Salaries for Artists and Animators
Salaries for Game Artists and Animators vary depending on experience, the size of company and types of roles within the game art and animation team.
Game Artists and Animators that are entering the industry with no professional experience can expect to make between $35 - $50k. On average, artists with less than 3 years experience earn $45k per year. Three to six years experience increases the earning potential for game art roles to an average of $57,500. Related roles with same level of experience but with additional responsibilities such as Lead Artist or Technical Artist attracted an average salary of $75k. Roles with six years or more experience have average salaries of $75,000 for Artists / Animators, $85,000 for Lead Artist/Tech Artists and $110,000 for Art Directors.
We've put this information together on Game Artist salaries based on AIE's experience, industry links and online job listings. We've used the same table format as the Gamasutra Game Developer Salary Survey, the most recent of which, was published in 2014.
The Wider US Game Development Industry
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported in April 2017 that there are now 65,678 workers directly employed at game software publisher and developer locations in the US. In addition they found that employees in these industries earned an average compensation of $97,000 per year in 2016. Read more
Digital Artist Salaries in the US
According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary for Multimedia Artists and Animators in the United States was $65,300 as of May 2016. The median salary is the salary in the middle of all the salaries earned by Multimedia Artists and Animators, from highest to lowest. The lowest 10% earned a salary less than $38,520 and the highest 10% earned a salary higher than $115,960. This category of Multimedia Artists and Animators includes film and games artists along with artists that work in web development, advertising, and other kinds of digital art production.