[game_edu] Game Design Industry Statistics

[Ian Schreiber]

How do you define "game design industry"? Are you talking about game designers in particular (and what exactly does that include? Do you count story writers, for example, or just systems designers? Do you include level designers? Note that the skill sets of all these things are very, VERY different - as is the demand for them - but they are all still often lumped together under the same "design" umbrella). Since you use the term "industry" are you referring to game design only, or to the broader industry including artists, programmers, producers, game audio and QA? Do you count bizdev? Do you include only people who work at established development studios, or do you also count startups, indies, even hobbyists? Do you include publishers, first party, middleware vendors, and others that are part of the industry but don't make "games" as their primary thing? Do you count serious games companies, or other media companies that branch out into games, or only
 companies that are game companies first and foremost and/or companies that make entertainment games exclusively? What about game journalists? Educators? Freelancers? Are you looking only at US figures, North America, or worldwide? I'm sure there are a dozen other clarifications I could ask for here, as well.

The reason I mention this is to bring up two fundamental things that make it difficult to give a definitive answer to your question. First, you have to define exactly what you're measuring, else any numbers you find are suspect. Second, even the game industry itself isn't always consistent on terminology when it comes to job positions, so even if you are very clear in your own definitions, getting others to give consistent numbers when they classify people differently can be a challenge. So, at best we just have guesses. (The annual Salary Survey that Mike points to is one example of this. Not everyone who works on games is going to take the survey, so using it as a total industry headcount is going to come up a bit short. And the salaries tend to be inflated, partly because of the high cost of living in California, and partly because some respondents tend to inflate their salary in the hopes of raising the average so they can use it as leverage to ask
 their boss for a raise.) As for industry growth prospects, the industry changes so fast (who'd have thought we'd be seeing such a sharp downturn in the console space concurrent with a massive explosion in social and mobile, ten years ago?) that any future projections may as well be rolling dice :)

For our purposes as educators, though, I don't think it matters that much. The game industry is a glamour industry; the students who are passionate enough about making games will find a way to make games (regardless of the job prospects), and those who aren't are better off finding another career with better pay / hours / job stability / open positions, anyway.

- Ian



________________________________
 From: Mike Doherty <mdoherty at PACIFIC.EDU>
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org> 
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Game Design Industry Statistics
 

 
Hi Bill:
 
The Feb 2012 issue of “Game Developer” has a 10 year study of salaries and related data.
http://gdmag.com/issue/2012/February
 
Mike Doherty
 
 
From:game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of bill whetsel
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 6:38 AM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: [game_edu] Game Design Industry Statistics
 
Hello Everyone,

I have been looking for Game Design Industry statistics and I'm having a hard time finding specific data.
Can anyone point me in the direction of Game Design Industry growth and employment statistics?

I have searched local and National Department of Labor resources and I am finding vague reference to Game Design within New Media and Computer Science but nothing specific to Game Design and Development.

Thank You,
Bill Whetsel
Visual Communication & Design, Creative Arts
Cuyahoga Community College


_______________________________________________
game_edu mailing list
game_edu at igda.org
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_edu/attachments/20120329/23e72c50/attachment.html>