New York's Pay Transparency Law Sheds Light on Game Industry Salaries

A newly introduced pay transparency law in New York City requires companies with over four employees to publicly disclose salary ranges for job openings. This law has provided insight into the compensation standards at several game development studios in the area, with Axios compiling data on various roles. At Rockstar Games NYC, the highest-paying position listed was a product lead with a salary range of $163,000 to $184,000, while the lowest-paying role was an associate dialogue designer with a range of $50,000 to $57,000. Epic Games' listings included an operations manager for content policy and operations with a range of $159,000 to $206,000 and an Unreal Engine senior product manager with a range of $187,000 to $242,000. Other companies with publicly listed jobs in New York include Rockstar's parent company Take-Two Interactive, Twitch, Activision, and Ubisoft. Although this data may not provide a comprehensive view of the industry, it highlights the salary ranges for various roles and underscores the ongoing issue of pay discrepancy in the game industry. Earlier this year, a report by GamesIndustry.biz found a median gender wage disparity of 17.1% in the UK game industry in 2021. A separate survey of 1,300 respondents in the UK game industry revealed that QA, audio design, and journalism are among the lowest-paying disciplines, while programming, business development, and production are among the highest-paying roles. In a related move, German studio Innogames recently published its own pay guidelines, outlining salary ranges for junior, intermediate, senior, and elite levels.