How much do game developers earn in Cyprus? — research results (UPDATED 2)
In what currency and how much they get in the Russian-speaking game dev in Cyprus. These and many other questions are answered in the salary study of the Cypriot gaming industry App2Top.ru and Talents In Games.
Methodology
The salary survey was conducted throughout the second half of August 2022. The respondents answered the questions themselves via a Google form. The link to the latter was distributed as through App2Top.ru , and through groups about Cyprus on social networks.
Important: All the presented results are based solely on the survey.
Update 1: When publishing, we made an annoying mistake about the minimum wage. They used an unverified source. We apologize.
Let’s clarify the following point: at the moment there is no such thing as a minimum wage in the country. However, it will be introduced from 2023. The minimum wage will be €924.
Update 2: Cyprus has a program for high-tech companies to relocate employees from non-Eurozone countries to the island. More about it here. Among the important requirements: the monthly salary of the relocated employee should be from €2500.
Who was interviewed
181 people participated in the survey. Most of the respondents previously worked in Of Russia. The majority of respondents are men (72%).
The largest age group (56.7%) is people from 25 to 34 years old. In second place (34%) — those who are 35 to 44 years old.
Most of the respondents moved to Cyprus from February to July 2022 (49.7%). The share of those who came to the island in August is 16.8%.
The majority of respondents (48.6%) believe that they will not stay here for long. Maximum, for 1-3 years. The second most popular answer to the question “How long are you planning to stay here” is “Until everything calms down” (16.2%). However, almost 20% of respondents said that here forever.
Those who work in Cyprus, as a rule, work full-time and are on staff. At least, that’s what more than 90% of respondents answered.
A significant share of gaming IT residents of Cyprus are owners of companies (13.3%). However, the prevailing share is still for employees. They are almost 80% of the total.
If we take respondents who moved to Cyprus five or more years ago, the share of owners among them is much higher — about 50%.
As for the low number of freelancers, there is nothing surprising here. Cyprus is too expensive for them.
The Russian-speaking gaming community in Cyprus is mainly represented by middle and senior managers (22.7% and 14%, respectively), as well as marketers (16%).
It is also possible to identify specialists who relate their field of activity to game design. They account for 10% of the local “party”. Other areas are represented to a much lesser extent.
The work experience of Russian-speaking gaming residents is usually long. The largest group (20%) are specialists working in game development from 10 to 14 years. 11.3% of respondents — the second largest group — have even more: from 15 years old.
On the other hand, there are enough personnel on the island whose path in the gaming industry began relatively recently. 9.3% of respondents have 2 years of work experience, and 11.3% have 4 years. However, on average in Cyprus, the experience of specialists who have moved from the CIS exceeds 7 years.
Accordingly, there are almost no Junior-level specialists (2%), but there are a lot (relatively common in the distribution industry) of Senior, Head, Lead and, of course, C-level personnel.
Where and what are the respondents working on
Most of the respondents in the gaming sector (69%) are expected to work in product companies that independently publish their own games. Also, the share of those who are engaged in the publishing business is relatively high (10%).
There are very few single developers in Cyprus. Basically, specialists work here in companies whose number ranges from 10 to 150 people (there are more than 55% of them here). The remaining respondents are distributed mainly among companies employing up to 1,000 people.
Basically, the developers here are engaged in the creation of midcore and casual titles. About 60% of respondents specialize in them. At the same time, the share of those who work on hyper—casual titles is relatively small – there are only around 9% of them.
The high number of people engaged in midcore can easily be explained by the fact that companies that have historically specialized in them are well represented in Cyprus (for example, Wargaming and Nexters).
Given the specifics of the Russian-speaking game dev, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Cyprus is mostly mobile. 66% of the surveyed developers are working on games for iOS and Android.
Part Two: Gaming specialties and salary
Russian-speaking employees in Cyprus are paid, as a rule, in euros. Although 10% of respondents noted that they receive a salary in dollars, and 6% even in rubles. At the same time, some of the respondents stated that they earn in stablecoins. However, there are less than a percent of them.
The average salary on the island for a Russian—speaking gaming specialist is €5,700, the median is €4,400. The minimum level of fixed payment in Cyprus is €1,000, and the maximum is €75,000. It is important to understand that these are marked minimum and maximum, so you should not rely on them, they are not representative. Better pay attention to the median.
At the same time, we will duplicate what we wrote at the very beginning of the material. All results are taken from the survey. This means that these salaries are not related to the level of official salaries in the country.
In general, the majority of respondents have enough wages to live on. Only 14% said they have financial problems. Among those who receive less than €2000, the percentage is higher (35%), but there is no direct correlation (small salary — not enough money).
The majority of Russian-speaking gaming residents of the island (58%) spend no more than €2,500 on daily expenses every month. Moreover, 5% of respondents said that they spend more than €5,000 per month on living in the country.
Programmers
The share of programmers among the respondents was quite small — slightly less than 6%. Because of this, the number of questionnaires for the breakdown by specialization followed by a full-fledged analysis was not enough.
