Videogame artists salary
polycounter lvl 19
I'm hungover and bored:
http://www.salaryshare.me/093b8e0e16ef41e8a5b6e7a248ebfd04
Let's get some salaries in there and see what's what.
http://www.salaryshare.me/093b8e0e16ef41e8a5b6e7a248ebfd04
Let's get some salaries in there and see what's what.
Replies
quit undercutting and ruining it for the rest of us!
And also because I don't get paid.
Oh man, when I was still in school and did the off freelance gig, I undercut like a sumbitch for indie developers in need of work, haha. Seriously, fully textured normal mapped character models for like $250. I would even offer fully rigged for an extra $50. But when I did contract work for an actual company, I would say I made a decent enough living considering the time I put into it, being single, and where I live.
I think that's the biggest discrepancy for this poll is that people in a high cost of living area will get a salary that is higher by default. But if you work at a studio that chose to establish themselves in a smaller city, what would appear to be shit, is actually quite livable.
I wonder if the 800k is real? It could be some owner who posts on here or one of those lucky few who got a crazy ass bonus.
look!
Numbers are bad named though, 10^6 are billions. Someone has one of the big ones? haha
hopefully soon I will be making a few $ Dollars as a 3D Artist but right now it's still $0
pay everyone in pc dollars.
on a serious note, lots of 40,000 and 60,000's up there.
If anyone wants some real data...
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryGameIndustry#Salary_Research
hahha dude where can I get one of those!!
$44,643
$61,667 3-6 years
$86,563 >6 years
Lead Artists/Tech Artist
zero responses
$60,887 3-6 years
$89,519 >6 years
Art Director
zero responses
zero responses 3-6 years
$107,206 >6 Years
The break down
17% had >3 years experience and made an average of $45,714
42% with 3-6 years experience, made an average of $61,898
41% with >6 years experience, made an average of $91,723
Average Salary for other developers
$85,733 Programmers
$70,223 Game Designers
$88,544 Producers Average Salary
$68,088 Audio
$49,009 QA
$106,452 Business and legal (CEO and upper management as well as marketing)
There are a lot more interesting facts, figures and demographics, along with some interesting comments that go over the good: and the bad: There is a lot more but I'm not going to bother re-posting it all.
If you're in the industry you should be getting Game Developer for free if you're on the outside looking in, it can help give you insight into the inner workings and you should be getting it. The Post mortems are great, so is their sister site Gameasutra which you should also be hitting...
I worked on this mag as a layout artist before joining the industry. Taking home and reading the mountains of back issues is what set me on the path to getting in.
converts to £37,814
holy shit. I'm in the wrong country.
Out of interest anyone know what the UK average and Canadian average is atm.
One huge difference is... in Montreal you will be taxed 45-50% if you make between $60-80k
Vancouver is roughly the same as California (32-36%)
And Edmonton (Bioware) is super low flat tax of 24%.
Washington St doesn't have an income tax but we have a mother fuckton of millionaires and thanks to that we have insane housing prices and property taxes. On average the west coast makes more money than the rest of the US (according to the survey) but it also has insane cost of living expenses so... it all washes out to the same standard of living, more or less.
It seems like California is a mess right now and very unpredictable...
It seems the cost of living is on raise in Texas but its still cheaper and has a higher quality of life along with more opportunities.
You're also more likely to be killed by an earthquake in Wash/Oregon/Calif, if you haven't been tracking the pacific rim quakes its working its way around the rim clockwise... Washington is due for a mega quake btw.
You can just call them up, explain your situation and they will tell you your legal rights if things go tits up.
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1339
:O
How do you get this for free? Is it only for the USA?
https://ubm-sub.halldata.com/site/CMP003061GDnew/init.do?&PK=
Edit... oops, Canada and US only.
Thanks anyway man!
Government of Canada has been handing out tax breaks and money to studios like insane to get more studios in Canada. Just recently, the government gave money to Digital Extremes. Something like 2.3 million.
The hope the CDN gov't is hinging on, is that there will be enough 'infrastructure development' in the video game sector, where it will become self sufficient.
The problem (as history has shown) is the second the subsidies are gone, so are the developers. It was a very poorly researched econimic plan.
It's pretty easy to make over $100,000 a year working at a mine. Especially if you know a skill like welding, or can drive heavy vehicles. But it's not fun and you might get killed in an accident.
Pff, not 24%! 10% Flat Rate!
For example I live in a small City in Canada called Terrace where I work as a Assistant Librarian ( I know! ) but I get paid $40k year and I have no stress, good work/life balance ,benefits, no comuting and cheap cost of living.
On the other had if I do get a job I in the Industry I would have to move to a bigger city like Vancouver where I would earn on average about $40k but in return I have higher cost of living, more stress (crunch), comuting and over all a poorer work/life balance.
It really puts me off working with games the only thing that keeps me aiming for a job is that I like doing it. My question to those in the industry is this. Do you feel you are in a underpaid/unstable industry and the main pay off is just that you love making art?
Yeah, artists don't get paid much considering the amount of money the games can rake in. I'm hoping for something to change in terms of I'd rather get paid in royalties verus a flat rate, or at least on top of a flat rate.
Wages are proportional to your contribution to a project. Being paid over $150,000 a year in games is not unheard of but that's for senior positions only. You can get royalties but they're also mostly for senior positions.
It's all about bargaining. How valuable are you? If you have no experience, then I'm sorry to say, you're probably not very valuable.
on a side note, my mind is blown that you are making that much money as a librarian's assistant, I'd hold on to that job as long as possible.
So I really want to move to Canada, when you find a games industry job, can I have your old job?