Social gaming boom great for social game company employees

Sure, we know the biggest social game companies are starting to attract millionsofdollarsininvestments, and that the sector is expected to be worth over a billion dollars a year very soon. But how is all that money affecting the rank-and-file workers at these newly minted social gaming powerhouses?

Well, it's making them all pretty rich, unsurprisingly. In a recent interview with Inside Social Games, Katy Haddix, senior partner at social gaming recruiter VonCrunch, revealed that the social gaming labor market heavily favors employees over employers at this point.

It's simple supply and demand: the available supply of developers with the skills needed to make social games is currently much smaller than the demand for employees at companies that are sometimes planning to triple in size in a 6 to 9 month timeframe. The result is average annual salaries starting at $65,000 for social game artists and rising up to $150,000 for a Flash programmer with social gaming experience, according to VonCrunch's placements.

But the benefits don't stop at salary. A full 98 percent of VonChurch placements get some sort of equity in the company they work for, and many get perks like weeklong working vacations in Italy. Sounds pretty sweet, but social game makers should enjoy the ride while they can. Remember, web developers were in similar demand in the late '90s, before the dot-com bubble burst and sent all those stock options tumbling.