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Salary?

Posted: 18 Dec 2014, 22:08
by allroundman
Hi Again.
Can people please tell me their qualifications, and the highest salary theyve earned pr month - tll today?

It is needed to make a budget, and to give good offers to the upcomming.

thanks

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 01:10
by s_u_m_s_a_r
Hi again Allroundman,

I don't think a lot of people will share that on a public forum :)

It will vary wildly based not only on people's qualifications but also their experience and position. Some people might also have worked abroad which will skew your figures.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 02:20
by allroundman
Hehe at least a price range?

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 05:10
by zelsphere
Hmm not gonna tell my salary but I'll tell you my company's average salary which they use to showcase whenever they put out job announcements here in Japan. "Programmer age 27, worked at the company for 2 years, monthly salary 350.000¥ "
Note that with an income like that in Japan you pay around 5-10% in taxes.

People straight out of college should expect a salary around 160.000-180.000 the first year or so.

Also it's quite common for more famous game companies in japan to actually pay the least in salary while smaller/medium size companies pays the best ( this is an generalization of course )

Hope this helps somewhat.

p.s if you are an programmer you can probably earn the double by working in any other industry that games ;)
,,, though I'm not a programmer.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 09:35
by Code
zelsphere wrote: p.s if you are an programmer you can probably earn the double by working in any other industry that games ;)
But games are funnier! :lol:

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 17:10
by allroundman
zelsphere wrote:Hmm not gonna tell my salary but I'll tell you my company's average salary which they use to showcase whenever they put out job announcements here in Japan. "Programmer age 27, worked at the company for 2 years, monthly salary 350.000¥ "
Note that with an income like that in Japan you pay around 5-10% in taxes.

People straight out of college should expect a salary around 160.000-180.000 the first year or so.

Also it's quite common for more famous game companies in japan to actually pay the least in salary while smaller/medium size companies pays the best ( this is an generalization of course )

Hope this helps somewhat.

p.s if you are an programmer you can probably earn the double by working in any other industry that games ;)
,,, though I'm not a programmer.
So basically less than 200k a year in DKK.
That is basically NOTHING he he, so can you hook me up with game creating enthusiasts from Jap Country. :oops:

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 21:23
by Jesper Kondrup
I will also not give any specific numbers but I can say that it's more than 200k DKK a year.
Salaries in the gaming industry are not high but I think the average Danish salary is more than 200k.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 19 Dec 2014, 23:18
by allroundman
salary in dkk are high, generally speaking. So are the taxes...

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 01:01
by vonknut
Entry/junior level salaries are typically between 19-22k DKK + 12,5% vacation salary.
-sometimes lower, sometimes higher, depending on the person and company.

Swedish salaries the same, just deduct 20% in exchange rates :)

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 03:35
by Pegepinden
vonknut wrote:Entry/junior level salaries are typically between 19-22k DKK + 12,5% vacation salary.
Sometimes i wonder why i even bother with games, when some of my programming friends start at 30-35K hehe. But guess you cannot deny your passion :D

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 11:38
by DonSonz
Pegepinden wrote:
vonknut wrote:Entry/junior level salaries are typically between 19-22k DKK + 12,5% vacation salary.
Sometimes i wonder why i even bother with games, when some of my programming friends start at 30-35K hehe. But guess you cannot deny your passion :D

YES - what is life without passion - I really like that attitude, so keep on coding some awesome games
(besides that I think that passion in the long run will convert to Money, but that must never be the goal in the first place)


:superlike:

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 14:34
by Pegepinden
DonSonz wrote:
Pegepinden wrote:
vonknut wrote:Entry/junior level salaries are typically between 19-22k DKK + 12,5% vacation salary.
Sometimes i wonder why i even bother with games, when some of my programming friends start at 30-35K hehe. But guess you cannot deny your passion :D

YES - what is life without passion - I really like that attitude, so keep on coding some awesome games
(besides that I think that passion in the long run will convert to Money, but that must never be the goal in the first place)
Always did stuff i wanted, wouldn't have spent 6 years at a University focusing on games if i cared about money. Or use all my spare time to get a few releases/projects on my CV before i graduate.

But as i got around 20K as a 'pædagogmedhjælper' with no education, and that it is way below the lowest paid programmer according to PROSA it is a bit laughable. :)

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 15:14
by Niels Jørgensen
Reg. salary in Sweden - Bear in mind that as an employer you have to pay 31.42% social security tax of the gross salary. This is money that the employee never sees nor really know about, and the major reason why salaries and taxes appear to be lower in Sweden. In reality they are not that different from DK.

If you get 30K SEK in Sweden you'll pay approx. 30% tax and thus end up with around 20K. In reality the company has payed 40K, 10K of which were deducted before you got your salary making the actual tax around 50%, not much different from Denmark (Especially when you consider that deductibles are generally higher in Denmark).

Just something you should be aware of if looking to hire people in Sweden... Also laying off people is damn near impossible unless you go bankrupt.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 15:36
by DonSonz
@Pegepinden

I know what you mean :)

20K is ridiculous low - especially when you know what it takes to be a good game programmer and has spent many years studying at University - so I totally agree.

I have seen some of your work (Unity asset store and Gunjitsu) and I cant see why you shouldnt earn a lot more than the 20K in the near future. Just keep on the good hard work and believe in your dreams.

Im not a part of the gaming industri (... and earns a lot more than 20k pr. month) so im not the right one to judge the salaries ;)
I just love to make small game prototypes as a hobby - so I know what it means to be passionate about what im doing.

