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Game Developer Salary Survey 2011
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
As someone taking Softwarw QA...breaks my heart to see low salaries for testers.
Really really underappreciated and misunderstood role.
Really really underappreciated and misunderstood role.
GillianSeed79
Member
For someone with a degree still making $25K in an unrelated field, I'm envious that I could be making more than twice my salary now if I simply chose a different career field.
Of course, I concede that cost of living in places like Calif. probably makes $50K look like minimum wage by comparison to where I live.
Zoe
Member
Game QA doesn't really go beyond the mundane hourly work. QA in other industries is better (though still bottom of the rung).
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
man, programmers are rich
yurinka
Member
In our 60-70 people studio we have almost a 20% of females.
It depends. It never happened in our company.
Industry salaries here in Spain use to be way lower than the numbers posted in the OP.
The Dutch Slayer
Member
Problem is good stories about "normal dev work" never come into the media only the bad ones.
So everyone thinks that 100 hours or only getting paid if your game is above X% metacritic is "normal" for the industry.
If you don't mind, in what company do you work? I'm from Spain and I'm here now for Christmas, but I work somewhere else. Didn't know there were game companies that big here in Spain, besides perhaps Mercury Steam
AranhaHunter
Banned
Bottom of the rung how?
If you are an automation tester with unique skills, such as RFT, QTP, MVC model or a performance tester with RPT, Loadrunner, OCA certification, you will EASILY make 6 figures. If you add other things to your resume like 508 compliance and the like, you will make even more money.
It's all relative. Automation and performance testers easily make as much, if not more, than most developers/programmers. There will be coding required there though, sometimes all you do is code in those positions. From experience, managers/directors/partners always make the most money though.
Manual testing where all you do is write test plans/cases/scripts do not make as much though. That is true, but manual testing is boring as shit.
There's some bad, there's some good moments when you are a QA.
Every time a devs ships a bug for being too minor or that a very little number of players will encounter it. (It's still a bug, damn it, fix it!)
We did get champagne when Dead Rising 2 was over. Well, until we got Off The Record...
Every time a devs ships a bug for being too minor or that a very little number of players will encounter it. (It's still a bug, damn it, fix it!)
We did get champagne when Dead Rising 2 was over. Well, until we got Off The Record...
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Would it be in poor taste if I wrote 'but I thought it was about the art?'.
Would it be in poor taste if I wrote 'but I thought it was about the art?'.
Nah, it would just be ignorant
Making the games you (most likely) play take tens to hundreds of people 8+ hours a day for 1 to 4 years (usually) to make. That people needs to support themselves and sometimes their families, and unless they get paid, there's no way to do it.
Movies are considered an 'art' and Hollywood pays many of their actors some crazy amount of money, why would games be different?
Of course, if you're not happy with it, you could always stick to browser-based flash games. Most are done just simply for the love of it, and without getting any money at all
Say what? Surely, they expanded it, but back in the PS2 days (unless you thought the PS2 was dead... lol) most games were RPGs and action stuff targeted to males mostly. Hell, even some of the best selling these days are the same (MW3? Skyrim? Uncharted? etc...). Sure, we got the Nintendo titles which are targeted for everyone, and they are great. But saying women saved this industry is kind of.. wrong.
I was making $47k as a generalist with 2 years experience before my employer went under. I live in West Los Angeles.
I have not found new work in the industry in the past year either. If you have less than 5 years experience times are tough.
I wish.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Classic example of someone misunderstanding the role. There are testers that make more than developers.
The role isn't just 'playing games and finding problems' bit so long as people buy buggy games and are happy with patches (betheseda), testers will be regarded as expendable and extraneous.
Mr. Mister
Member
So what is it testers do that we are not understanding?
Boss Man
Member
Damn, I was under the impression that programmers didn't make that much money. I've understood programming to be sort of the jumping-off-point for software engineers.
Got a year left on my Computer Science degree (I did lots of programming), the news seems to keep getting better and better for this field. Now if I could just stop being lazy.
Got a year left on my Computer Science degree (I did lots of programming), the news seems to keep getting better and better for this field. Now if I could just stop being lazy.
According to.who?
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Sigh...again getting dragged into this. First trade-marks, now this.
Testers should be part of the whole dev process, and not just at the end when there's something to test.
