Salaries in Game Development: How Much Can You Make in the Games Industry in 2025?

Salaries in game development have become a hot topic in 2025 as studios navigate cost-cutting, layoffs, and cautious hiring. Understanding what game professionals actually earn is more critical than ever. That’s why we at 8Bit created the Gamedev Salary Pulse 2025 report: to bring transparency to the market and give studio leaders, hiring managers, and job seekers a realistic benchmark for compensation.

Whether you’re leading an indie studio or managing recruitment at a global company, knowing what to offer is just as important as knowing who to hire. This article provides a visual overview of 2025 salary trends across game development disciplines – like art, engineering, or design- paired with regional context. We’ve included charts and median figures to help you compare and benchmark more effectively.

Global Gamedev Salary Trends at a Glance

Our 2025 data includes anonymous contributions from over 1,100 professionals worldwide. Here are a few trends worth highlighting:

• Salaries remain stable across most roles compared to 2024 (See data from Gamedev Salary Pulse 2024).

• Regional salary differences and the fact that gamedevs are experienced in remote collaborations are fueling the growth of co-development partnerships in the games industry, where studios in higher-cost regions collaborate with skilled teams in more cost-effective markets. This trend allows companies to maintain quality while managing costs across distributed teams.

• The seniority gap is real: while junior salaries haven’t dropped year-over-year, hiring at that level has slowed significantly. From our recruitment perspective, we see that studios, facing a large pool of experienced professionals laid off over the past two years, are prioritizing mid-level hires who can contribute immediately over entry-level candidates who would require training. For those looking to break into game development, preparation is more crucial than ever: having a project portfolio, even built with peers and during game jams, has become essential to stand out and succeed.

Salaries by Discipline

Each of the following sections is accompanied by a graphic highlighting gross median annual salaries (excluding possible bonuses) by region and experience level.

Art & Animation

From concept art to 3D animation, salaries in the art vertical show a wide regional spread. Senior-level roles in North America, Nordics and Western Europe command significantly higher rates than those in Central and Eastern Europe.

Engineering & Programming

One of the highest-compensated tracks in game development, engineering salaries continue to dominate. North American senior engineers report the highest medians, often exceeding $120,000.

Game & Level Design

Game designers see more variation across regions, with mid-to-senior designers in Western Europe and North America earning noticeably more than their CEE counterparts.

Quality Assurance (QA)

QA salaries remain modest compared to other disciplines. Roles range from manual testers to QA leads and automation engineers, with increased demand for QA specialists who can work closely with dev teams.

Tech Art & VFX

Tech Artists and VFX specialists bridge the gap between art and engineering, optimizing assets for performance and developing visual effects that bring gameplay to life. Salaries in this space are on the rise, especially for candidates experienced in Unreal/Unity pipelines, and real-time effects.

North American and Western European studios pay a premium for seasoned Tech Artists, while CEE remains a strong region for scalable talent.

Additional Disciplines & Compensation Insights

In addition to game development roles, we also gathered and analyzed salary data for essential support and strategic functions within the industry:

• HR & Operations: Covering in-house recruiters, HR managers, and legal support.
• Marketing & Business Development: Including brand managers, user acquisition specialists, and B2B strategists.
• Production Roles: Expanded beyond project managers to include producers and operations executives.

We also explored how compensation varies by contract model (e.g., employment vs. B2B), and which benefits are most commonly offered in different regions – including healthcare, mental health support, and training opportunities.

All of this extended data is available in our free full report:

Download Gamedev Salary Pulse 2025 now