Salary/Wage as a 3D Artist in Germany

JudgeBreadd

Hey Folks,

so I am wondering how much I can expect to earn as a 3D Artist in Germany. I now that this is a very sensitive topic but I think that it should be no secret.  

I love my profession and my goal never was to join the industry because of the money, but in my opinion employers need to pay a reasonable amount since we are contributing a lot. We also need to pay our bills and need money to live. Our work shouldn't be free! I really don't want to flame or annoy people. 

My situation right now is that I am searching for a job in Germany and I don't know exactly where to start when it comes to negotiations and thats why I thought about asking the community. 

I heard that the overall life in cities like Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Berlin is pretty expensive. Especially the monthly rent for apartments in these cities is ridicoulus compared to other places in Germany. 

Coming from outside Germany it would be awesome to get some figures from german colleauges to get a picture. My focus is on modeling, texturing and I also did some lighting on three mayor productions, mainly animation feature films. I am still young, around 30 years old, and bring four years of professional work in the industry under my belt to the table. My portfolio, in my opinion, is good and I am adoptable to new production pipelines. 

So it would be great to get some figures from You guys (and gals). Please note that this post is not about greed. 

Prime8

I'm curious about that too, though I wonder if you will find an answer to it.
From my point of view the bigger problem in Germany is that there are only very few open positions. Many years ago I tried to get a job but I failed and I switched back to a different industry, since then I just watch the development from time to time out of curiosity.
Big mobile/browser game companies seem to lead the market, if you are looking for PC games this will reduce your chances as well.

Anchang-Style

I mean whats here in terms of AAA games? Related Design / Blue Byte, Piranha Bytes, Nordic Games, Crytek, Yager Studios. Yet in terms of Browser and F2p games, i can name 3 to 4 just in my own city.

lefix

Berlin is actually very cheap, although the costs are going up. But I'd say Berlin is still about half of what you'd pay in Munich, for example. Same goes for food, a 4-5€ Pizza in Berlin might cost 10-12€ in Munich.
So you could definitely life more comfortably in Berlin despite of a much lower salary. My guess would be ~2,5k€/m in Berlin on average.
Source: Working in Berlin

poly_bob

lefix said:

Berlin is actually very cheap, although the costs are going up. But I'd say Berlin is still about half of what you'd pay in Munich, for example. Same goes for food, a 4-5€ Pizza in Berlin might cost 10-12€ in Munich.
So you could definitely life more comfortably in Berlin despite of a much lower salary. My guess would be ~2,5k€/m in Berlin on average.
Source: Working in Berlin

Is this 2,5k after or before tax?
Just curious.

I looked through numbeo.com and they listed 1,950 per month after tax as average.

thomasp

i'd put it at around 45k in the west, more if you can sweet talk them, if it's a freelance-contract, you can impress with your work history or if there are some extra responsibilities attached to the job. obviously never hurts to shoot for more, especially with a foreigner-bonus.

JudgeBreadd

Whats the tax in Germany? Is it true that it is roughly around 40%? 

thomasp

it's not the tax, it's the contributions. http://www.parmentier.de/steuer/steuer.htm?wagetax.htm

JudgeBreadd

Awesome, ThomasP. That link helps a lot! 

Neox

Well in what type of production you want to work? There are only few "bigger" games productions left. The games that actually are making real money here are usually mobile and browsergame companies.
So yeah if you want a better salary, you should probably better shoot for those.

In Berlin we got King, Wooga, Bigpoint and a couple of startups popping up here and there. But i hope you are a 2d person than, because they usually do mostly 2d productions.

As said before, Berlin is a lot cheaper than for instance Hamburg, Cologne area, Munich or Stuttgart ( what is actually in Stuttgart besides vfx and ads?). But because of that, pay is usually worse than in the other cities.

What exactly drives you to germany?