Software needs a requirements doc that should be looked over for potential problems by a senior tester, who can also determine 'what' kind of tests to run.
At each stage, someone needs to review, create tests, and make sure everything remains on track. Coders aren't there to guide projects, they're there to build a component that someone more senior will integrate into the big picture.
Testers should be looking at not JUST bugs, but how something doesn't match requirements. Are there performance issues? Network issues? Stabililty?
A tester should be more like a scientist conducting experiments on the software. Proper testing likely isn't considered 'fun' because you're doing repetitious shit all the time. Why don't coders do it? Same reason you can't catch errors in your own work, you're 'blind' to them. Plus they're busy fixing bugs people find.
Betheseda, likely put little money into testing. Where were the endurance tests? Where were the comparison tests? Those two should've easily caught all these issues that gamers had. But the testing team likely never even tested in-depth on the triple and 360.
Testing isn't and SHOULDN'T be 'sit down and play game and let us know if there are problems'. It SHOULD be 'ok, I have to fight all enemies once and use every technique on them...and combinations of techniques...and I have to make sure the stats actually are taken into account...and that I can't dupe items due to poor programming...and I should be able to do every event out of order...and I can enter and exit areas without having a big impact on performance'
Now imagine doing that all day. You'll likely not be having fun. You should be there to execute test plans to find errors and not doing what you want and reporting whatever comes your way.
I would love to talk to the lead tester for skyrim and see what test cases he had before clocking him and telling him he either did a poor job creating tests or convincing the severity of the bugs to management.
Bah, had a few to drink...
tl;dr you're there to follow steps designed by someone who should know problem areas, NOT playing to have fun (that's for focus groups)
Testers should be part of the whole dev process, and not just at the end when there's something to test.
Software needs a requirements doc that should be looked over for potential problems by a senior tester, who can also determine 'what' kind of tests to run.
At each stage, someone needs to review, create tests, and make sure everything remains on track. Coders aren't there to guide projects, they're there to build a component that someone more senior will integrate into the big picture.
Testers should be looking at not JUST bugs, but how something doesn't match requirements. Are there performance issues? Network issues? Stabililty?
A tester should be more like a scientist conducting experiments on the software. Proper testing likely isn't considered 'fun' because you're doing repetitious shit all the time. Why don't coders do it? Same reason you can't catch errors in your own work, you're 'blind' to them. Plus they're busy fixing bugs people find.
Betheseda, likely put little money into testing. Where were the endurance tests? Where were the comparison tests? Those two should've easily caught all these issues that gamers had. But the testing team likely never even tested in-depth on the triple and 360.
Testing isn't and SHOULDN'T be 'sit down and play game and let us know if there are problems'. It SHOULD be 'ok, I have to fight all enemies once and use every technique on them...and combinations of techniques...and I have to make sure the stats actually are taken into account...and that I can't dupe items due to poor programming...and I should be able to do every event out of order...and I can enter and exit areas without having a big impact on performance'
Now imagine doing that all day. You'll likely not be having fun. You should be there to execute test plans to find errors and not doing what you want and reporting whatever comes your way.
I would love to talk to the lead tester for skyrim and see what test cases he had before clocking him and telling him he either did a poor job creating tests or convincing the severity of the bugs to management.
Bah, had a few to drink...
tl;dr you're there to follow steps designed by someone who should know problem areas, NOT playing to have fun (that's for focus groups)
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
I dipped my toe in the idea of being a games coder - infact, i guess when i went to Uni i thought that was a probable route.
(un?)fortunately my degree year in industry introduced me to the delights of coding mainframes and i ended up being a coder outside the games industry. In the end i'm somewhat glad of it - a fair few people on my degree course went on to be games coders (hello lurkers!
) but the hours don't seem great and, most importantly, it seems to deminish the love of gaming in general.
the wife was considering taking a near 75% pay cut to join SCEJ. She didn't. Thank Fudge.
(un?)fortunately my degree year in industry introduced me to the delights of coding mainframes and i ended up being a coder outside the games industry. In the end i'm somewhat glad of it - a fair few people on my degree course went on to be games coders (hello lurkers!
) but the hours don't seem great and, most importantly, it seems to deminish the love of gaming in general.the wife was considering taking a near 75% pay cut to join SCEJ. She didn't. Thank Fudge.
