, I just haven't had much to do with the videogame industry yet.
Maybe I should rephrase my queastion to "Does freelance 3D pay better, equal to or worse than 2D freelance work in your experience?".
in my experience in 3d freelance there is a big amount of indians/pakistans and other ppl from third world counties, who make a huge rate-dumping by making low quality assets for a small money. But if u can produce a good/high quality models and have good portfolio - then it's a rather good choice.
"supply exceeds demand" - that's how i can describe current situation in a 3d freelance.
im not sure about this since i am purely 3D and dont do freelancing myself (i work for an outsourcing company).
the problem with 3D is that your client pool is very limited, a movie guy can't do freelancing for games and the other way around, as opposed to illustraters that can go for movies, games, books, whatever.
combine this with the technicality of games and you end up with the current situation where the barrier for entry into 3D freelancing is very high, so you sort of have no chance if your living depends on that income, and you don't already have a clientbase, or have the luck to score a big contract that will keep you in business long enough to get some new clients onboard.
Besides the discussion going on, I just wanted to let you know that right now there are 48 people who participated. (I had to delete some entries due to the lack of answering the questions..)
Guess I'll wait some more days before I calculate everything and let you know about the results.
Thanks for your participation!
http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/sony-hack-reveals-croner-vfx-animation-games-industry-wages/
I guess these salaries are "a bit" too good to be true for Germany
Well, i think that statement is not very accurate for Germany. As a german working abroad and knowing both worlds i think opposite is true.
In germany there is not enough high qualified talent locally. Thus, studios like Crytek or Yager have to hire from abroad. Most of the really high skilled germans cant be kept in germany since the salaries and general talent around is usually bigger outside of germany.
I remember being the only qualified 3D artist on a talent fair in germany of around 250 people. I was quite shocked that there were so very few qualified 3d Artists. This may have changed a bit but Germany is definately not a hotspot for experienced or high qualified 3d Artists otherwise the likes of Yager or Crytek wouldnt have trouble finding local talent.
Just my two cents
The lack of cool productions is one of the motors of the brain drain, good people who are willing to move will go for the cool and challenging and better paid jobs.
But it is not like there is no talent here and a talent fair usually is something nobody attends to :X
Sure there is a lot of talent, most of it is just not in Germany anymore.
I personally left germany because the lack of good companies and the absense of a minimum wage in germany. The unpaid "internship" mentality that was deeply rooted in the industry fed me up. This was feasible due to "job centers" paying for the rest of the wage. I heard of well known companies in germany who have 80% unpaid interns (with work experience or a full degree) working for them
That is just madness.
When you are a student i think a games talent fair can be one good way to network. It was the programer to 3d artist ratio that shocked me. On the same fairs in the UK and US i attended it was full of artists. Much more talent coming out of game related courses.
And it also seems that nearly 80% of the studios here are producing only f2p-titles or mobile games.
I guess it's also a problem, that videogames and the industry behind it aren't that acknowledged in Germany. It still has the image of some nerdy guys sitting in a basement and eating pizza.
I mean the best example to show that off is, that the german award for videogames was moved out of the ministry of culture and media to the ministy of transport.. wtf!
They also should consider that the german games industry generated more than 2 billion euros in the last year, so no basement development here -.-
Conclusion: In my opinion the industry needs more financial help from the state (especially start ups) and also more acknowledgement as a serious business with a huge profit.
At least it seems to get a bit better here concerning the "free intern mentality"
PS: the financial aid for films in Bavaria ARE 28 million, the aid for games just 0,5 million euros. Still the games biz is making much more profit, still nobodys recognizes.
EDIT: Here are some first results out of the survey (PDF)
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=13532182932972618605
I agree with you there. The state is almost working against the industry instead of embracing it. However iam sure it ll change in the future just a matter of time.
Thx for sharing, but could you maybe use a less shady upload site, please? My antivirus is blocking the connection and it usually does not have false positives.
Then I can upload it there when I get home from work..
