Sean K. Reynolds talks RPG salaries, puts his on record.

[Umbran]

Which is a massive problem......

Yeah, but it is really beyond the scope of these boards. I simply wanted to note that the 10x salary increase is really only seen in a small number of professions, and probably does not apply to game designers, or, indeed, most of the folks posting on the site.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yeah, but it is really beyond the scope of these boards. I simply wanted to note that the 10x salary increase is really only seen in a small number of professions, and probably does not apply to game designers, or, indeed, most of the folks posting on the site.

Ya, I have no idea where that number comes from. I saw mine go from around 40K to 200K ......It would have been hard to get to 400K. I can't even imagine the data is close to that (as you point out).

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Ya, I have no idea where that number comes from. I saw mine go from around 40K to 200K ......It would have been hard to get to 400K. I can't even imagine the data is close to that (as you point out).

It seems hard but I passed 10x in about 10 years. If you asked me at my first non, looking at current wages it seemed hard. I am certainly an over achiever (my salary is actually public so can be seen), but my position let’s me see salaries in general and I have worked in a variety of companies by now.

You need to factor in bonus and options as well.

I am only mentioning professionals because these discussions inevitably are about game designers as a profession. I am really wondering more and more about that because they certainly are not paid like they are.

 

[Morrus]

It seems hard but I passed 10x in about 10 years. If you asked me at my first non, looking at current wages it seemed hard. I am certainly an over achiever (my salary is actually public so can be seen), but my position let’s me see salaries in general and I have worked in a variety of companies by now.

Well done, you.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Threads like this reaffirm I should never quit my day job lol.

 

[Umbran]

That said, assuming we don't explode with a million dollar campaign or something, I expect the development cost to be about 5-10 times the manufacturing cost. The shipping costs -- don't even ask at the moment!

Someone like Avatar who are manufacturing and shipping for 80,000 backers, the ratio is assuredly very different.

Okay, been thinking about this for a bit, we can get an idea. Because, assuming "work for hire" from the authors, once the writing is done, that's a fixed cost, while printing and shipping will scale up with the number of sales.

So, the back of the envelope would then be that, if you sold more products, the share of the cost that is writing will scale down. For a product that sells typically like Morrus', the development is 5 to 10x the manufacturing costs. For a product that sells 10x as much, the development will be from half of to equal to manufacturing costs. For a product that sells 100x as much as Morrus typically does, development becomes maybe 1% of the manufacturing costs - and at that point, the development costs are not really the controlling factor in the profit - manufacturing and shipping will dominate. We can expect some economy of scale to kick in, but probably not on the same order of magnitude.

Which brings us to - for a house like WotC, the salaries of the writers are often not the controlling factor in the cost of producing one of their books.

 

[darjr]

 

[Marc Radle]

I'll take your word for it. I expect you're presenting a reasonable median.

From what I see here and in my gaming circles, pdfs seemed to be the preferred venue. Obviously, there's a lot more old-school buyers than I thought. That's interesting.

I wouldn’t call it old school at all.
Print VERY much still drives the RPG publishing business.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

The examples of people making pretty good money from writing / game design are usually the ones that own their own company and present great products or the senior management at some of the larger publishers. Not really that much different than fiction writers and actors. A few make a lot. The rest wait tables and hope for a break.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I started at below $13K.

I was wondering what where the source for studies about income increase over the course of the career, then I saw your post and realized multipliers were extremely warped by the minimum wages laws. If one starts to work before reaching full initial education level & in a place where there is next to no minimum wage, it's possible to start very low and easily mechanically reach a larger multiplier over the course of a career. With a minimum yearly unqualified wage of € 19,000 in France or € 26,400 in Luxembourg, getting x10 over the course of career means reaching far above the top 1% salary bracket (and I'd say not all people in this category started with a minimum wage job).

Interestingly, and pertaining to the topic at hand, when adjusted for inflation, SKR was better paid at Interplay than in the RPG industry, even with 20+ years of professional experience. Which isn't surprising.