AranhaHunter
Banned
I can't speak about a tester in the game industry, but a tester encompasses a lot more than just getting a module and testing that (component testing). A tester can do one or more of the following: UAT, System, Component, Black, White, Automation, Smoke, Performance, etc etc.
A tester, or at least the testing lead, needs to be involved in all phases of the SDLC and develop test plans and cases according to business rules and requirements.
EDIT:
Well said.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Going to read the issue in more detail briefly, but are writers lumped in with designers there? Probably true, but I was curious since they aren't in a separate category.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Some problems even testers may not have caught and may have needed some gray box testers to find...
- mega man and shooting to hit boss and then hitting start and exiting repeatedly to continue dmging boss.
- Relm's sketch glitches
- mblock not doing shit in FF6
- vanish spell in FF6 and the abuse you could do with
- item duping tricks in FF4, FF7, and Dead Island (fucking combo of buttons duping weapons?!)
- Mario64 and being able to butt dash through locked doors.
- Twilight Princess save glitch vulnerability that allowed people to install homebrew on the Wii / save glitch in GTA psp that did the same
- Being able to select Master Hand in SSB
- Big save file fucking crippling Skyrim on triple (this is one that is easily testable and was either ignored, management didn't care, coders had no time to fix, or testing team never tested/found it)
My point is that a great tester should think outside the box to find any problem and not stuff that a gamer faces in regular play.
- mega man and shooting to hit boss and then hitting start and exiting repeatedly to continue dmging boss.
- Relm's sketch glitches
- mblock not doing shit in FF6
- vanish spell in FF6 and the abuse you could do with
- item duping tricks in FF4, FF7, and Dead Island (fucking combo of buttons duping weapons?!)
- Mario64 and being able to butt dash through locked doors.
- Twilight Princess save glitch vulnerability that allowed people to install homebrew on the Wii / save glitch in GTA psp that did the same
- Being able to select Master Hand in SSB
- Big save file fucking crippling Skyrim on triple (this is one that is easily testable and was either ignored, management didn't care, coders had no time to fix, or testing team never tested/found it)
My point is that a great tester should think outside the box to find any problem and not stuff that a gamer faces in regular play.
You aren't 'being dragged' into anything, both here and in the trademark thread, you made allusions to arguments you could have expanded on if you had the time to post them. It's a discussion board, the point behind posting is to open up and let people know your thoughts, not say that you have grand reasons and everyone will have to be content with just guessing. And I'm glad you did end up posting your thoughts there, it does seem like an under appreciated (and under managed) part of development.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Had he wanted me to elaborate, there are better ways to do (trade-mark thread not this one). All it turned into was a fucking hatefest.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
That's interesting, but not necessarily unexpected. Guess I learned something new today, even knowing much more than the average person (or gamer even) about the industry as a GAF regular
addict[/b].
Not currently in the industry, but it's something I'd love to do, though I could easily see myself working in a related field if not specifically with games.
Not currently in the industry, but it's something I'd love to do, though I could easily see myself working in a related field if not specifically with games.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
I imagine it's a lot like becoming a teacher, they do it for the love of the job and not to get rich.
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Not necessarily, but it's something to consider. I was just thinking about writing since I've been (slowly) fleshing out an idea for a novel. Will check out those links though.
Yeah because taking on more debt for a credential (from a for-profit institution?...lol) towards a career (that isn't guaranteed) in a creative enterprise, is such a fantastic idea.
Boss Man
Member
I thought the term Software Engineer was used more broadly and with the insinuation of higher standing. Like, lead developers who are 'software engineers' oversee programmers who are also 'software engineers' if you want to call them that. Basically, programmers are software engineers but there are other/higher positions for software engineers to be in.
Whatevs, semantics I guess.
Experience >>>>> Degree
You either are really good at what you do and know the right people or you've been in the biz long enough that your most recent achievements (or your overall track record) makes what you did in college virtually irrelevant. If some guy has, hell, 5, 7 or 10 years experience, I wouldn't bother looking into or care about what he did in school or if he even went. The experience he gained from working those 5, 7 or 10 years is much more valuable.
charlequin
Banned
I'm not saying it's ideal data collected with a perfect methodology or anything, but it's still a hell of a lot better as a point of discussion than a context-free "lol I won't explain why or how but this is wrong." At least you stopped to say that you disagree with the methodology.
by your definition, no survey ever would work...
