How Much Do Game Developers Make: Salaries in Russia and Income from Your Own Games

How much do game developers make? This article answers it mostly for Russia: salaries here come from Russian surveys, with US and UK figures in a separate section for comparison. I see the question from two sides. On one side, I pay salaries: our company has 125 people on permanent payroll. On the other, I have been making my own games since 2019, and the first six ate about $15,900 and brought in $50 in revenue. I have never been employed: "I've been running my own business since I was 16. After school I never once had a job working for someone else."

Ruble amounts in this article are converted to dollars at the Bank of Russia rate for October 22, 2026, about 82 rubles per dollar.

So the salaries in this article come from open research with links, and the income from your own games comes from our numbers and interviews with developers that I recorded.

I post how much our games make and how much we spend on them as we go.

How much do game developers make in Russia a month?

The median game developer salary in Russia is about $2,030 a month, and by level it ranges from about $976 for a junior to about $3,540 for a senior. These are figures from the salary calculator of Habr Career, a Russian IT job site: it collects surveys filled in by the specialists themselves, take-home amounts including bonuses. I took them on October 21, 2026:

A junior is a beginner, a middle already works independently, a senior leads tasks and people. The biggest jump is between middle and senior, more than twofold.

For comparison: the median for all of IT in the same calculator is about $2,210. So a game developer gets a little less than the average IT specialist. According to WN Talents data, retold by the St. Petersburg business paper Delovoy Peterburg in December 2025, the median in Russian game dev is $1,000 to $3,000 take-home. And Dmitry Fokin, CEO of CarX Technologies, said in the same piece that by their data salaries grew 5-7% over the year, less than inflation.

In May 2026, Delovoy Peterburg wrote that beginners in Russian game dev are offered about $732, although courses promise about $1,830 and up. There are few junior responses in the calculator, so a first salary can easily be lower than the table.

How much do Unity and Unreal developers make?

Game developers who listed Unity as a skill earn more than the profession's average: a median of about $2,710 from 38 responses. A middle with Unity gets about $1,790, a senior about $4,110. For Unreal Engine the calculator has only 7 game developer responses, and no honest conclusion can be drawn from them. Our developer job openings, by the way, almost always require Unity too.

How much does a game designer make?

A game designer comes up with mechanics, balance and levels. The median from 37 responses is about $1,690 a month, about $1,300 for a middle and about $1,930 for a senior. There are only 11-12 responses per level here, so these numbers are more of a rough guide.

How much do game artists and animators make?

By median, artists earn less than game developers overall. The median for a 3D modeler is about $1,320 a month (47 responses, and not only games), for a computer graphics artist about $1,590. For 3D animators there are only 6 responses with a median of about $1,070, too few to conclude anything.

What salaries we pay

I published the pay ranges in our job openings myself, so I can show them.

• Game designer at Play Flow, July 2024: junior+ from $550 to $750, middle from $750 to $1,000, middle+ from $1,000 to $1,500 a month, plus bonuses of one to two monthly salaries if the games hit their KPIs.
• Editor and social media manager for my accounts, September 2026: about $610 a month for the probation period, and after that, as I wrote, "I'll raise it to a thousand dollars and add a KPI bonus for growth."
• A developer for their own project: "I pay a market salary + 15% of net profit." I offered this scheme in December 2024 to people ready to carry a game full time.

The last option sits halfway between a job and your own game: the person has a salary, and if the game takes off, they get a share.

Inside the team we have a grading system. A newcomer usually joins us as a green developer on commercial projects, and I wanted everyone to have a clear path "from a junior with a low salary to, like, a senior with decent pay."

Getting into the profession is hard right now. In September 2025 I wrote about the market for beginners: "a huge number of people who want in, very few openings. Tons of applications."