And I truly believe that this kind of passion will be a very important factor for you to reach your goals.

So make som good games and I wil buy them :)

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 16:19
by allroundman
taking in consideration that a programmer in india get 5-6k well.. :p (if not less)

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 18:14
by BubbleWrapBoy
I've never met a programmer who made less than 30 k a month. In the artist department you make way less.

This is due to the general conception that programming is more important in a game than everything else....

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 20:08
by allroundman
What about game artist and level designers??

Re: Salary?

Posted: 20 Dec 2014, 23:52
by vonknut
allroundman wrote:What about game artist and level designers??
The estimated entry level salaries is for "most profession" at entry level.
But true, the artists and game/level designers are typically worse off than theprogrammers - if not in salaries then in quantity of job openings.
Personally we don't have people on that low wages, but offcause the juniors starts lower than the rest.

I would also earn more in e.g. large company/govermental IT departments or in the advertisement business.
But the first would bore me to death and the second would demand 45-50+ hours a week, that i wore trendy shoes with pointy noses and that I should start snorting stuff up my nose.
-so thank you, but I'm good :)

I guess were all in it for the games.
Prostitutes with hearts of gold, just trying to deliver a product that will bring a smile on the faces of people - no matter the costs.....

Re: Salary?

Posted: 23 Dec 2014, 11:29
by Christen

Re: Salary?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014, 00:38
by uluulu
Talking about salaries abroad - or just far, far, far East.

In Singapore and Malaysia, animators, charactor and environmental salaries on entry level, and for staff with less than 2 years experience is between 1,200 to 1,500 sgd ie DKK 5500-7000 / Month, and first pay increment will typically only be after 18 months of employment. That included Lucas Art, Ubisoft and insert your favorite big house of choice, and not only the smaller local players. Usually the smaller places actually tend to pay better. On the upside you get to work your passion 12 hours a day.

Just a comment about developer salaries. Denmark vs Asia. I have seen and experienced developers in Singapore, Malaysia and India who made crap money, but who could outcode almost any Danish developer I know that earns more than 40K here in DK. So honestly a high salary in Denmark does not really mean that you are good at coding, just that you are good at working within the Danish system (inluding Danish management style).

Btw average pay for an C++/C# developer in India and China is 800USD

Re: Salary?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014, 08:04
by zelsphere
Oh I should had pointed out that the weekly working hours in Japan is 40h, while the truth is that most programmers works at least 60h(with no extra pay) and expect to work in the weekends without any extra pay other than regular salary....

While I personally rarely work overtime and leave on time almost everyday, it seems to be a cultural thing for japanese workers to work overtime simply because someone else might be doing it.

But then again, besides my full time job I also work freelance 20h a week for another company, so I guess I already work the 60h :lol:

Re: Salary?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014, 11:36
by ThomasLund
Outsourcing is a 2 edged sword, and only to be attempted if you really really REALLY know what you are doing. It does NOT save you from having a full time producer/art director or similar to sit at odd hours and manage the outsourcing team.

I've been there, done that - for maaaany years also in non-gaming, and have yet to see the huge benefit. On the contrary, I find that a team that sits physically together is way more productive and energetic to create a great product than a team spread out amongst different timezones and via Skype.

Just saying that there is more to this than just pure salary of the guy making code/art.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014, 12:25
by Niels Jørgensen
I have also spend a part of my professional life (not gaming) managing remote teams, and can only agree with Thomas.

Even at half the price you will not really save anything - the overhead is massive. When you get down below 20% of local salary you might start to save some money, but you will not get many star developers at that rate, no matter where you hire them, and the time wasted in planning and tele conferences and having to constantly explain the same things over and over again will drive you mad - I quit a *very* well paid job in an otherwise awesome company partly to get away from this.

That said, I think the reason is not so much locality as it is cultural. No matter how open a mind you have when you start, as soon as things starts to go wrong, the "us and them" beast will raise its ugly head (on both sides) - the more differences there are, the bigger the beast.

I also think there's a huge difference between working with independent professionals and working with employees of "body shops". The latter tends to be on the fence at the first sign of trouble, where as the first has to make things work to make a living. They're also vastly more expensive, which takes us back to the start ;)

Re: Salary?

Posted: 29 Dec 2014, 13:33
by egenfeldt
In general the rule of thumb for us is that if the work is pretty trivial with no cultural tacit knowledge and easy to explain outsource the crap out of it. Otherwise don't unless you really really is ready to go through the pain of setting it up.

We have found a pretty good way of doing it after trying for almost 10 years. That includes never really outsourcing any programming (except the convert this .psd into html if we can call that programming). One of the best examples is make a 3d drilling platform that looks like x. Or clean up these sketches. Or color these buildings. When you do it right with graphics you can save 60-80% if you are lucky and competent (including overhead). Unfortunately you are never lucky all the time, so the average will be lower.
Lucky=finding the right people to outsource to at the right price and skill level
Competent=know how to scope and explain the job so you get what you want.

Re: Salary?

Posted: 31 Dec 2014, 01:43
by vonknut
Trail-hijacking, but while were at it:

Awesome story from Funkhauser or GuppyWorks (can't remember):
Needed a lot of high quality landscape background images depicting DK
They send a lot of reference photos with the DK landscape.
One of them had a church on it.

The receivers didn't get the scale of the church in the one picture where it figured and by accident thought the church was a house.
They never googled danish landscapes.
They forwarded the images where everything looked nice, apart from all the images had multiple churches all over the place :)