Take a basic THIRD person shooter like Dead Space, corridors, fairly linear progression, AI baddies.
Designers. 3D artists, sound engineers, programmers, writers, voice actors, etc.
What is the most important? Who should be paid the most?
Of the total payroll, I might think 10% designer, 20% programmers, 30% 3D artists, 5% writers, 5% audio engineers, 5% voice actors, rest to project owner.
Dead Space isn’t a first person shooter. Just had to point that out… 
Care to weigh in on the more pressing dilemma? 
This is very generic question, for which you won’t get definite answer.
You can make very cheap pixel art and simple 2D game, with super CGI video trailer, then you get 50% on audio + and 3D.
Or on other hand, you can have very complex AI based game, with almost no graphics.
Both extreme examples, but you see, there is no definite answer.
In most cases programmers will take most.
That’s why I provided an example game, something like dead space. Or even the old resident evil games. Not too many characters, but with voice acting and some effort put into the graphics, etc.
The most important job is whoever establishes and enforces the scope of the project.
Because they need to understand how much time and energy and resources will be required by every discipline.
I’m probably going to have to read a book about this, but I was hoping for some community hepp.
Not only that, but the scope of the project establishes really what the game is and what it is not. This is very important because the scope should be established with a specific vision for the game, a target market, within a specified budget, and with an expected timeline for completion of the project.
Sticking to the scope helps avoid “scope creep”, which can delay or even kill a project if the scope grows too large for the team to actually accomplish, or drastically increase costs. Keeping to the scope keeps the game focused on its original vision, instead of letting it transform over time into something not actually intended, which may not even be something the original target market is that interested in.
If you don’t stick to a defined scope you’re far less likely to actually get a completed product, and a game is worthless if it never gets to a shippable state. Anybody can make an unfinished game (everyone on this forum undoubtedly has several), but a finished game is a surprisingly difficult challenge.
This is why people working solo in their spare time would be better served to work with a competent director, to create something that is worthy of all their talents and invested time. In the short term, working without compensation seems like a risky proposition but I would submit that struggling to finish games solo when it is clearly extremely rare for that to materialize is an exercise in futility bordering on insanity.
Not if you actually plan out your game’s development and stick to it. If you do, you are more than likely to complete it around the time you originally planned to. The hard part is just sticking to it, and resisting adding every new feature that pops into your head as you go. Just write them all down, build the game you planned, and come back to all those ideas later if you plan an update to your game.
These are two very different questions.
Importance varies from game to game. Something like Civilization lives or dies on the strength of its programming. Portal lives or dies on the level design. And so on. Importance is best measured by ‘how successful could the game be without these elements?’. Take the art out of Civilization, and the game doesn’t change much.
Pay rates are determined by supply and demand. If you have a hundred artist candidates for each job opening, you can pay them less. Even if artist is the most important role in your game. If each programmer that applies gets three job offers every time he is looking for work, you will have to pay more to entice him, even if programmers are not important to your game.
As far as who should be paid the most, that has little to do with which job is more important. People get paid based on how difficult they are to replace, not by how important the job is to completing a project. Difficulty to replace can take many forms, but usually boils down to rarity of necessarily skills in comparison to market demand, and built up on the job knowledge where the lack of would hinder a new hire.
The burger flipper at McDonald’s is probably the most important person involved in getting your burger cooked and successfully delivered to the customer. They are paid very little because the skills required for the job can be taught to anyone in a matter of hours, and the on the job knowledge needed can be learned within days, making them easily replaceable.
Seems wrong to me but here is what the industry thinks, if you wanted to sort importance by salary:
Profession breakdown
ART
Global Average
Junior Artist – £19,000
Artist – £28,276
Lead Artst – £39,869
UK Average
Junior Artist – Not enough data
Artist – £30,147
Lead Artist – £41,189
AUDIO
Global Average
Audio – £39,457
Lead Audio – Not enough data
UK Average
Audio – £35,386
Lead Audio – £52,841
CODING
Global Average
Junior Coder – £22,302
Coder – £37,157
Lead Coder – £45,649
UK Average
Junior Coder – Not enough data
Coder – £38,662
Lead Coder – £47,317
DESIGN
Global Average
Junior Designer – £19,469
Designer – £27,830
Lead Designer – £40,089
UK Average
Junior Designer – £18,250
Designer – £23,452
Lead Designer – £36,598
PRODUCTION
Global Average
Producer (Internal) – £36,005
Lead producer (Internal) – £41,450
Production director – Not enough data
Production co-ordinator – Not enough data
UK Average
Producer (Internal) – £37,001
Lead producer (Internal) – £48,675
Production director – £62,000
Production co-ordinator – £25,889
QA
Global Average
QA – £18,355
QA Lead – £22,997
UK Average
QA – £17,195
QA Lead – £21,700
SENIOR WRITER
Global Average – Not enough data
UK average – £33,500
MANAGEMENT
Creative director – £55,968
CTO – £92,750
MD/CEO – £68,686
Studio head – £73,907
Technical director – £56,275
Development director – £59,114
Biz dev – £45,200
Excellent!
My day job earns better than my dream job. Market saturation is a force to be reckoned with.
Yeah although if you’re running a studio you wouldn’t want to pay yourself the highest amount anyway, at least not until you can afford a few games to totally bomb, caution and all that.
Damn, I’m underpaid!
Oh wait, I’m my own boss… Stupid boss!
Yup.
That’s the supply and demand issue I talked about. Lots of people dream about being game developers. Lots of people are willing to give it a shot. This tends to lower the value (and salary) of individual game developers.
For another scary anecdote, more students graduate from game schools in Australia every year then there are people employed in the entire games industry. I assume the stats are similar abroad.
It’s just a hobby, like brewing beer or building your own pizza oven. I just don’t see why people would intentionally shun the idea of building better games by learning some basic teamwork. You’re already investing the time. Why not make a name for yourself and open up some new avenues? Just doesn’t make sense.
Holding yourself accountable is the highest form of discipline.
A good artist is IMO worth as much as a good developer. It’s just much more difficult to find really good artists. It’s much more niche then software development. The challenge with developers isn’t finding them, it’s convincing them your deal is better then half a dozen other offers they have on the table.
That’s for the core team. When you start talking about outsourcing art that’s different. There are areas of art that can be specialized in without going wide. That’s much more difficult to do as a developer. At the same time for a core team, you need those artists who are well rounded with the breadth. Outsourcing is not a suitable replacement.