AlphaTwo00
Member
EDIT: Explanation for sample size and how it relates to $500
TL;DR - Surveys are filled out by people who are:
a) the reported income must be > 10K US and < 200K US
b) said income is sourced within game industry/related fields (so basically, you can't have a side job that brings in 10K and be included, the 10K must come from work related directly to the development and production of a game)
So in that regard, 57% of indie games by these people (who made a min of 10K from their work on games) made less than $500.
================================
So, while Game Developer Magazine is gone, the salary survey continues, and finally the 2014 report is out, it's an interesting read:
http://www.gamasutra.com/salarysurvey2014.pdf?_mc=AD_HS_LE_G14MRKEE04
Some highlights:
Indies, on the other hand, is an interesting story:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/221630/6_key_points_from_the_2014_Indie_Salary_Report.php
Interesting to see salary rise in general, but man, that indie path is looking scarier and scarier by the day.
Among participants, 6.5 percent were disqualified as not having derived their income directly from the game industry.
We also excluded cases in which the compensation was given as less than $10,000 USD, and the highest salary range was limited to $200,000 USD to prevent a limited number of outliers from distorting the true central tendency of the computed average salaries in each category. We further excluded records missing key demographic and classification information.
TL;DR - Surveys are filled out by people who are:
a) the reported income must be > 10K US and < 200K US
b) said income is sourced within game industry/related fields (so basically, you can't have a side job that brings in 10K and be included, the 10K must come from work related directly to the development and production of a game)
So in that regard, 57% of indie games by these people (who made a min of 10K from their work on games) made less than $500.
================================
So, while Game Developer Magazine is gone, the salary survey continues, and finally the 2014 report is out, it's an interesting read:
http://www.gamasutra.com/salarysurvey2014.pdf?_mc=AD_HS_LE_G14MRKEE04
Some highlights:
So here are some of the top-line statistics: In 2013, salaried game developers in the U.S. earned an annual salary of $83,060 on average , which is down slightly compared to last year’s $84,337.
Programmers continue to be among the highest-paid in the game industry. The average U.S. programmer’s salary in 2013 was $93,251, compared to $92,151 in 2012.
Visual artists are the people who make video games appealing to our eyeballs. On average, game artists in the U.S. made $74,349 in 2013, down from $75,009 in the prior year.
Game designers hold perhaps the most romanticized career path in all of video game development. But 2013 showed that their pay only outranked one discipline: quality assurance.
On average, a salaried U.S.-based game designer made $73,864 in 2013, down from $75,065 in 2012. For designers with less than three years experience, the average salary
in 2013 was $50,625, down from $55,313 the year prior.
Indies, on the other hand, is an interesting story:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/221630/6_key_points_from_the_2014_Indie_Salary_Report.php
Solo indie developers earned an average income of $11,812 in 2013, down 49 percent from 2012’s $23,130 average.
Fifty-seven percent of indie game developers (including both solo indies and members of indie teams) made under $500 in game sales. On the other end of the spectrum, 2 percent made over $200,000 in game sales.
Interesting to see salary rise in general, but man, that indie path is looking scarier and scarier by the day.