Generalists are
adaptable and can take on more than one job, so are suitable for
smaller companies as they don't have to employ as many people.
Specialists are very good at one singular thing so are better for
bigger companies who have more money to spend on quality. I think
that as Game Art students, we should be focussing on being BOTH.
For example after doing
2 years of this course, I have decided I would like to go into 3D
environments and props because that is what I enjoy the most. However
I will still try and hone my skills in the other aspects of the
course, such as concept art, characters and vehicles. I would like to
be employable to both big and small game companies and not be too
specific and picky when I have job interviews. So as well as having a
reasonably good knowledge and creating above average work in concept
art, characters and vehicles, I will focus mainly on the 3D
environments and props that I want to get a job doing. I have a few
projects that I have set myself to do over the summer, that I am
quite excited about doing, so this should help with my environmental
artist goal!
I went on a website
called: www.animationarena.com/video-game-salary.html
They had carried out a survey on this website to show the different
salaries of each position in the games industry. I thought it was
quite interesting so I made a table summarising the results. It's all
in dollars, so the wages are probably very different here in England,
but I think it paints a good picture of the importance of the
different roles.
Job Type
|
Job Title
|
Average Starting Salary
|
Average Salary after 3 Years
|
Average Salary after 6 Years
|
Game Programmers
|
Programmers
|
$50,000
|
$66,000
|
$88,000
|
Lead Programmers
|
$56,000
|
$83,000
|
$90,000
|
|
Game Artist
|
Artist
|
$41,500
|
$53,300
|
$66,700
|
Lead Artist
|
$64,000
|
$67,000
|
$80,000
|
|
Game Animator
|
Animator
|
$46,700
|
$67,000
|
$75,000
|
Lead Animator
|
$64,000
|
$67,000
|
$80,000
|
|
Game Designers
|
Designer
|
$46,000
|
$55,600
|
$70,000
|
Lead Designer
|
$45,000
|
$54,000
|
$81,000
|
|
Game Producers
|
Project Lead/Producer
|
N/A
|
$62,000
|
$80,000
|
Executive Producer
|
$50,000
|
//
|
$82,000
|
|
Quality Assurance
|
Game Tester
|
$32,000
|
//
|
$50,000
|
Lead QA
|
$40,000
|
$50,000
|
$60,000
|
|
Game Audio
|
Sound Designer/Engineer
|
$50,000
|
$66,000
|
$74,000
|
Musician/Composer
|
$55,000
|
$62,000
|
$90,000
|
From what I understand,
I am already at a disadvantage in the games industry, and that is
because I'm English, I live in England and want a job in England.
Apparently us English are the most expensive to employ, so with the
world as it is at the moment, the chances of me getting a job over
someone in a different country is quite slim unfortunately.
I recently read up on a
thing called “outsourcing” which is where a company pays people
in poorer countries to do the work, because their wage would be a lot
lower so it would save the company money. This idea makes me feel a
bit sick actually, not only is it taking advantage of countries in
poverty but also England is a dying country anyway, the government
has screwed everyone over, and we're not even safe trying to get into
an industry where you need a degree and a good range of skills to
even be considered. It's absolutely pathetic! :(
A good example of
outsourcing is the well known flop of a game
Aliens:
Colonial Marines
which was predominantly outsourced, and contained many glitches,
errors, unfinished parts and a terrible storyline. With the only
gleam of hope being the online levels which weren’t outsourced.
So at the sole benefit
of saving money, some companies are willing to risk unhappy customers
and terrible reviews:
I think if the
companies aren't willing to stop screwing everyone over and taking
advantage of cheap labour then it would be worth either working for a
smaller company or making your own company with the risk of not even
having one of your games published. I'm not sure how my ultimate life
dream of becoming a successful member of a games company really fits
into this reality.. but I really hope it will! I'm feeling very
pessimistic now :/ all I can do is focus on becoming employable by
having a good range of skills and have absolute blind luck to get a
job!