For everyone else: the survey ist still going, and please make sure to fill out each question and the salary is in $/year (not € or sth else) if you're attending
Thanks again for all the participation!
I'm not sure if it will change unless the german games industry will generate massive revenues. Right now, they are not poised to do it.
I'm not talking about phone games, I don't see how they need to be taken "more seriously", they can't really be culturally relevant anyway due to apples store politics.
It's more about AAA or at least AA type of games, and with the troubles Crytek have been through lately, there has been lots of brain drain and the future outlook isn't exactly looking rosy.
At least there seems to be some new/better understanding of the importance of the industry for the economy. Here's an excerpt out of some blog (quotes taken off GamesMarkt), unfortunately in german only:
Vielleicht wird die bayerische und auch deutsche Gamesbranche in wenigen Jahren den gestrigen Tag als historisches Ereignis feiern. Denn bei dem von der vbw Vereinigung der Bayerischen Wirtschaftin Kooperation mit dem GAME Bundesverband veranstalteten Kongress "Serious Games und interaktive Technologien als Innovationstreiber" schlug der vbw-Hauptgeschäftsführer Bertram Brossardt eine Bresche für die Gamesbranche in die (bayerische) Medienpolitik.
"Rund 2 Milliarden Euro hat die Computerspielbranche vergangenes Jahr allein in Deutschland erwirtschaftet. Das ist fast das Doppelte des deutschen Filmmarktes - mit einem gravierenden Unterschied: So stehen beispielsweise in Bayern der Games-Branche 500.000 Euro an Fördergeldern pro Jahr zur Verfügung, bei der Filmförderung sind es rund 28 Millionen - also das 56-fache! Ich erwähne das nicht, um die Filmförderung madig zu machen - ganz im Gegenteil. Aber es muss im Interesse des Standorts Bayern noch mehr darum gehen, das eine zu tun, ohne das andere zu lassen. Vor allem wenn man sich einmal vor Augen hält, dass es mittlerweile kaum billiger ist, ein Spiel zu produzieren als einen Film. In manchen Fällen ist es sogar teurer. Denn mit jeder neuen Gerätegeneration wachsen auch die Herausforderungen am Grafik und Präsentation. Medienpolitik ist eine Querschnittsaufgabe - deshalb sollte die staatliche Förderung ebenfalls breiter ansetzen. Die Mischung macht´s - das gilt nicht nur bei dieser Veranstaltung, sondern für das Zusammenspiel von Wirtschaft, Medien und Games-Branche insgesamt", so Brossart in seinem Grußwort (Den vollständigen Wortlaut des Grußwortes von vbw Hauptgeschäftsführer Bertram Brossardt dokumentieren wir in der nächsten GamesMarkt-Ausgabe).
Brossardt betonte in seiner Rede zudem, dass "Games zu den Schlüsselindustrien der Zukunft" gehören und "Motor für die Industrie 4.0" seien. Und weiter: "Um die Potenziale der Branche zu heben, müssen wir Existenzgründungen im IT- und Games-Bereich erleichtern und durch attraktive Lebens- und Arbeitsbedingungen mehr digitale Fachkräfte aus dem In- und Ausland für eine Karriere bei uns begeistern. Wir brauchen eine Infrastruktur, die Lehrstühle, Ausbildung, Forschung und Entwicklung gerade auch in den 'Applied Interactive Technologies' fördert. Dazu gehört der Breitbandausbau genauso wie die Kooperation von Hochschulen und Wortschaft", so Brossardt.
Sounds like it could get better in the future concerning financial help (especially for start-ups) and also concerning the acceptance of the games industry as an important business for a future orientated state.
Here's the full blog entry if someone is interested (in german)
http://knightofgames.weebly.com/blog/starke-impulse-aus-der-privaten-wirtschaft-zeigen-ein-willkommenes-und-notwendiges-umdenken-uber-videospiele-in-deutschland
Considering how some people here pretend they are hot shots and talking down on productions such as league of legends (yes imagine that, someone with no trackrecord on any significant internationally successful game production talks down on LoL here in front of an audience, it is unbelievable), i doubt there will be much of a change for a loooong time.
