US Video Game Developer Wages Revealed

Game Developer magazine has announced the results of its seventh annual Game Developer Salary Survey. It polled "more than 4,860" developers, excluding those earning less than $10,000 and those reporting salaries of more than $202,500. This enabled it to come up with an average figure of $73,600 (£37,063) for 2007 - this is up on 2006's $73,316 (£37,000).

If you're looking to earn the big bucks, however, forget all the tedious designing and making video games - unless you're one of the select few, you're never going to become wealthy that way. Nope, you need to get into Business & Marketing. The average salary here is $101,848 (£51,300) compared to $83,383 (£42k) to be a programmer.

It also highlights a few areas as follows:

"Programming: programmers are the highest paid talent next to high-end businesspeople, with an average annual salary of $83,383 (£42k). They are also among the highest educated group; 50% hold bachelor's degrees and about 26% have some graduate work."

"Art & Animation: artists -- averaging a $66,594 (£33,500) salary -- are also a well trained group, with 66% reporting at least a bachelor's degree. The percentage of artists with six or more years of experience increased to 40%, up 5% over last year, as industry workers matured.

"Game Design: averaging $63,649 (£32k), design positions sprouted an average $2,111 (£1,060) over last year, with writers new to the industry up by $6,000 to an average of $51,731 (£26k).

"Community managers for the first time, with an average salary of $50,294 (£25,300) for the increasingly important job function.

Production: of all the game development disciplines, production -- with a salary average overall of $78,716 (£39,600) -- seems to be one of the most welcoming to women, with 18% of the workforce made up of females. The discipline as a whole saw an above-average, though somewhat marginal $1,585 (£799) bump from last year.

Quality Assurance: testers with less than three years experience make up the largest percentage of this segment. Quality assurance is the lowest paid of the game development disciplines, averaging $39,063 (£19,600), and also receives the least in additional compensation -- although Q/A leads with more than 6 years of experience average a salary of $70,658 (£35,500).

Audio: sound designers as a group earned more than they did in 2006, up $3,474 (£1,750) on average over last year to $73,409 (£36,900). Interestingly, 40% of those in the game audio industry have been working there for 6 years or more -- more than the 36% for game design, but less than the 51% for production.

Business & Marketing: the business field as a whole remains the highest compensated group in game development -- with an average salary of $101,848 (£51,300) -- and also receives the highest amount of additional compensation. However, salaries vary significantly between individual job titles in this section, with experienced executives making the most of any individual section in the entire survey -- at $132,305 (£66,600) average for more than 6 years experience."

For more information head over to Game Developer.

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