April 29, 2026, Limassol, Cyprus — Mellow, a service that connects game development companies with freelancers and a flexible workforce, shares the results of a global report — the industry is clearly shifting toward project-based roles and prioritizes external contractors.
In 2025, game studios’ budgets did not decrease; instead, they continued to climb and reached new heights despite an ongoing restructuring phase in the industry, and a part of them were reallocated in favor of remote talent.
The game development industry is embracing a more flexible production model, with external talent taking on an ever-larger share of the work. This is reflected in the growing number of freelancers, rising studio budgets for contract work, and higher earnings for the specialists themselves. Demand is growing for both high-volume roles and more specialized management positions.
Freelance hiring momentum continues worldwide
In 2025, the number of freelancers and contractors collaborating with game development companies increased by 24% in Europe and by 21% globally. At the same time, budgets for project-based specialists grew as well: spending by game studios on freelancers rose by 63% in Europe and 55% worldwide.
Remote talent earnings are climbing across roles
Average monthly freelancer income in gamedev rose 19% globally to €1,900. Management roles led the gains at +37%, followed by UX specialists (+27%), and artists (+23%). In Europe, illustrators saw the strongest jump at +68%.
Short-term contracts are growing the fastest
Contracts of 1-3 months grew by 33-44%, outpacing longer engagements. Specialists are increasingly brought in for specific development stages rather than sustained work — signaling a shift toward modular, elastic production pipelines.
Data from Mellow shows that in 2025 project-based work is becoming increasingly common and frequent in the game development industry.
Freelance Game Dev Pay Rose 19% in 2025 — Here's Who Earned the MostGlobally, the average monthly income of freelancers in game development rose by nearly 19% year-over-year in 2025, reaching €1.9K. In Europe, the average remained at €2K per month.
Management roles saw the most significant growth: the income of product managers, lead managers, and development managers worldwide increased by 37% year-over-year, reaching €2.6K per month. This may be explained by the increasing value of specialists who can coordinate complex development processes across distributed teams.
Growth is also visible in other categories. For example, the average monthly income of artists worldwide increased from €1.3K to €1.6K (+23%). Marketing roles grew by +10% year-over-year, reaching approximately €2.3K. Meanwhile, web developers saw a slight decrease in income: from €2.8K to €2.7K.
Broadening the scope a bit, looking at the longer 2022–2025 period, management roles remain among the top earners. Compared to 2022, their average monthly income grew 53%, from €1,700 to €2,600. Producers and game designers show comparable growth over the same period, with earnings up 50%, from €1,600 to €2,400.
It’s important to note that these figures do not represent monthly salaries, since we’re not talking about full-time work, but rather the average monthly income.
Why the Number of Freelancers and Their Income in the Gaming Industry is Increasing
This trend is driven by a multitude of economic, technological, and production factors.
● Start with the fact that the gaming industry has always relied on — and continues to rely on — a large number of external contractors and talent due to the very nature of game production pipelines and game development.
● Recent years have been characterized by a significant restructuring phase in the gaming industry, accompanied by the mass layoffs in 2022–2026 and fierce competition to the traditional game development model from service-based (live service) gaming and new and emerging forms of media.
● All of this is taking place in the broader context of an AI tech shift and the ever-evolving, software-driven smoothing of collaboration with remote talent around the world. Outsourcing game development has never been easier than it is today.
There are several possible explanations for this growth at the global level:
● First, game development studios are simply willing to have more precise control over the budget and headcount in times of turbulence.
● Second, a new pattern (and work culture) is emerging and taking shape in which freelancers are being assigned more complex — and, therefore, better-paid — tasks in the gamedev industry.
● Third, studios are reorganizing their game development processes in favor of elastic teams and on-demand development for a variety of reasons — for example, due to changes in the game production pipelines following the rise of AI.
● Fourth, there is a macro factor: the number of freelancers worldwide is growing every year (Statista).
Overall, Mellow’s data shows that the game development market is gradually restructuring its hiring approach: studios increase the number of flexible teams and remote talent involved in game production.
“Everyone's been talking about layoffs in gamedev, which is a huge thing. But our data tells a different story — the industry isn't shrinking, it's restructuring,” said Alex Norovyatkin, VP of Growth at Mellow. “In 2025, European studios spent 63% more on external talent than the year before. The talent and the budgets are still there, just flowing differently.”
Read the full report (https://mellow.io/gamedev-research-25) covering the state of freelance and flexible workforce in gamedev.
This research is based on Mellow’s data for 2025. The study sample includes freelancers and companies working only in the game development industry. In total, more than 2,000 freelancers from the gamedev industry and over 150 game development companies were examined, mainly with studios from the EU, Cyprus, the UK, MENA, and North America.
The study presents both global and Europe-specific data. Global figures include European companies.
About us
Mellow (https://mellow.io/) is a contractor management platform for companies and freelancers to seamlessly work together across the globe. The platform covers the full lifecycle of contractor-based work — from finding projects and matching with talent to signing contracts, managing compliance, and handling payments across 100+ countries.
Mellow partners with over 1,500 companies and connects 230,000 remote professionals worldwide, with a special tie and passion for the gaming industry, working with clients such as Gaijin, G2G, Sumsub, and others. It operates globally with offices in Cyprus, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and New York.