Game developers earn less than other types of developers, by a relatively large margin

Also probably depends on where you draw the line: by some definition everyone here doing their own game is an indie dev, but I kinda feel its a bit of a stretch to put some kid bashing away at something they never release (or building crappy little mobile games like me) in the same boat as someone like https://forum.unity.com/members/seith.147227/

 

I came from Electronics background. Around the time of the Recession in UK wages were driving low. HR seriously trying to source qualified and experienced engineers and then insult them with an offer of 18k! ^ ^ I went straight for the door as did many others.
As a matter of fact, my field of expertise (Safety critical test) the whole thing was starting to go in the way of Software testing and suddenly all the jobs didnt call for Electronic Engineers anymore, but Computer Scientists.

 

Well now you can brand yourself an IoT engineer (or may a BlockChain-IoT engineer) and ask for 200k

 

Yeah you're right Its a very broad label! But then when you see an Indie who is producing Pro results they are simply a Pro in the making. They'll get pro money.
I think if an Indie company makes a load of money on a game, that's pretty much a professional reclassification, wouldnt you say?

 

Thats not generally how the term indie is used in Game Development. Indie is orthogonal to professional, its not about earning money its about how your game is funded and published.

From Wikipedia:

An independent video game (commonly referred to as an indie game) is a video game that is often created without the financial support of a publisher, although some games funded by a publisher are still considered "indie". Indie games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution.​

For example Double Fine, a company making millions, is widely considered an indie:

https://www.quora.com/Would-you-consider-Double-Fine-an-indie-studio​

(the borders are blurry, but there are certainly many financial successful indies)

- - -

Also ... probably veering a bit off topic ...

 

Aye of course, but along the point of little matey schoolboy making his game, to very successful devs being forced in to the same category; as users of the products we have our own ideas of 'Professionalism' of that company based on the quality of their product. Getting semantic Here's a question, in your opinion can you have a Professional Indie?

"Also ... probably veering a bit off topic ..." I wouldnt say so. A lot of earning comes down to perception and semantics. The way different people look at things can highlight a lot of points and bring up a lot of issues.

@FMark92 sorry I wasnt attacking you. Apologies if it seemed that way.

 

Replied in PM.

 

Indie - created without the financial support of a publisher
Professional - work that needs special training or education

Sometimes just making money at something counts as being professional, though I'd class that more as commercial.

But whichever meaning of professional you go with, it doesn't exclude also being an indie. I would say that to be an indie you also need to be commercial, otherwise hobbyist fits better.

 

Just to be clear here, my opinion can be safely ignored... I'm just a hobbyist

 

Does that tally with industry specific surveys like the Gamasutra Salary Survery -> http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2014/09/05/GAMA14_ACG_SalarySurvey_F.pdf

Which although dated (2014) probably gives you a better insight into pay scales in the games industry.

Average Professional Salaries circa 2014

• $93k for programmers and engineers.
• $74k for artists and animators.
• $73k for game designers.
• $82k for producers.
• $95k for audio professionals.
• $54k for QA testers.
• $101k for business and management.

Average Indie Salaries circa 2014

• $11k Solo indie game developers (down 49% from 2012's $23k).
• $50k Team indie game developers (up 161% from 2012's $19k).

Any more recent indie/game developer salary reports e.g. 2016-17?

 

2014 was a strange year financially, for all things Unity. 2013/14 came with a massive surge in Indies and Hobbyists due to Unity's decision to Waive the Android and iOS Module fees. They really paved the way for many small groups. I do imagine that to have been the start of some very different financial trends in the gaming world. This may have thrown averages right out the window.

 

Ah... semantics.

The divide some of you seem to have gotten caught up on is the difference between professional, and amateur. A professional is not someone with special training. A professional is simply someone who is paid for the work they perform. An amateur is someone who indulges in an activity without getting paid for it, no matter what that activity is. You could perform highly technical and skilled database management for a major corporation. If that corporation doesn't pay you for that work, you are still an amateur.

Professionals get paid, amateurs don't get paid.

Independent has nothing to do with being a professional or an amateur. Independent simply means that you aren't being employed or affiliated with a larger organization. There are plenty of independent developers who are also professionals. They are usually referred to as "contractors." (since a lot of the paid work they take is on a per-contract basis) They are both independent from a larger organization, but are still paid for their services, so they are independent professionals.

