Game Developer Salary Survey Results

Game Developer magazine has released the results of its eighth annual Game Developer Salary Survey today. The data shows that the average American game industry salary in 2008 was $79,000, a 7 percent increase from last year’s figure of nearly $74,000. GDM attributes this rising number to “increased asking prices for more experienced professionals.”

At the top of this food chain are programmers, who had a median salary of around $85,024. Programmers with more than 6 years of experience earned 36 percent more money than those who had less experience. Artists earned $69,532, though 28 percent of art directors reported lower salaries than the previous year. More experienced artists usually earned at least 35 percent more than those with less experience. Game designers had an average salary of $67,379, down by about $3,730 from last year. Region seemed to be a factor in this vocation, with West Coast designers making on average $8,283 or 12 percent more than the rest of the game designers in the country.

Those in production had an average salary of $82,905 and was the profession most welcoming to women, with 21 percent of the workforce made up of females. That is more than twice the industry average. The discipline as a whole saw a strong $4,189 jump from last year.

Quality Assurance with less than three years experience (a group which makes up the largest percentage of this segment) was the lowest paid of the game development disciplines, averaging $39,571, which is about the same as 2007’s average. the number of female QA testers jumped to 14 percent, up 7 percent over 2007.

Sound designers as a group earned 6 percent more than they did in 2007, up $4,758 on average over last year to $78,167. The business field as a whole remains the highest compensated group in game development - with an average salary of $102,143 - and also receives the highest amount of additional compensation. However, salaries vary significantly between individual job titles in this segment, with experienced VPs and executive managers making the most of any individual section in the entire survey – at $131,085 on average and reporting at least 6 years experience.

image credit: Newsweek

Take-Two: The Cost of Fighting EA

According to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Take Two Interactive spent close to 11.1 million dollars to fend off EA’s hostile take-over. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, who fought hard against being acquired by EA for a good portion of 2008, presided over a large decline in the company’s stock price - well before the economy at large had a chance to put it to its lowest 52 week ever: $8.50. The stock, which rose to nearly $28 a share, fell dramatically after EA gave up on acquiring the company.

Shortly after EA walked away many analysts said that Take-Two had made a mistake. Of course, given the economic climate we are now in, that position is hard to justify: EA has had its own share of hardships recently and has cancelled projects, closed studios and - most recently - laid off over 1000 workers.. If not for the banking and mortgage industries, who knows what state both companies would be in..