Game developer salary in the US and Europe

Abroad the numbers are different. In its salary report (a July 2025 survey of 562 people from the US), GDC counted an average game industry salary in the US of $142,000 a year, and a median of $129,000. Averages by role: programmers $150,000, game designers $133,000, artists $124,000.

Europe pays less. Skillsearch, in its 2024/25 survey, gives a junior in the UK an average of £30,313 a year and a senior £54,275. For North America, the same survey has a junior at $64,100 and a senior at $100,824.

These are annual amounts. I would not convert them into a monthly figure and compare them with Russia head-on: taxes, prices and rent are different.

How much can you make from your own game on Steam?

By analysts' estimates, most games on Steam make almost nothing. I went through how a game's income goes from gross revenue to money in hand in detail in the article on how much indie games make on Steam; here are just the numbers to compare with a salary. An indie developer has no salary: they live on their game's income, and that income is very uneven.

By Gamalytic's estimates as of October 21, 2025, out of 12,732 games released on Steam in 2025, 65.9% made less than $1,000. 40% did not earn back even the $100 Steam charges for publishing. 8% of games made more than $100,000. GameDiscoverCo calculated the revenue of new 2024 games by rank: the game in 1,000th place grossed about $118,000 before refunds, taxes and Steam's cut.

For us it went differently:

• our first six games in 2019-2020 ate about $15,900 and brought in $50 in revenue;
• we made Offline Dice for about $366, and it brought in about $65,900;
• Meltopia grossed $107,984 in its first 7 days on Steam, about $63,287 net.

There are other people's examples too. Oleg Kazakov, as I told in my video about game revenues, made about $70,000 on the first Gedonia, and Gedonia 2 in early access brought in about $300,000 in revenue and roughly $200,000 net. And Nikolay Bondarenko made Ash of Gods, which sold more than 200,000 copies, alongside his main job, in his spare time.

How much do developers make on Roblox and Yandex Games?

Roblox paid content creators more than one and a half billion dollars for 2025, but a typical developer there gets modest money. For Yandex Games, a Russian browser game platform run by Yandex, there are no such open figures, but there are real examples.

Roblox. The company writes in its official report that creators received more than $1.5B for 2025. But its DevEx cash-out program has more than 42,000 participants, and the median one earned about $1,500 in the 12 months to June 30, 2026, roughly $125 a month.

Yandex Games. Yandex does not publish an official total of payouts to developers for recent years. In January 2026, Nikita Bokarev, head of business development at Yandex Games, told App2Top that developers' revenue from in-game purchases grew 75% in 2025, and monthly players passed 50 million.

What it looks like for one person shows in the story of my guest Alexey Gorbatov. He left his job for his own games on Yandex Games, "having increased his income tenfold." In the interview he said that in the first year he made about $1,220-$1,830 a month on average, then grew to about $6,100-$8,540, and then income fell to about $1,830-$2,440. In December 2024 he set a record: about $22,000 of net profit in a month, and in January he got about $7,320.

How to put a game there and how much the platform takes, I covered in the article on how to publish a game on Yandex Games. There is a separate breakdown of game income on Android and iOS: how much mobile games make.

A job or your own game: which to choose

If you need predictable money, a job is more reliable. A salary arrives every month, while your own game may bring in nothing for a year or more.

Back in 2023 I wrote it plainly: "My position is this: you don't need to quit your job." I myself deliberately drove myself into a corner for a fast result, and that wears you out very quickly. While you have a job, you can invest in your games bit by bit without extra stress. And the time to leave, in my view, is the moment I described like this: "Is game dev bringing in enough for you to support yourself? That's when it's time to quit your job!"

One more piece of advice for the start. Count your first goal in releases: how many games you release depends only on you, how much they make does not. Why I think so, I explained in more detail in a video about impostor syndrome in game dev: from this point I suggest goals you have full control over, like releases, finished tasks or published videos, instead of money. The video is in Russian, and YouTube has an English dub track for it.

from 10:50

If you decide to try alongside your job, I went through where to start your first game in the article on how to make your own game.

