judging by your messages, it seems like having a long term relationship with the developer (individual or business) makes more sense as the complexity of the game increases. same thing if the quality (of the gameplay) required is higher. in other words, more complex games may have a better chance for success if developed "in-house."

if I decide to look for a programmer (individual) to develop a casual game like bejeweled (given that the game dynamics and graphics are ready), what kind of experience should I look for? college degree plus how many years of programming? if his/her experience includes the programming of at least a casual game from start to finish, what average salary (or hourly wage, if freelancing for 2-3 months) are we talking about?

thanks.

Quote: Original post by ccc123
if I decide to look for a programmer (individual) to develop a casual game like bejeweled (given that the game dynamics and graphics are ready),

A dangerous assumption; engage with the artist and the programmer at roughly the same time. You'll need to iterate quickly to be able to hit the level of quality you want on a game like this, both on Design and on Art. It's great if you have some conceptual sketches, and a first pass game-mechanic. Assume they'll change :)

Quote: Original post by ccc123
What kind of experience should I look for? college degree plus how many years of programming? if his/her experience includes the programming of at least a casual game from start to finish, what average salary (or hourly wage, if freelancing for 2-3 months) are we talking about?

Freelancers for this type of thing are usually paid by project, rather than by hour. You also frankly probably don't care about his education (since you're not employing him), just his portfolio / assumed ability to do the work.

You'd work out the freelance fee roughly like this

(Base Salary per Year / 12) x (Presumed Months of work) x (Overheads and Risk)

For a professional game Programmer with a couple of years experience in US, and what we assume will be a 3 months project, that would probably equate to around.

(60K USD / 12) x (3) x 1.5 = 22K USD

This assumes that the programmer is choosing to work for/with you, rather than doing mainstream development, so the 1.5x basically accounts for his risk, insurance/overheads and op-cost.

How can you play with this number?

1. Change the risk/return portion by giving the programmer a percentage of revenue (say 5-10%), in return for less up front (so 0.5x, but a 7% revshare on the back-end) = 7.5K

2. Pick a programmer that's not professionally engaged in the industry at the moment, but wants to be. You can probably knock both the base-salary and the multiplier down a lot that way. Especially for a fresh graduate. Much higher risk, though.

3. Go overseas; base salary for a programmer in eastern europe or SE Asia is 10-25% of the US for equivalent experience. Many of the FarCry programmers, for example, were Ukranian. Command&Control becomes a serious issue, though, especially if you have no experience in development yourself. You also got to ask yourself; if this goes sour, do I really WANT to try dragging a guy in Kiev to court?

4. Find a partner (either artist and programmer) that is willing to spend sweat for equity. Our industry burns a lot of people out, and you should be able to find a burnt out programmer or two at your local IGDA Chapter that would be interested in co-founding something like this. My biz-partner and I are both refugees from AAA, who after a collective 20 years in the industry had enough and swam for warmer ocean of the Casual space. At this point, though, the grizzled veteran will usually ask 'what do YOU bring to the table'....

Best of luck,

Allan Simonsen
Boomzap Pte Ltd

Quote: Original post by __ODIN__
(Base Salary per Year / 12) x (Presumed Months of work) x (Overheads and Risk)

For a professional game Programmer with a couple of years experience in US, and what we assume will be a 3 months project, that would probably equate to around.

(60K USD / 12) x (3) x 1.5 = 22K USD

Damn, you Americans get paid a lot. $60K for someone 2 years out of uni. I'm on about 1/2 that after a couple of years and that's not bad outside of the London area. Although I know freelancers need more due to unreliable work etc. Maybe I should work as an outsourcer to the US!

Quote: Original post by d000hg

Quote: Original post by __ODIN__
(Base Salary per Year / 12) x (Presumed Months of work) x (Overheads and Risk)

For a professional game Programmer with a couple of years experience in US, and what we assume will be a 3 months project, that would probably equate to around.

(60K USD / 12) x (3) x 1.5 = 22K USD

Damn, you Americans get paid a lot. $60K for someone 2 years out of uni. I'm on about 1/2 that after a couple of years and that's not bad outside of the London area. Although I know freelancers need more due to unreliable work etc. Maybe I should work as an outsourcer to the US!

