Game Developer magazine have published the results of their seventh annual Game Developer Salary Survey, finding the average American game industry salary in 2007 to be $73,600 ($79,146 AU), up from $73,316 ($78,863 AU) the year before.
Now, let's ignore the cost of living differences in America (where there are huge differences even between each state there) to Australia and see what the areas of expertise in their games industry gets in Australian dollars.
- Programming: $83,383 US ($89,709 AU)
- Art & Animation: $66,594 US ($71,648 AU)
- Game Design: $63,649 US ($68,480 AU)
- Production: $78,716 US ($84,690 AU)
- Quality Assurance: $39,063 US ($42,025 AU)
- QA Leads: $70,658 US ($76,020 AU)
- Audio: $73,409 US ($78,980 AU)
- Business & Marketing: $101,848 US ($109,578 AU)
Average American game industry salary $73,600 US ($79,146 AU)
In Europe: $52,408 US ($56,377 AU)
In Canada: $63,731 US ($68,558 AU)
Some interesting factoids from the survey include:
- Programmers are the highest paid talent
- 40% of artists and audio engineers surveyed have six or more years of experience.
- 18% of the workforce in Production are women, the highest percentage in the industry
To find out more about the survey, head on over to Gamasutra!