Hey guys, I'm a 15(16 in a few months) year old, who enjoys making games for pure fun. First off I want to make it clear that I am not asking, planning, or trying to get a job anytime soon in game dev. My question is, what kind of life style can I expect if I grow up and I choose my career to be game development rather than, lets say my alternative, business? All on average(not saying I'm going to make quake or HL2) What kind of pay would I be looking at? What kind of benefits? What kind of hours? Would I have time for vacation, or even be able to afford a cruise? Can someone give me an idea of what I should expect if I choose game development as a career choice. So far I know that I will love what I do, so thats a plus :) I am at that age where I need to start writing to colleges, and revolving my academic schedule around the field I am interested in. I am going to take the two CS courses in my high school anyways, as I'm sure they will be a breeze ;), and quite fun. But I need to know if I should concentrate on other fields. Thanks for any comments and or suggestions, Joe

That is a heck of a lot of questions you just asked. I would recommend you head over to Gamasutra.com and read through the numerous amount of articles they have there and also Sloperama.com, the personal site of Tom Sloper, one of GD.net's veteran developers who provides a lot of insight on his site.

Wow I looked at a site, and basically it showed no jobs that made over 150k a year. I'm kind of hoping

if(salary == lamborghini_price){    cout<< "is my salary";}

but that my be a bit much. I'm more in for the money, rather than passion(in my career). I have a passion for game development.
looks like average game development salary is 90k.

Thanks,

Joe

I believe entrance level programming (in Canadian) is between 50k to 60k dollars. However, as with any role (in any career path), should you choose project management and/or consulting you should end up making a good deal more (of course this requires experience!) money.

As zer0 said though, definitely consult sloperama.com, it tailors itself around your type of questions. And if you simply cannot find an answer, just pester Tom Sloper via e-mail!

Alleged 15-year-old kid calling himself "avg programing[sic] joe[sic]" wrote:

>I'm more in for the money, rather than passion(in my career). I have a passion for game development.
>looks like average game development salary is 90k.

OK, so... do you have a, you know, serious question we can answer for you?

What kind of lifestyle can I be looking at as a game developer.
When earning 90k what kind of hours would I be working? Do game developers usually get benefits? What kind of lifestyle am I looking at If game development is my career choice. Will I have flexible hours, good benefits, what can I expect?

Simply stated: the pay is lower and the hours are longer, but the work is more rewarding. However, Computer Science applies to many more industries than just video games and you still have another 6 years to decide what you want to do.

BTW, where did you see that the average game development salary is 90k? Either you are very mistaken or I am horribly underpaid. The Game Developer salary survey release a few months ago said this:

...the results of its 2006 Salary Survey, calculating an average American game industry salary of $73,316, slightly down on 2005's figure of $75,039.
...
According to the new survey, conducted in association with Audience Insights, the average salary in 2006 over all American game programmers was $80,886 - basically flat on the year before...

Quote:

I am at that age where I need to start writing to colleges, and revolving my academic schedule around the field I am interested in. I am going to take the two CS courses in my high school anyways, as I'm sure they will be a breeze ;), and quite fun. But I need to know if I should concentrate on other fields.

If you are shifting your schedule around what you are interested in and you are interested in CS, then why would you need to concentrate on other fields?

This is of course not to say not to concentrate on other studies with as much effort, but spreading yourself too thin because you don't think that career makes enough money/benefits is not a good idea.

As a general statement, doing things for the more materialistic reasons usually doesn't turn out so well. So, for now at least, just take the courses you're interested in and don't worry about the pay.

(To add this to my previous post, caught it after rereading.)

Alleged 15-year-old kid calling himself "avgprogramingjoe" wrote:

>When earning 90k what kind of hours would I be working?

You haven't read the Quality Of Life whitepaper on IGDA.org yet. The answer is "a minimum of 40 hours per week, but probably much more than that for at least a month or two at the end of each project."

>Do game developers usually get benefits?

You haven't read the Salary Survey on GameCareerGuide.com yet. The answer is "it depends." Which kind of game developer are you going to be - one who works for a big company? Or one who's a lone wolf type and goes it alone?

>What kind of lifestyle am I looking at If game development is my career choice.

Question is too vague. Read FAQ 15 at sloperama.com/advice.html

>Will I have flexible hours, good benefits, what can I expect?

You can expect a perfectly good job, if you are a perfectly good employee. But so far you sound like a mercenary who I would not hire.

> What kind of lifestyle am I looking at
> if game development is my career choice.

You are asking what the game industry is going to look like 5 - 10 years from now. Heck if I know. I`ve got no crystal ball.

> what kind of life style can I expect if I grow up

Start by growing up. You`ll have plenty of time to think about your lifestyle when you get there.

> I need to know if I should concentrate on other fields

My personal advice is not to specialize yourself too early; things change and rather quickly, so you want to have the widest education and skill set. Specializing in making buggy whips can only make you go so far in life.

-cb