As for salaries. Their level among programmers can be called average on the island within the local industry.
Note that the highest salary was observed for Full Stack programmers over 35 years old (as a rule, leads).
There is no strict correlation between the main programming language and the salary level, but, as a rule, those who deal with C# have high wages. In general, 60% of the programmers surveyed specialize in Unity.
Artists
There were even fewer art specialists among the respondents than programmers — 4%. Mainly on the island, within the framework of the specialty, leads and Senior-level personnel are best represented. Almost all respondents arrived less than six months ago.
There is no prevailing specialization in the niche among the arrivals. There are 2D artists, 3D artists, and animation specialists. We did not see any connection between specialization and the rate level on the available data.
Game designers
The share of respondents is 10%. Almost 40% of the surveyed game designers are Middle-level specialists. There are also quite a lot of leads — 30%. The other levels are much weaker.
The highest salary level was expected for the leads, and the lowest — for Middle-level specialists.
Management team
A little below, we separately consider a group of owners and a separate group of top managers. The fact is that not all owners/co-owners are top managers. A number of them, indicating their field, marked themselves, for example, as product managers or programmers at all.
As a result, we decided to do this: separately take all respondents who identified themselves as owners or co-owners of the business, and separately all respondents who consider themselves to be top management, including some owners.
Owners and co-owners
25% of the owners of gaming companies moved to Cyprus more than five years ago. However, at the same time, half of the respondents came to the country after February.
80% of respondents noted that they have been working in the industry for more than 10 years. Only 5% have less than 5 years of professional experience.
The level of everyday spending is expected to vary significantly, but the largest group is owners who spend around $3500-4500 per month. There are 30% of them.
As for earnings (we asked to specify wages, but probably a number of respondents noted how much they are credited to the account in general), then the situation is as follows:
The owners, who are also top managers of their companies, have both an average salary (€18,000) and a median salary (€7,000).
When working with numbers, we were also confused by the salary of €75,000. However, among the respondents there were several people who stated that they receive a month in the area of this amount.
Top managers
Senior managers (directors of various departments and founders involved in the development of the company) accounted for 14% of the questionnaires.
Almost 70% of them arrived from February to August of this year. There are few “old-timers” among the top management who have spent more than 5 years on the island. Around 5%.
Within each of the specializations, the salary level of top managers varied greatly.
Business development directors have an average salary of €7,700, CEOs have €5,500, those listed as founders have €7,000, and marketing directors have the same average salary.
Analysts
There were few people working with analytics among the respondents — 6.7%. Most of them (75%) came to the island after February.
Against the background of other specialties, it was striking. that in this case there are more Junior-level specialists and, in general, people whose work experience is two years or less.
The salary level of the respondents-analysts is also more modest than in the whole island.
Team leaders have an average salary of €4,400, and specialists, excluding managers, have €3,300.
Business Development Specialists
There were more so—called “bizdevs” in Cyprus among our respondents than programmers – 8%. Most of them have moved to the island in recent months.
Traditionally, this is the group with the highest level of English (50% of respondents have C1 Advanced, 16% have C2 Proficiency) and a wide salary fork, often depending on the number of leads given or contracts concluded.
The average salary of an ordinary “bizdev” is € 2900 in Cyprus, and the team leader of the direction is €5100.
HR specialists
Judging by the number of responses, gaming companies are not in a hurry to bring their recruitment specialists to Cyprus yet. The percentage of their questionnaires from the total number is 4.7%.
Most of our respondents working in this niche are very experienced personnel. 28% of respondents have been working for more than 8 years, and almost 30% have 10 to 15 years of professional experience behind them.
We did not see any correlation between the level of the position and the rate on the basis of the available sample. There is not enough data for a full-fledged analysis.
If you are interested in particular cases, then, for example, we are faced with the fact that HR Team Lead can receive both €2000 and €4000, and the salary differences of experienced Recruitment Team Lead can sometimes differ three times.
Marketers
Marketing is one of the most common directions in the Cypriot Russian—speaking game development. 16% of the questionnaires we received were from people involved in the promotion of games.
Plus, the age group from 25 to 34 years is one of the most numerous here. 70% of local marketers can relate to this age. In most other groups, the percentage is less.
Also, it may be worth noting that there is no pronounced picture in terms of seniority. Equally represented are specialists with completely different experiences.
Out of curiosity. The share of specialists from Belarus among marketers turned out to be significant — 34% — relative to other specialties and the overall results of this survey.
Middle managers
The largest group of survey respondents are middle managers (producers, as well as project and product managers). They accounted for almost a quarter of all questionnaires — 22.7%.
People from 25 to 34 years old and from 35 to 44 years old are equally represented here (there are no representatives of other age groups here at all). The professional experience of 35% of the respondents is from 10 to 14 years, 20% of respondents have it for more than 15 years.
From funny discoveries: young professionals (from 25 to 34 years old) they know English on average worse. Among them, the proportion of people with the B1 Intermediate level and below is 47%. Among managers at the age of such only 12.5%. But 56% of them know English at the C1 Advanced level.
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