Game Designing as an occupation

[Hiigara]

I was just curious if anybody knew on average what type of salary video game designers make, and does anybody know how long video game designers stay in the job? I have been told that video game designers may make a decent salary, maybe even a lot of money, but that they seem to only stay in the industry while they are young and only get a few games done, but by the time they are in their 40's they are jobless and struggling to find new ways to make money. This is just what I have been told... does anybody know if its true?

[Gout]

Hi Hiigara,

I'm not sure of your location so I did a little search for jobs in the US. I found one in Chicago offering around $40k-$60k. In the UK I'd guess you'd get about ?35k-?40k, it really depends on your abilities though.

In my experience the games industry is not a very nice place to work, there is a lot of pressure, long hours and bad management, a lot of people leave because of this.

But every job has its bad points, and the good points are really good :D

I think the only reason there are few 40 year olds in development is because its a very young industry.

[Hiigara]

ah ok thats kinda what i figured, where did you find that info at? Ive been looking but havn't been able to find much, and im interested in all types of programming, website design, and graphics design and digital animation.. so id like to find out as much info on jobs and salaries as i can, so any websites that you know of that might be helpful i would love to take a look at them. thanks!

[Gout]

I'll post some links Ithink you'll be interested in tomorrow, they're all on my work computer, so I'll send them from there.

[Hiigara]

ok great, thanks

[Gout]

Ok, some of these should help.

DPerry.com
A very good resource for information about Videogame companies in America and the UK. I always have found that it is better to contact a company directly rather than go through an agency. Lots of other information and links.

Gamesindustry.biz
UK based games industry site, might have some information for you, worth a look.

Flipcode
Game development news and resource site.

Game Beavers
An independent game development site. As I remember it had a shared collection of 3D models, oh yeah, check out the Chagnon's Mech model, I thought it was quite good.

Gamasutra
Another game Dev news site, also has a jobs section.

Hope those help.

[Hiigara]

these websites look pretty nice.. ill definatly check them out, thanks for the help!

[Sir_Vulcan]

Originally posted by Hiigara
im interested in all types of programming, website design, and graphics design and digital animation..

sounds exactly the same as my interests.
im going to school for programming right now, its a lot of fun when you can get things to work.

these websites are nice, some good info.

laters

[Hiigara]

cool.. thats another thing, colleges.. does the average university tend to offer a lot of programming and web designing and graphics and all, or would I be better off attending a technical college centered around that kind of stuff, like Full Sail?

[Sir_Vulcan]

i looked into full sail. i really liked it execpt its in florida, if i remember right. There's a great digital animation school in minniapolis MN called "The Art Institute" theres a bunch of them around the country but its a private school so its more expensive. but i think its well worth it. and after i get my programming degree and a nice job im going there.

I'm doing a computer science games development course at university and i've only just started actually making games or doing something that is for games only and i am in my second year second semester which is practically half my course. So my advise is check what each module does before you sign up to anything or see if there is a 1 year course with computer games without added extras like learning about networking and websites which you can find out through the internet anyway.

In my experience the games industry is not a very nice place to work, there is a lot of pressure, long hours and bad management, a lot of people leave because of this.

Its not that bad lol my experience is you turn up at noon work till 4 then leave. But I agree with the bad management bit.

Hey soz I didn't mean it to sound depressing. I think its an excellent starting ground or a way to progress to get better with all the skills you can learn. I think it just depends what you want to do and what you hope to achieve.