Game development in India is priced lower at the entry level, but Jason Schreier said the bill climbs fast once studios hire beyond freshers. He posted a video on May 28 about why game development is so expensive, and his example points to a mid-experience developer in Bengaluru costing about INR 1.4L a month.
Bengaluru salaries and burn
A mid-experience game developer in Bengaluru earning INR 12L per year can carry a true monthly cost between INR 1.3L and INR 1.5L. For a studio, that turns salary from a simple pay figure into a much larger burn rate.
The working estimate for a mid-tier studio in one of India’s major development cities is INR 1.4L per person per month. That is the number founders need when they model headcount, not the annual salary alone.
India’s pay ladder
Entry-level roles at AAA international studio offices in India offer INR 5 to 9 lakh per year at the junior level. Mobile game studios in India pay INR 3.5 to 6L per year for most fresher positions. Those figures help explain why India can look affordable from the outside.
The gap opens higher up the ladder. Senior graphics engineers with eight or more years of experience and console expertise are commanding INR 30L per year and above at multinational studios. Lead architects and studio heads at the top of the experience curve are earning INR 25 to 50L or more annually.
What studios pay beyond salary
The reported rule of thumb says the true cost of an employee runs between 1.3 and 1.5 times gross salary. Equipment costs, software licenses, office rent spread across headcount, infrastructure, and administrative and legal costs all add to that total. In practice, that means a salary quote is only the starting point for budget planning.
The larger complication is that salaries are the biggest budget item in India’s game development ecosystem, while the market is still in its early stages. First-time founders can misread low fresher pay and still end up underfunded when they need senior talent and real operating overhead.
The unanswered question is pricing for studios trying to budget a full team, because the figures here describe per-person cost but not how much capital a new Indian game project needs before launch.
