Salaries for Game Developers... still low?

[raz0red]

David Edery mentions on his blog that game developers are receiving job offers that seem to indicate gap between game developers and non-game developers (Oracle, etc.) are narrowing.

http://www.edery.org/2006/03/what-does- ... -nowadays/

Students who applied for engineering jobs seem to be getting offers in the 70s — in some cases, the high 70s. The same students got offers approximately 10K higher from companies in other industries; i.e. Oracle, Microsoft, etc. So the gap between game company offers and non-game company offers appears to be narrowing for engineers. In general, I was amazed at how high the offers were!

Granted, his survey is far from scientific. But, in general, I think this is the case. It has always amazed me how game developers work more and get less pay. I guess if you really want to work in that field, you may be willing to put up with lower pay. It probably also has to do with the fact that the majority of games loose money.

Maybe the most surprising part about his findings is how much starting salaries are for engineers in general. Probably due to the fact he is polling, "MIT students".

--Raz.

[PristineSteam]

I think it is just supply and demand. More programmers want to make games, because it sounds like more fun, compared to making an accounting package or database or some other mundane thing. So because it is easier to find people interested in programming games, they can pay less.