2021 Annual Salary, Salary Range, and Highest Paying States and Industries

Table of contents
  1. Average salary
  2. Starting salary
  3. Salary rank
  4. Salary range
  5. Highest paying states
  6. Highest paying industries

Average salary

Starting salary

Entry-level annual salary

Entry-level Video Game Designers with little to no experience can expect to make anywhere between $65,210 to $84,020 per year or $31 to $40 per hour. Similar to any other job, their salary will increase as they gain experience.

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Salary rank

We wanted to make it easy for our readers to compare the salary of Video Game Designers to all the other careers out there. So we created Salary Rank. We compared the salary of all careers then we gave them a rank of A, B, C, or D depending on where their average salary sit in comparison to other careers.

Salary range

Level Hourly Annual
Highest (Top 10%) $82 $170,100
Senior (Top 25%) $68 $140,470
Middle (Mid 50%) $53 $110,140
Junior (Bottom 25%) $40 $84,020
No experience (Bottom 10%) $31 $65,210

Highest paying states

State Hourly Annual
WA $67 $138,400
CA $66 $137,620
NY $59 $122,300
MA $58 $119,790
DC $58 $119,630
VA $56 $116,850
DE $56 $115,580
MD $55 $115,190
NJ $54 $113,220
CO $54 $112,700

Another simple way to increase your salary as a Video Game Designer is to move to a higher paying state. However moving to a higher paying state like WA doesn't guarantee that you will make more because the expenses at WA might be much higher than where you are currently living at right now.

According to BLS, the highest paid Video Game Designers are in the states of WA, CA, NY, MA and DC.

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