Let's pause and take a look at this year's major annual game developer survey.

We love games. Developers make games. We love developers.

Are the people making the games we love getting fair wages for fair work? Every year, Gamasutra investigates the topic. This year's 8-page report summarizes their findings, the result of "4,000 unique responses worldwide." Here's what they found:

Average U.S. salary, by discipline:

• $101,572 - Business and Management
• $95,682 - Audio Professionals
• $93,251 - Programmers
• $82,286 - Producers
• $74,349 - Artists and Animators
• $73,864 - Game Designers
• $54,833 - Quality Assurance

Average Developer, by Location ($USD)

• America: $83,060 (down 2%)
• West: $89,559
• East: $76,677
• South: $74,838
• Midwest: $70,857
• Canada: $71,445 (up 9%)
• Europe: $46,232 (flat)

There are also lots of tiny, interesting tidbits you can find in the results document. For instance, 57% of indie game devs made under $500 in game sales, while 2% made over $200,000.

Gamasutra editor-in-chief Kris Graft had this to say on this year's survey:

"Whether talking about the advancements in the democratization of game development, or the release of a new generation of consoles, it was a year in which the disruption and chaos of prior years settled in just enough for game developers to identify and adapt to a new reality. Despite the challenges, there's still an undercurrent of enthusiasm."

In response to Gamasutra's survey, Game Beyond puts all of the above into question and researched their own estimates in an article titled "How Much Game Makers Get Paid... Realistically."

Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey
Deputy Editor