Frequently asked questions

How much do game developers make in Russia a month?

According to Habr Career surveys as of October 2026, the median game developer salary in Russia is about $2,030 a month across 156 responses. That is a little below the median for all of IT, about $2,210. Salary depends most on level: a junior gets about $976, a middle about $1,520, a senior about $3,540, a lead about $3,970. These are take-home amounts including bonuses.

How much does an entry-level game developer make?

In Russia, the junior median in Habr Career surveys is about $976 a month, and about $661 for an intern, but the samples here are small, 11-15 responses. In May 2026, Delovoy Peterburg wrote that beginners in Russian game dev are offered about $732, although courses promise about $1,830 and up. In the UK, Skillsearch puts the average junior at £30,313 a year. Far more people want into game dev now than there are openings.

How much does a game designer make in Russia?

The median game designer salary across 37 Habr Career responses is about $1,690 a month, about $1,300 for a middle and about $1,930 for a senior. In our game designer opening at Play Flow in July 2024, the range was from $550 for junior+ to $1,500 for middle+ a month, plus bonuses of one to two monthly salaries if KPIs were met.

How much do Unity developers make?

In Russia, game developers with Unity as a skill earn more than the profession's average in the Habr Career calculator: a median of about $2,710 a month across 38 responses. A middle with Unity has a median of about $1,790, a senior about $4,110. For Unreal Engine there are only 7 game developer responses, so the two engines cannot yet be compared honestly by salary.

How much do game developers make in the US?

In GDC's salary report, based on a July 2025 survey of 562 people from the US, the average game industry salary was $142,000 a year and the median $129,000. By role, programmers averaged $150,000, game designers $133,000 and artists $124,000. For North America, Skillsearch's 2024/25 survey puts a junior at $64,100 a year and a senior at $100,824.

How much can you make from your own game on Steam?

Most games make almost nothing: by Gamalytic's estimates, 65.9% of games released on Steam in 2025 made less than $1,000, and 40% did not earn back even the $100 publishing fee. 8% of games made more than $100,000. Our first six games brought in $50, while Meltopia grossed $107,984 in its first 7 days.

How much do Roblox developers make?

According to Roblox's official report, creators received more than $1.5B for 2025. But the median participant of the DevEx cash-out program, which has more than 42,000 members, earned about $1,500 in the 12 months to June 30, 2026. So a typical Roblox developer gets about $125 a month, even though the platform's total payouts are huge.

Sources

• Habr Career, salary calculator: game developer (in Russian), taken 10/21/2026
• Habr Career, salary calculator: game designer (in Russian), taken 10/21/2026
• "The video game market in St. Petersburg" (in Russian), Delovoy Peterburg, 05/22/2026
• "Game currency" (in Russian), Delovoy Peterburg (WN Talents data), 12/11/2025
• GDC 2025 Game Industry Salary Report
• Skillsearch, Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Survey 2024/25
• "More than 5,000 Steam games of 2025 did not even pay back the platform's listing fee" (in Russian), Shazoo (Gamalytic data), 10/22/2025
• Simon Carless, "The 'shape' of the PC new game market in 2024", GameDiscoverCo, 02/18/2025
• Roblox, "The Global Impact of Creation on Roblox", 09/03/2026
• Nikita Bokarev on Yandex Games' 2025 results (in Russian), App2Top, 01/27/2026
• Evgeny Grishakov, "I studied the revenue of games with different budgets" (in Russian), YouTube, 08/06/2026
• Evgeny Grishakov, interview with Alexey Gorbatov (in Russian), YouTube, 12/18/2025
• Evgeny Grishakov, "Why do you feel like you have no talent? The whole truth about starting in game dev" (in Russian), YouTube, 03/05/2026

What do you think: would you risk quitting your job for your own game, or wait until it starts bringing in money? I share our games' numbers month by month on X.