发布于2022年的reddit：《How much do game developers in Australia make?》。

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注：在本文中，OP指发帖人的ID。Posted by u/SaxOps1

嘿，OP，我在2018年底毕业时，也几乎遭遇了和你一样的情况。你可以查看我的发帖记录来确认，因为我很少用这个账户发帖。基本来说，你几乎什么钱都赚不到。游戏开发是一个娱乐领域，然而，如果你想赚钱， 你就不该入局。与其他娱乐媒介不同，非常不幸，除了变成极少数公司的创始人，你甚至没法脱颖而出成为一个明星制作人，成为一个能赚到大钱的极少数人。我认识一些在游戏开发领域工作了十数年的人，他们的收入甚至还没到我刚毕业的时候。话虽如此，还是会有一些公司会支付给你体面的薪水，虽然比不上那些大科技公司，但比起其他工作室的待遇绝对要好一些。我能想到的有ROIT GAMES、ROBLOX和UNITY。但我需要强调，这样的公司少之又少。

这种情况是国际性的。如果你专注于澳大利亚，那么游戏开发在这里几乎等同于死路一条。几年前曾经有一些大的游戏公司，但最后都因为政府削减游戏开发资金等原因而夭折。与大多数国家相比，在这里建立工作室没有经济激励。不过，仍然有一些工作室存在在这里。墨尔本的TANTALUS（如今几乎只移植游戏）、墨尔本的EA工作室（FIREMONKEYS）和悉尼的WarGaming是剩下的几家大工作室。这些公司的职业空缺并不多，而且因为它们基本上是这里唯一的游戏工作室，所以每个想从事游戏开发的人都在竞争这些职位。这里还有一些独立工作室。这些工作室可能会更难进，因为他们没有足够的资金聘用很多开发人员，很可能会聘用自己认识的人。

关于薪资，我有一个来自悉尼WarGaming公司的实习offer（当时他们还没有管培生招聘，当然我想现在应该也很少），2018年底的全职薪资是5万澳币。这与最低工资标准相差无几，这是可是个技术岗位，而且你很可能还需要用它来偿还学生贷款，因此这并不理想。我想在他们那里，初级职位的工资也不会高到哪里去。我在他们之前的两份实习工作的工资都要高得多。

你可以选择到海外从事游戏工作，但这也会非常困难。海外游戏工作室确实会在国际范围内招聘，并为你的签证提供担保，但要记住，这对于刚刚毕业的学生来说不太可能。这些职位的需求量并不大，而且还会有很多本地的申请者。说说我的故事吧，我在维基百科上找到了一份游戏工作室的名单，并向每一家工作室提出了申请。仅有的几家直接回复我说他们不会聘用我——这意味着我的简历甚至没能通过筛选，其他的工作室更是了无音讯。

如果认为你就是为游戏而生的，我不会劝你放弃，但你真的要好好考虑一下。扪心自问，你是否真的想这样做。我曾经和你一样。我从8岁开始做游戏开发，在高中和大学快毕业时利用业余时间编写游戏引擎，痴迷于实现新的花哨的图形算法。我曾经认为我真的会从事游戏开发，因为那是我的使命。我幻想着要么成立自己的工作室，要么先给别人打工，然后再转行做游戏开发。我知道薪水低、工作时间长（项目的关键节点时尤甚），但我不在乎，因为我想做游戏。当我向所有这些工作室提出申请却没有任何回音时，我非常沮丧，我真的没别的工作室可以申请了。随着年龄的增长，我逐渐意识到自己没能进入任何一家工作室是不幸中的万幸。真正的现实是，你很可能会从事一些并不光彩、没有影响力或没有乐趣的工作。在项目的要紧时间，你的生活中最要命的东西可能就是你手头上的工作。此外，工作可能会让你失去所有对生活的乐趣。我目前在悉尼一家科技公司从事渲染技术工作，收入是悉尼一家游戏公司的10倍，我正在做的项目也与我喜欢的游戏开发的一些东西有些吻合。扪心自问一下，你是否愿意付出极大的代价从事游戏开发工作，因为这基本上就是走上这条路的必然结果。对我来说，我无法回答 "是"。

这篇文章真的很长，但我写这篇文章就像是在和3年前的自己对话。如果你有任何问题，请随时联系我。

原文

Hey OP, posting here because I was in the exact same situation when I graduated end of 2018 (you could probably check my posts on here to verify that since I don't post much on this account). Basically the gist of it is you'd get barely anything. Game dev is an entertainment field, you should not go into it if you want to make money. Unfortunately, unlike other entertainment mediums, there's not even a way to stand out like a celebrity and have at least a very small portion of the people making a lot (aside from founders in a very few of the companies). For context, I know people that have worked 10+ years in gamedev and still make less than I did as a grad. That being said, there are some companies that will pay somewhat decently. You still won't be making as much as you would at a normal big tech company but it's definitely better. Some that come to mind are riot games, roblox, unity. I want to stress that these companies are few and far between.

That's internationally though, if you're focusing on Australia game development is pretty much dead here. There used to be a few big name companies years ago but they all died after government funding cuts for game development here among other things. There's no real financial incentive to setup a studio here compared to most other countries. There's still a few studios around though. There's tantalus in Melbourne (which pretty much just do ports these days), an EA studio Melbourne working on mobile apps/engines (Firemonkeys) and WarGaming in sydney to name the big ones left. There aren't many job openings at these companies and since they're basically the only game studios here, everyone that wants to work in game dev is competing for them. There's also a few indie studios here too. These would likely be even harder to get into as they don't really have the funding for many developers and likely will hire people they know.

In terms of salaries, for some tangible numbers, I had an internship offer from wargaming sydney (they weren't offering grad roles at the time and I think it's very rare that they do) for 50k full time at the end of 2018. That's not that far off minimum wage, which for a skilled position and one you likely will be using to pay off your student debt, isn't ideal. I assume a junior role wouldn't be much more with them. Both internships I had before them paid a lot more.

You can take the route of moving overseas to work on games, but it too is going to be insanely hard. Overseas game studios do hire internationally and sponsor visas, but keep in mind that it's very unlikely for a grad role. These roles are not really in demand and will have a lot of local applicants. To give you my story, I went through a wikipedia list of game studios and applied to every single one. The only ones that got back to me said they wouldn't hire me (didn't even make it pass the resume screening for any of them) and the rest I heard nothing from.

If your passion is working on games for a living, I'm not going to dissuade you from doing it but really do think about it. Ask yourself if you really want to do it. I used to be like you. I started game dev when I was 8, wrote game engines in my spare time towards the end of highschool and uni, was obsessed with implementing the new fancy graphics algorithms, ect. I thought I was really committed to doing game dev and it was my calling. I was either going to start my own studio or start by working for someone else and then pivot to it. I knew about the bad pay and longer hours (crunch time is real) but I didn't care because I wanted to work on games. I was so depressed when I was hearing nothing back from applying to all these studios (I literally ran out of places to apply). As I've gotten older I've realised it was a blessing in disguise that I never got into any of them. The reality is you'd likely be working on things that aren't that glamorous or impactful or fun. It's going to be working on what's the most required thing for the project at the given time. Furthermore, having a job will probably suck all enjoyment you get out of it. I'm currently working at a Sydney tech company on rendering tech and making 10x minimum what I would at a game company in sydney. The project I'm on also somewhat aligns with some of the things I loved about game development. Really ask yourself if you would want to be paying large sums of money to be working in gamedev, since that's essentially what you would be doing. For me I can't answer yes to that.

This is really long, but I'm basically writing this as though I'm talking to myself from 3 years ago. If you have any questions feel free to reach out.