Game designer salary in California can range from $56,000 to $80,000.

The average game designer salary in California is $66,000.

Game designer salaries in San Francisco are higher than other cities in California, with an average salary of $78,000.

Game designer salaries in Los Angeles are also higher than other cities in California, with an average salary of $76,000.

Game designer salaries in San Diego are lower than other cities in California and nationwide, with an average salary of $63,000.

Game Designer Salary In California

Game Design degrees are available on campus and online at colleges and universities around the US. Students who are interested in pursuing a Game Design degree want to know what potential game designer job prospects are available after graduation.

There are many established and burgeoning game development companies that need game designers. The minimum degree requirement for professional game design companies is commonly a bachelor’s degree in Game Design, Game Development, or Game Art and Animation.

Game Design is a generic term which represents the many jobs in the world of creating games. Here are some common careers of game creators:

• Level Design
• User Experience/User Interface (UX/UI)
• Character Animator
• Sound and Audio Engineer
• Graphic Designer
• Game Marketing
• Game Programming
• Creative Director
• Game Tester

What Do Game Designers Earn? Salary Information

Game Designers can work as game developers, which involves programming languages and coding, and is a discipline within computer science. Other Game Designers can work as Game Artists, focusing on aspects of animation, such as 2D and 3D graphic designs. The game artists create the visuals for games, rendering the characters, atmosphere, background, and settings for games.

Salary for Game Designers varies by state. Some states, such as Washington, have a larger presence of Game Design companies and relevant positions for Game Designers. Salaries in these industry hubs can be and often are larger than in other states with less of a Game Design industry.

According to Indeed.com, the states with the highest paying salaries for Game Designers are:

• California
  • Irvine: $102,870
  • San Diego: $101,140
• Illinois
  • Chicago: $102,574
• Washington
  • Redmond: $102,191
• Texas
  • Austin: $97,805
• Missouri:
  • St. Louis: $95,436
• Nevada
  • Las Vegas: $93,084
• Louisiana
  • $92,597

Nationwide Salary Averages:

Reporting Agencies for Position: Game Designers	Annual Average Salary
*Payscale	$67,604
**ZipRecruiter	$130,000
***Indeed	$94,650

The above salary aggregators have different salary amounts, making understanding the average salaries of Game Designers challenging. They are all relying on their own collections of internal salary data that is proprietary. One difficulty in these data is that there are varying levels of Game Design salaries, and limited reporting. The best way perhaps to determine more specific details of salary information is to decide which position you would want to work, such as Game Art, or Level Designer, and find the state that you want to work in, and drill down to the level of detail to find the salary data, per position, per state. Another way to approach the salary question is to look at individual Game Design companies and see what positions they have open and what their salaries are. This data will vary by company and position, but it will give real-world salary data in real time.