There are also uneducated or untrained professionals. Again, the primary distinction for professionals is that they are compensated for services rendered. Whether or not they have received specialized training or educations is irrelevant to the "professional" label.

 

Well, I mostly agree but workers and Tradesmen also get paid for the work they do but they arent professional because they dont have the qualification to say so. Yes, semantics Arent they fun

 

This use of the term is more a matter of class divide than technical semantics. And it's been becoming increasingly irrelevant with the changes going on in the world lately. This is especially true given how technology has been altering classical education.

Access to certain kinds of information and expertise used to be sharply limited. You had to go to particular school to learn particular skills. Today, an enormous amount of information, skill, and expertise is being constantly shared for little to no cost. These very message boards are a prime example of this, where anyone and everyone puts their thoughts, experiences, and current projects on display for all to see. The advent of the internet has changed how people are able to learn, and fields that used to be the exclusive purview of the entitled or privileged are now available to everyone.

Specialized education and training counts for less and less these days, with a much greater emphasis placed on practical skills and experience. Being able to do a job is more important than being trained to.

 

Yeah I totally agree really. Being 35 I grew up in a time where people could still get jobs based on their skill and experience rather than bits of paper. By the time I hit the workforce it was all paper and nothing else. There is a small trend going towards how it used to be, but in the UK for example red tape makes things a little harder. A lot of stuff comes down to 'competency' and 'liability' (probably more-so in my field than in Game Industry!) which is usually 'proven' via qualification. I say this but Ive met many Graduates etc who lacked competency and even common sense.

 

That is not accurate, there are many professional indies. Broadly speaking it simply means independent of a publisher (and/or owner), though somehow it has come to also include hobbyists, wannabes and “one who has downloaded a free game engine”.

Edit: realized someone already addressed this.

 

Yeah I guess I was part of that movement, its probably why I think that way of it

Edit:

"there are many professional indies" I think you were the only one who said it concisely

 

Really? At the very least I'd expect them to be self taught or I don't see how they would do professional quality work.

As you pointed out there are other types of education besides a formal one, and I don't think it's fair to call any true professional uneducated. There's also commercial entities that don't do a competent job, and it would be fair to say they don't act professionally. That's why I don't like 'charging a fee' as the decider if someone is professional, that's how you end up at silly consultant rates as each increases their fees to seem more professional. It's far better to check whether their knowledge and experience justifies the fee.

 

Exactly.
I myself don't have a degree. I only have a high school diploma.
But, I was merely 6 years old when I wrote my first C64 Basic program.
I was around 10 when I wrote my first C64 assembly demo. (raster programming, charset animation, double buffering in assembly)
Yeah, I know what it's like to work with hardware accelerated sprites!
Then the school I was attending at the time got some Enterprise-knock off computers with Z80 processor, so I learned the Z80 assembly as well.
I went to a high school to "learn" programming.
They thought me dBase III and Turbo Pascal (lol?)
I wrote bookkeeping software in dBase and my first "skinned mesh" + bone animation system in Pascal (with weights and all), but obviously for hercules monitors (plus point if you know what it is without googleing it )
Then I started working as a web developer in PHP + JS. I wrote my first "Ajax" application in 1999 (Internet Explorer only).
Since then I was working with C, C++, some ASM as well, Python (especially data mining), Java (currently I work for a tech giant in the Bay Area using Java).
And a couple years ago I started to work on my Unity + C#, because I'm working on hobby projects.

So I know a little about computer programming, but other than 4 years high school and a year in a college (which I didn't finish) I don't have really Computer Science education, I have a ton of experience in a wide variety of fields, when it comes to software development.

 

Like most words in the English language, professional means a couple of different things depending on its context.

Professional is sometimes used to simply imply being paid for doing something. Which is the definition frequently used in sports.

Professional sometimes means being a part of and accredited by a particular industries governing body. This definition is frequently used in accounting or engineering.

Professional sometimes means of high quality. He did professional work.

Professional sometimes means adhering to a code of conduct or ethics. Flirting with a subordinate is not very professional behavior.

Professional is sometimes used as classification for job types. It implies someone that spends most of their day sitting in front of a desk on a computer, and has decision making capacity, but typically not to the level of a manager.

So without providing what context you are using, professional can mean a heck of a lot of things.

 

The truth is that Game distribution makes a larger cut of their salary. Plus, it's easy to make game, but is harder to monetize it.

Just look at Google Playstore. Can you imagine how hard it would be for a new user to promote it?