Then the whole idea that turnover equals profits... and the cherry picking of some successful kickstarter games... really, someone just sees $$$ here and nothing else.
If the guy really wants to make a change, he should start convincing all the people not to run games studios like Media Markt outlets: Greed ain't awesome! Also I heard the German green-card also pretty much sucks for attracting foreign talent.
well, anyway, good luck with that, Bavaria!
Regarding 3D freelancers vs larger outsource studios - I'm the Outsource Manager at Yager. When it comes to 3D artists, I'm usually interested in hiring a group of 15 or more artists at a time. Contracting a bunch of individual artists would be a serious pain to deal with. Usually when we contract out to individual artists, they are more niche, such as a UI specialist helping make all of the icons for a game. As an artist, I kind of wish it was easier to get gigs as a lone 3D artist, but given the huge scope of modern AAA games, I think developers will stay with the trend of trying to hire fairly large groups of artists, so that managing all of them is dramatically streamlined (because the outsource studio is managing them, not the developer).
Regarding Green Cards in Germany - Yager helped me get a green card, so for me it was super easy coming here from America. I think if you are trying to get a Green Card on your own it can be difficult, but if you have a job already lined up and the employer will get the ball rolling, it can be an easy process.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6FormOSaCkEMHlTX2d4TWN2QjQ/view?usp=sharing
@ Kwramm: the sad thing is, that you're propably right about it
Guess we just have to wait for the future and hope for the best..
@ Kebin Albers: ".. or if Yager or Crytek has a mega hit." Then do a mega hit at Yager please
Yup, games are games. The rise of Mobile and smaller developers is a global phenomena, you can actually ship an OK game that isn't a record smashing blockbuster and sustain your studio without layoffs. This is why you see people leaving the AAA space for mobile & f2p.
That's good to hear though. I remember reading that it's not easy to get, that many people don't know it exists, and that it also has quite a few strings attached, especially when you have family and plan to stay for the long term. I think some German magazin called it a pretty bad deal when comparing it to immigration schemes of other Western countries, like Canada, Australia, etc. Good to hear it worked for you!
I think it would be great if there were more German studios, but building up an industry like that isn't something you do over night. While there are indeed some studios which struck gold with Kickstarters or surprise indie successes, for most studios it requires hard work, dedication and good management to create something sustainable. A one-hit-wonder studio can be good to kickstart the establishment of an industry and raise investor interest, but you have to plan for the long term. And politicians aren't really in for that, usually... And personally, I'm wary of "tax breaks". I don't think that attracting locusts developers ("Greed is great!") is a good idea either. To attract young devs you have to give them the feeling that it's safe to move to a country like Germany, which, for many, isn't a prime destination - just look at Polycount at all the "US visa" threads. I.e. UK, US, Canada are the main competitors, and they already have a huge bonus when it comes to language.
If any, they should ensure infrastructure (check), education (check) and business environments, such as easy loans, access to investors and regulations (e.g. for hiring foreign talent) help developers setting up shop. Incubators where new devs have access to business people who can help with experience and knowledge would be good! I just remember Austrian Jowood, who, after being hailed to start a new golden age for Austrian game devs, expanded themselves into Nirvana in a few years, and it seems Crytek wasn't that much cleverer either with opening up studios everywhere.
What Thomas with Moon studios did was pretty clever, and I'm sure there'll soon be a pretty big hit game coming from the German speaking countries! Yet, that's also not the sort of studio politicians talk about - i.e. the kind that generates 100s of new jobs which gets them votes and attention.
Highest was $16,000 a day.
One was 20x faster and 1000x better.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6FormOSaCkEWHQ0bTR3NjhuN2s/view?usp=sharing
Thanks everyone for the help!
Who, in our field, can get anywhere near that?