IGN Talks Games Industry Salaries

WeebMac writes "IGN has a new career-themed section and one of their first stories is about the earning potential available to those who make their careers in the gaming industry. From TFA, 'Beginning programmers, whether you're working on tools, gameplay, networking, audio, AI, or animation, you can expect to start off with a salary in the area of $60K with the potential for more in the way of sales-based royalties or bonuses or stock options depending on the particular company you've been hired by."

Comments

And that $60k goes a long way...

[realmolo]

Because since you'll be working 80 hour weeks, you won't have time to spend it!

As for stock options and royalties...yeah right. Carrot, meet stick.

Seriously, IGN is clueless.

Re:And that $60k goes a long way...

[iocat]

Testing usually is a way into production, not programming (not that that doesn't ever happen, of course).

Generally speaking, this article is not that accurate, as are most "salary surverys," where people typically respond with what they *should* be making, not what they do make. Also, he didn't note how long it takes (years -- your whole career, if you're *successful*) to get from the starting salary to the final salary. Nor did he note the salary disparity between developers and publishers. People who work at independent developers typically make less, but have more freedom and input into what they do, versus being "animator 957" or whatever, so it's a tradeoff.

Also, I didn't like the outmoded description of "marketing stiffs" or the cheap shot about producers: "...someone who's merely making schedules, managing the talent, and dealing with the annoying marketing stiffs." Yeah, that sounds easy, huh? Maybe he should try it! Obviously I came from the production side, and I would have liked to see some description of the differences in jobs between different types of producers, but I guess it was just a quick overall survery and not an in-depth thing.

Anyway, IMHO the reality of making games today is a far cry from the shots he takes in the article. If there is an "us versus them" relationship between marketing and development -- or between any develoment disciple (art and engineering, design and production, production and art, etc), your game's sales, sequel potential, and eventually your career are going to suffer. Good teams work together and while there's always friction, it's the job of the discipline leads -- and that worthless producer -- to minimize it. That's not to say there aren't bad marketing people, or irritating artists, or incompetent producers, all of whom suck and make everyone's life difficult, but there shouldn't be this default adversarial relationship there.

Re:kids!

[NotMyNickName]

This author is a moron!

Only the best from IGN.

Re:What I'd REALLY like to know

[RailGunner]

Assuming 80 hour work weeks, working 50 weeks out of the year, 60K works out to:

$15 bucks an hour.

Assuming you work 80 hours a week, and you get time-and-a-half overtime, you only need to make $12 an hour. If you're competent, you can make more than $12 an hour managing a Burger King.

For further comparison: Most contractors are able to bill for over $40 an hour, in many cases more than this.

Bottom line is this: If you're working mandatory overtime, there's a line where it'd be better to go sling burgers.

Re:Today 60,000 Tomorrow???

[rlp]

It's a great script, but we're really looking for something based on a video game

IT CAME FROM THE SKY!! THE MILITARY COULDN'T STOP IT. ONLY ONE LONE ECCENTRIC GENIUS KNEW WHAT TO DO!! IT'S TETRIS - THE MOVIE

That'll be one million dollars and ten percent of the gross please.

Convert that to an hourly wage...

[mike_the_engineer]

$60K a year / 50 weeks per year / 80 hours per week = $15 per hour

Or are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted that most of the information presented in the article is either false or hyped beyond exaggeration, IGN is not entirely clueless. Their motive here is not to write a fact-filled article, presenting unbiased information to a crowd of prospective game developers.

What is it, then? To make money. Consider two things:

-This article is geared toward adolescents, and continues the marginal trend within America of promoting questionable possibilities because, survey says: kids like to dream.
-Checking just above the article, one will notice the banner indicating "Sponsored by Full Sail" in so many words. What is Full Sail, you ask? An imitation private college designed to produced talentless chum at the measly expense of $30k. Per year.

IGN is no more clueless than they are poor, but they definitely hope to take advantage of the fact that their userbase is indeed clueless. But what more should we expect from America's biased, profiteering media?