If you’re reading this, the odds are you probably want to know what the average salary for a game designer is. The answer: can vary widely depending on where you live and your skillset. As with any job, the highest paying cities are places like San Francisco, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles & Seattle (just to name a few).
The average salary for a game designer is $75,000 per year.
Average salary for a game designer
Have you ever wondered how much a game designer makes? According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a game designer is $71,595 per year. However, that number can vary widely based on experience and location. Keep reading for more details about what influences a game designer’s income and where you can get information about salaries in your area.
Salary information for game designers varies based on a variety of factors.
The salary for a game designer varies widely depending on location, experience, and company. The information available about salaries is somewhat difficult to find because it’s often based on surveys or specific to an industry. However, it’s definitely out there if you look hard enough!
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is a government agency that collects data about employment, wages, and other aspects of the labor market. The BLS publishes data on all kinds of jobs, in all industries and for all levels of education and experience—including game designer salaries.
- Salary information from May 2019 (the most recent month available).
Salaries are presented as hourly rates per week: $X per hour for Y hours worked per week.
Glassdoor reports the average salary for game designers with 15 to 20 years of experience to be $110,000 per year.
If you’re looking to get into the industry, it’s good to know what your pay will be. Glassdoor reports the average salary for game designers with 15 to 20 years of experience to be $110,000 per year. This number is high compared to other professions because game design is a very specialized field and there are fewer people who can do this job well than in other industries like web development or graphic design.
However, not all jobs pay well. Game designers at smaller studios tend to make less than those who work for large companies such as Electronic Arts (EA) or Activision Blizzard because these big studios have more resources and therefore have more money to spend on salaries. In addition, if you work at a large company but only do low-level tasks such as organizing meetings or creating PowerPoint presentations rather than designing games yourself, then you will probably make less than someone doing similar work but at a smaller company where they are able to take on more responsibility and grow their skillset faster without having management responsibilities weighing them down
Salary by company
Game designers at small companies tend to earn a bit less than those at larger ones. According to the IGDA’s 2017 salary survey, game designers at companies with up to 100 employees make an average of $50,000 per year. Meanwhile, those employed by organizations with more than 500 employees take home $70,000 on average every year.
A game designer who works for an organization that falls somewhere in between these two extremes will likely earn somewhere in between their salaries as well—but what about other factors? Does experience play a role in how much someone earns? And does the type of game design work played into these numbers?
GamesIndustry.biz reports the average salary for game designers in the United Kingdom to be £46,000 ($56,698 USD).
The average salary for game designers in the UK was £46,000 ($56,698 USD), according to GamesIndustry.biz.
In the United States, Game Developer Magazine estimates that over the past few years the average salary has been $82k per year.
The average salary for a game designer can vary widely depending on experience and location.
The average game designer salary can vary widely depending on your experience, location, company and job title. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average annual salary for a game programmer is $88,000 [source: BLS]. But there are many factors that affect what you’ll earn as a game designer.
The industry as a whole is still growing rapidly and new jobs are being created every day in this field — particularly in mobile gaming, which has been one of the fastest-growing sectors over the past decade or so. Because of this growth and demand for talent, salaries have risen since 2012 when they started to increase by 6 percent annually [source: Dice].
Conclusion
Due to the wide variety of factors that influence a game designer’s salary, it is difficult to provide an accurate estimate. In order to avoid being underpaid, it is important for prospective game designers to find out more about salary ranges from employers in their region. They should also be aware that there are many different jobs available within the industry and may need some additional training before applying for competitive positions (such as those involving art or programming).