Too bad they don't show average salaries for workers in Japan. I think our North American friends would probably feel a lot better about their paychecks. I make pretty decent money, but save very little because I live in one of the most expensive regions in the world. Yay.
We also see very little of those benefits (royalty cuts, annual bonuses, 401k, dental, optical).
Damn, dood. Your wife must be raking in the cash.
We also see very little of those benefits (royalty cuts, annual bonuses, 401k, dental, optical).
Damn, dood. Your wife must be raking in the cash.
Nope. People just make up job titlesat most companies. I have a degree in computer science from a well respected 4 year university and I had the same job title as Digipen and Fullsail guys.
lowhighkang_LHK
Member
I have some friends who are in the industry (okay, just two) and they mentioned that these figures a bit skewed high from their take. Also, to add to your theory - in general, people who feel they make more than what they "should" or comparatively to others are more likely to express this success. While those who do not, are less likely. It's one of those things mentioned in "How to lie with statistics" - good book, btw, should read it. But, if you're a bottom scrapper and somebody sent you a survey through the mail, you're less likely to fill it out than a guy who feels he's making a lot and is on the top of the pyramid. Just general human tendency things that are observed.
You work in the industry right? So say if I apply for a starting position the very first thing they will ask me for is samples of what I can do? Where I'm learning 3d modeling is superfluous right?
I'm guessing the most important thing I should be doing in my free time is to just work on my own projects and build a portfolio?
I find buckling down and managing my time to do that sorta hard :S
Boss Man
Member
The average penis is 13.5 inches long.
AlphaTwo00
Member
I'm going to toss in my personal anecdotal evidence in here: Where I used to work, of the 50+ employees, only a handful (~6) has personal subscription, and would have received such a survey. I filled mines out, I wouldn't know if any of the other ones who got them did or not.
Looking at those salaries, and I do think it's probably skewed higher, but again, as people have pointed out, it's all going to be very relative to both companies and location. I'm sure if you laid out a chart, you'd see a rising trend as you head towards west coast, and you would also see a significant drop if you look between Canada and US.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
I'm a Business major and am more than happy to see a potential six-figure salary as my average salary if I'm lucky enough to get into that scene in the future, but... seriously? Isn't there something wrong when people who are actually responsible for the development of the game are getting paid less than the external disciplines?
AlphaTwo00
Member
Entirely depends on how testing is ran, whether it's in house or not, how silo-ed the teams are, and the quality of testers.
Take the case of Skyrim: at some point in the process, being as big of a game as they are, the testing team probably fire away thousands of bugs, and once bugs are filed, they go through a cycle of fix/re-test for confirmation, which will cut into whatever QA time they have to find new bugs. If the dev team and the management team is already filled to the brim with work, they're most likely to reject bugs that aren't reproducible (or have no clear ways to get it to happen).
Now I know what you're going to say, that one was easily testable, and enough people have found it, but let me throw some numbers to break it down for you:
-Let's assume that you have 100 dedicated QA team, split them 40/40/20 between PS3/360/PC.
-Then you split 15/15/10 on each team to do functionality testing, retest verified bugs, and then misc general gameplay testing.
-That save bug is would most likely to be found by someone in that "misc general" group, if they aren't resetting their save file daily to find other bugs. And let's say one of them did go through 60+ hours and start hitting that issue, my gut instinct (and most people's), would start looking for other more isolated issues than what we're seeing now.
-Let's suppose than one of them did file such a bug, you're still more likely to get another tester to stumble around and "play in general" in hopes of hitting it.
-The end result is that unless you assign enough people to have a "high enough" reproduction case, and one that "makes sense" on what's the issue, it'll more likely to be left unresolved.
The QA manager may look at this potential "save bug" issue, look at the "potential reproduction case", and just decide it's not worth chasing down when other more clear and important game breaking bugs are popping up.
I was thinking the same thing. In the business programming world this is usually not the case(at least not where I live). We don't usually hire programmers with only a HS education. They usually need a college degree plus experience. Perhaps there are not enough game programmers with a completed college degree. So companies are OK with hiring HS graduates with good programming skills.