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 notprop wrote:

 Hercule Pyro wrote:
A Stoofer avatar

Respect is due!

I think in all the years and on all the forums I've used this avatar, you are the only person to recognise it.

nevertellmetheodds wrote:
Your bog standard staff at GW don't get much. going rate or less from what i know. I know at least one of there star artists/sculpters at one point was on at least 70k+ i think closer to 100k pa (thats GBP). I have no ideas about the game designers, i would think that seriously strong mathematics for various situations to balance things right would be key, making things fun in comparison is fairly easy as just trawl forums and you get lots of great ideas etc (i am sure plenty of people would debate this but in comparison to creating mathematical models i would find it easier). Someone with good maths or math/physics/engineering degree = 30-35k average in the uk to hang on to them i think, due to the 'fun' aspect of the job in that you probably get to play i would say 30k ish.

£30-35k? Starting wages for someone with an MEng is around £25k. The post people are looking at at £15k is more of an apprentice level post, and for that around that area £15k is good money, more than I got paid in my first post uni job, and I am down south. They probably don't require jobs for this know of roll, but 5 c+ GCSE's, 3 good alevels and an interest in the games, for which that sort of wage is good. I'm sure that if a graduate applied with the right qualifications they would be in with a good shot, as long as they could show they were not a dreamer going to dissapear soon.

For those who are interested and are complaining £14-£15k is not anough to live on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19857121

It is enough to live on when your young, plenty in fact.

On £14k you take home £1004

Rent on a studio flat in nottingham:£300 pcm
Ctax: £70 pcm
Other bills approx £100pcm (water heat electricity)
Food and other day to day living: £160 pcm
Total for basic living £630pcm

Leaving you with £370 to pay for the rest. After transport, phone, clothes and the other things you need to buy but are not essential your probably left with about £150-200 to spend on enjoying life. Not a huge amount but at that age (early 20s) plenty. You don't give a crap about savings or hobbies at that point. I, and everyone I know, was happy as long as there was enough to go out for beers for the first three weeks and buy 4 cans of larger and a bag of chips by the last weekend of the month.

I get the feeling some people have either lived very privalaged lives or have too high expectations of what life will be like. When I was at uni I thought I was going to leave, get a car and a nice 3 bed house, but life aint like that.

http://www.citizensuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The-Living-Wage-in-the-United-Kingdom-May-2011.pdf

Outside London, living wage is £7.20 per hour. That's £280 a week assuming a 39 hour week, which is £14 600 per year. this isn't some radical left-wing nonsense, it's an idea embraced even by the Tory party leadership.

It's certainly possible to get by on less than the living wage, and I managed it quite happily myself for 20 or so years. But it is not sensible to suggest that it's either possible or desirable for the majority of people to do so. It is in fact generally those from more comfortable backgrounds who do find themselves happy to earn below or around the living wage, often because there is an implicit 'safety net' provided by parental wealth, even if that is untapped. For the majority of people whose parents are not home owners and have themselves earned less or around living wage throughout their lives, things are usually not so cosy. They may even wish to have children before they're 30, or harbour other such dangerous ambitions. . .

So far as I can ascertain, GW pay their shop staff something rather below the living wage (because they work less than a 39 hour week). I would presume that the designers get rather more but I'd be very surprised if it exceeded £30 000 a year.

I wasn't saying trying to start something about the living wage, just saying that £14k is enough to live on as a starting wage. I don't think it is desirable long term wage, just that it is enough to happily live on in your early 20's as a starting wage in what is really a trainee level in an area with a low cost of living and not some horrific slave wage that some seem to think. I lived on less than that for the about 5 years so am fully aware of the costs of being on that income.

I have no problem with the living wage and am aware that it is a minimum not an ideal. Please don't think that I'm some right wing nut with the "well they can just get a better job" idea. Or that I'm from a rich background.

I'm sure shop staff do get less, but that is another discussion to do with the rights and wrongs of retail in general, which by the way I think is a moraly bankrupt sector often reliant on a low wage cycle of poor education and lack of training to keep there staff trapped in their jobs, from supermarkets to small independantes. There are many things broken with out system, from wage disparity to house supply restrictions, but that is about the system in genral, not what one company pays trainee staff.

And possibly your name in a book.

Meh,
I've got that twice already doing freelance writing for wargames companies, an Osprey "Elite" series title in the works, and a several magazine articles to my credit. I'm also talking to a couple of literary agents about my first novel. (now THAT's were the real money is as far as writing) Getting your name on a book is admittedly very cool. But the "wow" factor wears off after a while and it certainly does not pay the bills at the salaries we've seen thrown arond on this thread.....and rest assured those are HIGH for the gaming industry. The low and mid level companies I've written for pay a lot less than that.

I'm shocked and just realized something. No-one has brought up the obvious:

Q: How much dose Matt Ward get paid?
A: Too Much.