Game publishing company pay rates?

[CastleDrafts]

I worked for ICE back in the mid to late nineties and they paid me on a per page basis at $150/page (I just read one of the old contracts last week). This was of course divided by fractions of the page if the images were less than a full page with a full page being around 7" x 10" once you subtract the space for the binding and the indents.

So if I was to get back into game art these days what kinds of pay rates can I expect per page? $150 per page isn't a lot when you consider how much time often goes into the more complicated drawings out there. Also, the last drawing I did for them was over 12 years ago so that rate doesn't consider inflation - I'm curious to know what they are typically paying now. One thing I learned to do was to try and get the best image and the most lines on the page for the least amount of time possible. I went overboard on some of the early maps and plans I did and ended up working for like $10/hour once you did the math.

So are there any professional artists around on this board who are working for game publishing companies now? If so what are they typically paying? A friend of mine is doing some illustrations (artwork and maps) for a really small one person publishing company and he is only getting paid $100 per page which isn't a lot of money for the effort that is often involved. I also did some work for a computer game company back in the nineties and they paid me my hourly consulting rate which was way more money than ICE was willing to pay back in the day.

Any help or insight on this question would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

[torstan]

$150 a page is at the upper end (but fairly common) for 3rd Party Publishers. Bigger publishers pay more, many 3rd party publishers will want to go for less than that.