Want to make games? Drop out now!

[alexxkay]

Game Developer Magazine's latest issue features the results of their annual salary survey. Although there are caveats involved with any set of self-reported data, I think at least the relationships between different subsets of data are likely to be accurate. And I noticed something that surprised me in the table "Average Salary by Education and Discipline".

In all disciplines, those who completed "Some College" make significantly *more* than those who completed a Bachelor's Degree. Those who went on to "Some Graduate" made even *less* than those with Bachelor's.

Actually *completing* a Master's Degree gets you a salary roughly comparable to "Some College", though in some disciplines it's a bit less, in some a bit more. In none is it *enough* more to suggest being worth the investment.

At the Doctoral level, only Programmers reported anything. "Some Doctoral" makes more money than "Some College" -- but an actual Doctorate makes *less*.

So, if you're a college student who wants a successful career in the games industry, apparently the best thing you can do is drop out!

Comments

[greatsword.livejournal.com]

This might also be industry specific.

The fact that I'm a college dropout has never been held against me in the games industry; it was in my pre-games programming jobs. It's not a matter of relative talent, either - in games I've been working with people as good or better than I; prior to that I was comfortably the best programmer around. (He said modestly.)

I came into games with a higher than normal starting salary based on my pre-games industry salary - and it was still a thirty percent pay cut. It wasn't timing for me - I spent two years after dropping out working a bad job, then nine years outside of the industry working as a programmer.

I suspect the industry has an easier time keeping talented people without a degree because of the industry culture; those with a degree have an easier time leaving it for more money. I'd like to see a correlation with years in the industry, and with the number of platform generations the person has worked through. I suspect that has more to do with salary than education.