New York pay transparency law gives insight into games industry salaries
As of this week, companies with over four employees are required to share "good faith" figures for job listings
New York City introduced a new pay transparency law this week, that asks companies with over four employees to disclose salary ranges for any public job openings.
This has given an insight into pay standards at several games studios operating in the area, which Axios has compiled.
The outlet shared five roles listed at Rockstar Games NYC; the highest paid was a product lead with a salary range of $163,000 to $184,000, and the lowest was an associate dialogue designer falling between $50,000 and $57,000.
At Epic Games, the highest paid roles that Axios found included an operations manager for content policy and operations listed between $159,000 and $206,000, and an Unreal Engine senior product manager falling between $187,000 and $242,000.
It also compiled several public jobs listed in New York by Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, Twitch, Activision and Ubisoft.
While this might not give a comprehensive overview of the roles listed, it does highlight the range of salaries you might expect, while discrepancy in pay is still an ongoing issue within the games industry.
Earlier this year, GamesIndustry.biz released a report compiling data from gender pay gap reports released by games companies in the UK, which found that the median gender wage disparity in games was 17.1% in 2021.
A survey set up to encourage more pay transparency in the UK also unveiled average salaries for people working across different roles and sectors in games. Data compiled from 1,300 respondents concluded that QA, audio design and journalism are the lowest paid discliplines on average, while programming, business development and production are among the highest paying roles.
In August, German studio Innogames pulled back the curtain on its own pay practices, laying out a guideline of what its staff earn at junior, intermediate, senior and elite levels.