When I started playing video games way back in the 1970’s, the “art” was pretty terrible. A game’s screen could only show a few colors at a time. Often, the “character” you were playing was little more than a colored square. Games were so simple that it was common for a single developer to do everything by herself – all the design, all the coding, and all the art.
Over the years, that changed. Gaming systems grew more powerful, exploding from two dimensions into three-dimensions in full color. At the same time, the video game artist’s job became too much for one person to handle. Now, the job that was once done by a single artist has split into many different art specialties. Each one has its own tools and techniques that take a lifetime to master. But when it comes to the paycheck, not all art jobs are created equal.
If you’re considering a career in game art, understand that there are many different types of art jobs. What kind of art speaks to you? Are you drawn to 3D modeling? Or do you prefer breathing life into characters as an animator? Maybe you love the exploration and architectural focus of environment art? Each has its own job title, support community, and salary range.
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Before we dig into the details, here’s a quick overview: Game artist salaries start around USD$35, 000 annually for entry-level art positions. They can grow to as much as $90, 000 per year, even higher for senior or lead positions. So, how is game artist pay determined?
Like most jobs, game artist salaries are based on years of experience, areas of expertise, and whether there’s a “lead” or a “senior” in the job title. The more experience you have, the more you’re likely to get paid.
One of the challenges of being an artist is finding a job at a game studio that fits your particular art style. Do you excel at a colorful anime art style, but you work at a company that requires gritty, sepia-tinted first-person shooter art? If so, you may find that you hit a “glass ceiling.” You might be able to make more money at a company that values your anime style. So finding a company that’s a strong match for your skills and style is important.
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Okay, let’s take a look at the numbers in detail. These figures are from three sources: GlassDoor.com, Game Developer Magazine’s annual salary survey, and my own experience working with artists in the game industry.
One way to break down the numbers is to look at experience. Here are the average salaries for game artists with various years of experience.
Note that there isn’t data for Lead Artists or Art Directors until they have three to six years’ experience. That’s because artists need several years of on-the-job experience before they’ll be promoted into leadership positions.
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Another way to break down the numbers is to look at each game artist salary based on job title. This can be more useful because it gives a salary range. It also shows the differences between various areas of art expertise, rather than lumping them all together under one job title.
The numbers above are averages from many hundreds of artist salaries, so they’re generalized. In practice, there are other factors that can affect how much each artist is paid:
The game industry is a boom-and-bust business. Unfortunately, it’s often the art jobs that are hit the hardest during “bust” cycles. It can be particularly devastating when a big company like Zynga lays off dozens of artists, because they all go looking for new jobs at the same time.
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Fortunately, games can’t be made without art. Many companies are willing to hire artists on a contract basis until the boom cycle starts again. The chart below shows the demand for game artists, based on the number of monthly job postings that include “video game artist” in their description at Indeed.com (a job-posting aggregator).
This approach can give false positives. For example, a job posting might actually be for a Game Designer, but it would show up in the data if it mentioned “must work well with
Are you passionate about making games? Are you unable to remember a time when you didn’t draw or paint whenever you got the chance? Then you might just love making art for games. Few artists outside of games get a chance to have their work brought to life by an army of designers and programmers. And there’s nothing like seeing a player become totally immersed in the environments or characters that you built with your own hands.
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Making games for a living is an incredibly rewarding career, but it’s hard to break in unless you have insider knowledge. This book levels the playing field.Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more
The #AnimationPaidMe hashtag started trending this week, where animators publicly revealed their earnings to draw attention to wage disparities in the field. The hashtag initially began as an offshoot of the #PublishingPaidMe and #GameDevPaidMe hashtags, which focused on wage disparities between white and Black practitioners in the U.S. in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. From there, #AnimationPaidMe has become global, as even animators who worked in Japan have shared their earnings, revealing stark differences in animation wages between countries.

#AnimationPaidMe I was an animation director. 2014:¥3, 500, 000(about$33k) 2015:¥5, 000, 000(about$46k) 2016:¥5, 000, 000(about$46k) 2017:¥5, 000, 000(about$46k) 2018:¥5, 500, 000(about$51k) 2019:I quit the animator. 2020:Now I'am a NEET.— げそ (@gesoikuo2) June 9, 2020
Anime Artist Salary
#AnimationPaidMe As freelancer in jp my approximate yearly wage: 2014 $4634 2015 $6489 2016 $9083 2017 $14830 2018 $26890 2019 quit n go military service ——————— Now I get roughly $9000 per month— Pathmy (@hakuoishii) June 9, 2020
#AnimationPaidMe CA (all cad) YOWZA- 800/wk TITMOUSE 2018:1050 2019:1075 2020:1100 JP (posting for friend) BONES 1st year: 729USD/month (u get paid per drawing from the 2nd year onwards, 1 drawing is 360 jpy (3.29USD) & it becomes 280 jpy (2.31usd) from the 3rd year onwards— syd (@SYDSIR) June 8, 2020
#AnimationPaidMe JAPAN 2D anime pro animator key animation (genga) 1cut $20~$40 USD second key animation 1cut $20~$25 USD 1 month salary $700~$1400 USD 1years salary $10000~$23000 USD Unstable and hopeless The Japanese anime industry is about to collapse pic.twitter.com/EZcw2DYQ16— りむてっど (@rnrnqqq) June 9, 2020
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Artists from the Philippines have also been speaking up about the amounts they've been earning working on Japanese and non-Japanese animated properties:

I've been a bg artist in an anime company for 10 years and I'd say you're still lucky to have that price. We were being paid for 300 per bg for that one anime shounen show and 200 per bg for the shoujo one. Also we're also to be the one to do the layout with 150 pesos 😂— AubsNIN🔞 (@aubsnin) June 8, 2020
Rates quoted by American and Canadian artists using the hashtag have tended to vary depending on whether they belong to a union, among other factors (a collection of tweets can be found on Cartoon Brew), although it is notable that even the lowest figures are not close to the numbers given by those who have done animation work in Asia, which some artists have pointed out:
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The disparity in numbers (Philippines especially) is heartbreaking- transparency for equality! 2017 Indie-game Concept Art - $83k 2018 DW BG Paint (freelance) - $35/hr 2019 Netflix BG Design - $100k 2020 Snap Inc Concept Art (freelance) - $50/hr#AnimationPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe— Victoria Joh (@kvebox) June 8, 2020
Perspective time! First Canadian job as a 2D Harmony animator paid CAD800/wk. That's over Php29000 PER WEEK, and I was told that I was being lowballed. I earned Php2500/wk + output in the Philippines for a ton more work. Most I earned was Php5000/wk. #AnimationPaidMe https://t.co/RbXvSQkzU5— Motzie Dapul (@MotzieD) June 10, 2020
According to a 2019 survey by the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA), the mean average yearly income across the industry is 4, 410, 000 yen (US$40, 000), although the average for in-between animators is only 1, 250, 000 yen (US$11, 400). Young people between 20 to 24 reported that they earned 1, 550, 000 yen (US$14, 000) per year, which is 1 million yen less than the national average for the age group, according to data from the National Tax Agency.There was a time when the animation industry was regarded as an odd career path with few opportunities. Now the media industry has grown and merged with other industries, the animation industry has benefited greatly. This has also brought a huge hike in animator salary in India.

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According to a recent media and entertainment industry report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Indian animation and visual effects industry has the potential to grow from 10% to 20-25% by 2025.
The government is also heavily supporting the animation industry, and the newly unveiled promotion task force for the AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics) sector is a significant step toward increasing domestic capacity to meet our markets and global
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