Let's say a game takes 5 years to make. Now, most are closer to 2-3, but we're being generous. That means a $150mil budget game (for reference, Fallout 4 had approx 300Mil budget, but that includes advertising) has has $30M/anum.
HR is always the biggest cost in big business. Let's assume you pay everyone the same amount, commie company, from mocap to vis effect artist to boob physics playtester, $100,000/year (after ER-side taxes, health plans, etc). MOST occupations would be more than happy with a six figure salary, even in gamedev programming (quick google search, average wage is 91k for them).
You have a budget for 300 employees at this exorbitantly generous rate for your 5 year game cycle. But really, closer to 200, because you need a building, computers, program licenses, etc. 200 EEs: 10 writers (storyboard), 10 concept artists, 10 FX artists, 20 actors (mo-cap and/or voice), 10 foley artists, 40 actual programmers,
a director/manager/liason/supervisor for about every 10 of these so 10 total, 5 janitors, 5 security, 5 accountants (payroll/taxes/purchasing/sales/budget), 25 beta testers, 10 marketing/B2B people, ~5 lawyers on retainer for legal, ~15 international translaters, 15 generic internal communications or middle management types to coordinate all of this, and 5 leeches at the very top earning the real piles of money for "owning" the company.
Let's say a game takes 5 years to make. Now, most are closer to 2-3, but we're being generous. That means a $150mil budget game (for reference, Fallout 4 had approx 300Mil budget, but that includes advertising) has has $30M/anum.
HR is always the biggest cost in big business. Let's assume you pay everyone the same amount, commie company, from mocap to vis effect artist to boob physics playtester, $100,000/year (after ER-side taxes, health plans, etc). MOST occupations would be more than happy with a six figure salary, even in gamedev programming (quick google search, average wage is 91k for them).
You have a budget for 300 employees at this exorbitantly generous rate for your 5 year game cycle. But really, closer to 200, because you need a building, computers, program licenses, etc. 200 EEs: 10 writers (storyboard), 10 concept artists, 10 FX artists, 20 actors (mo-cap and/or voice), 10 foley artists, 40 actual programmers,
a director/manager/liason/supervisor for about every 10 of these so 10 total, 5 janitors, 5 security, 5 accountants (payroll/taxes/purchasing/sales/budget), 25 beta testers, 10 marketing/B2B people, ~5 lawyers on retainer for legal, ~15 international translaters, 15 generic internal communications or middle management types to coordinate all of this, and 5 leeches at the very top earning the real piles of money for "owning" the company.