No, most do not make quite that much two years out of school. Depending on the part of the country and the actual job, salary could be $45000 (25500 GBP) fresh out of school.

It's referring to somebody who has enough experience that you would hire them for a project and trust that they could finish it. Also remember that the pay for contract developers is more to account for other issues like their own marketing, health costs, and other factors.

60K USD = 34K GBP according to the converter, which looks about right based on a search for programming jobs in the London area. If you are making half that (17K GBP), I recommend you spend some time at reed.co.uk.

frob.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040211/olsen_01.shtml

=)

60k US is a reasnoble figures with 2 years of 'experience', its actually on average higher than that.

Quote: Original post by KGodwin
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040211/olsen_01.shtml

=)

60k US is a reasnoble figures with 2 years of 'experience', its actually on average higher than that.

The accuracy of the 2003 survey has been questioned by several people. Although they do have a statistically meaningful number of responses, the sources and details they give about them sadly call the whole thing in to doubt.

For a better picture, you should also look at the 2002 survey and 2001 survey.

Things to note:

There is no standard deviation given on any year's report.

There is a roughly 15% difference for various regions across the country, but most responses come from just a few geographic hubs and are all averaged together.

Most of the surveys show a salary drop after two years, including among leadership positions. Since the people in leadership positions are able to review coworkers pay rates, it seems unlikely that they would pay themselves less than their subbordinates.

Distribution of responders:

                         2001   2002  2003                        -----  ----- -----GDC attendees (pros)  |  1797   1178   *BGamasutra (amature)   |  1953    *A    *BGD magazine (anyone)  |   919    *A    *B*A = 4508 combined responses through email*B = 5256 combined responses through email

The 2001 survey had about 38% come from professionals at monitored stations. The 2002 survey had 18% come from that same group. They don't tell for the 2003 survey. And in general, online surveys are, shall we say, dubious at best.

The sources of data might also imply why there are so many people with under 2 years experience showing up as lead programmers and designers. In my years in the industry, I don't believe I've ever met any of those people.

Also for comparison, consider the >2 and 2-5 year programmer salaries between the three surveys. You'll notice something else that is odd:

       2001   2002   2003      ------  -----  ----->2  | 55478  49602  594202-5 | 62394  56106  69413

Even considering 9/11/2001, those numbers, especially for 2003, show some issues. Did the average salary really drop 10% after 9/11/2001? Did it really jump over 20% between 2002 and 2003?


I'd consider the 2001 survey pretty accurate based on my experience. I'd just add a tiny salary amount since the economy now is just a tiny bit better than it was before 9/11/2001.

frob.

*shrugs*

I'm just saying it was a reasnoble figure, and I was too lazy to dig up the other two. Dubious tho it may be, it still gives a very rough ballpark figure.

Two things to note:

1) The survey is probably taken by professionals with full time jobs at an actual office where they work and talk to people on a daily basis which is a world of difference from a freelancer working on the other side of the globe. The two cannot be compared.

2) Secondly, always distrust such figures. People always lie about such things to make themselves look better. By the same token, the US supposedly has a 5% unemployment rate, meanwhile just about everybody you talk to is looking for a job (and boy is this true of the game industry).

--Bart

thanks guys. great info, allan.

is this "60K salary, 2 years experience" programmer sufficiently qualified to develop an online version of a casual game, which we assumed that he can do it? or maybe I should ask first if there are any major code/programming differences between a casual game for PC and its version for the web? are these differences going to significantly influence the experience requirement for a programmer?

First, it's my impression that $60k could be a starting salary for someone straight out of college (4-year degree or better), if they're a) good and b) working in Northern California. I hear places like Alabama is a different market, though.

Second, I think three guys for three months is about right for a sellable casual game with graphics, animation, programming, and a little bit of sound. If you want several changing, involved scores from good composers, you may look at more than that. 2D and sound artists are typically significantly cheaper than engineers, though (by up to 40%!) Really good 3D artists are as expensive as engineers.

Third, developing games to run in a browser is riskier than developing games to run on a PC, because you have the vagaries of all the different browsers in the world, the different versions of plug-ins (Java, Flash, etc), the different security/signing levels, etc. A downloadable game is much less technology risk than an in-browser game, but will probably have fewer takers. On the other hand, many people playing in-browser games likely won't pay for the pleasure, so they'll just cost you bandwidth.