One of the rapidly growing business sectors in the United States and around the world is the gaming industry. In the United States alone the previous year, video games generated revenue in excess of $12.5 billion. This strong growth comes as several industries are still struggling to get ahead of the protracted global recession. As the US economy improves, the video game industry is guaranteed to see even more growth. That means companies in this business sector will need a new influx of skilled and educated employees to expand.
There is a wide variety of job opportunities available in the gaming industry and they generally fall into two distinctive groups. About half of the people employed in this sector deal with the business side of the industry, performing tasks such as administration, public relations, accounting, and product sales. The other half of the employees are the creative and technical staff who actually produce and design the games. Job roles on the creative side demand people like animators, software engineers, illustrator artists, video game programmers, writers, and graphic game designers. These job opportunities pay well for trained and qualified people.
The most crucial job title on the creative side of the video game industry is creating and conceptualizing the computer game, a task carried out by the game designer. The computer game designer comes up with the concept of the game and then works on designing all the many features that go into creating a new full-scale computer game. Most new video games are designed by teams of game designers who work on various tasks under the guidance of their team leader, the lead designer. The lead designer is in charge of the entire project and is responsible for personnel and budget, so good administrative skills are desirable.
Working under the lead designer there will often be multiple junior designers working on the game. There are environmental or level designers, system or game mechanic designers, and designers who work for game designer interface development. Typical salary levels for video game designers for these different positions depend on several factors, including work experience, geographic location, job title, educational level, and the employer you work for. The typical video game designer salary for a junior designer is about $40,000 per year. This could increase to over $100,000 after six or more years of industry experience.
The amount of the video game designer salary increases with work experience, as is common in many industries. The more hands-on work experience a person has, the better it is for the game company. Work location has a large effect on wages, as some locations are much more expensive to live in. Your job designation is also a factor. If there is junior in the title, the job will pay less than the lead designer position. The game agency you’re employed by also matters and staff game designers make more money than freelance designers.