Two creative-tech careers, compared on live job data - tools, pay and where they actually differ
"Should I go into VFX or games?" usually gets answered with vibes. We answer it with our own job board. Navisca counts open postings every week and tags the work in each one, so we can put the two fields side by side: how many roles are open, what software each one asks for, what they pay, where the work is, and the kind of role you'd actually be doing. Everything below is dated to this week and links to the live page that proves it.
The cleanest split is the toolset. Maya is the shared backbone, but after that the fields diverge: VFX leans on Houdini and Nuke (compositing and FX), while games is built around Unreal Engine and Unity (real-time engines). Each bar is how many of that field's open specs name the tool this week (same scale on both sides, so the bars are comparable).
Maya shows up heavily on both - it is the common ground. The sharper divide is Houdini on the VFX side versus Unreal Engine on the games side. Counts are distinct open postings naming the tool.
On the headline number, Games is higher: a median of $160,700 against $91,998. But most of that gap is role mix - Games hires far more engineers and technical roles, which pay more. Compare artist roles only and it narrows. These artist figures concentrate in USA (VFX) and USA (games), the same market, so it's a clean like-for-like. The bars below pool all countries per field:
Median of disclosed pay (USD), pooled across countries per field, with the sample size next to each (so the gap can reflect different market mixes, not only the field). The two "artists only" bars sit closer than the overall medians - Games earns its higher overall median from engineering and tech roles (Tools Engineers and the like), not from paying artists more. Each role card has the full p25 / median / p75 band per country.
The two fields hire in different places. VFX work concentrates in Canada and other service hubs, while games concentrates in USA. Each bar is that field's share of its own openings by country this week.
On our data, Games is the more technical of the two. Both fields hire artists and technical people, but the balance differs: of the open roles we can classify by craft, VFX is the more artist-heavy field, while Games pulls in a far larger share of engineering and tech-art roles.
VFX is about 77% artist roles (23% technical); games is 41% technical (59% artist). The most common roles each field is hiring for this week:
For all the differences, a few things barely move between the two fields:
People often ask about VFX vs animation vs games as three options. We compare only VFX and games because those are the two our scraping covers in depth. We see far fewer animation-specific openings - about 43 this week - so putting animation next to the other two as an equal column would mean stretching a few dozen postings into a market. Most animation work in our data sits inside VFX and games studios rather than at dedicated animation shops, so it already shows up across both fields above.
On the headline median, Games is higher - $160,700 against $91,998. But most of that gap is role mix: Games hires far more engineers and technical roles, which pay more. Compare artist roles only and the two fields land close together - so 'one pays more' is true overall but misleading for an artist.
We do not rank them - they are different jobs. Games has more open roles on our board (1,362 vs 846 this week) and leans more technical; VFX is more artist-heavy and concentrated in different countries. The right answer depends on whether you want craft-artist or technical work, and where you can be based - both of which you can check in the live data.
It depends which field you are aiming at, and the data splits cleanly. Maya is worth knowing either way - it is the shared backbone. After that, VFX leans on Houdini and Nuke, while games is built around Unreal Engine and Unity. Check the live skill pages for current demand before committing.
This week our board shows 1,362 openings in Games and 846 in VFX (by the discipline of the work), so Games is the larger field in our data. The two overlap (334 openings count as both), so this is not a clean split of the market, and the balance shifts week to week.
On our data, Games is the more technical of the two. Of the roles we can classify by craft, VFX is about 77% artist roles, while games is 41% technical (engine and tools engineering, tech art). Both hire artists and technical people; Games just pulls in a larger technical share.
We do not track individual career moves, so we will not claim how easy it is. What the data shows is real overlap: 334 openings this week count as both fields, Maya is a shared core tool, and tech-art roles appear on both sides - so the skill sets are not separate worlds.
They cluster differently. VFX hiring leans toward service hubs - Canada leads our VFX openings - while games concentrates in USA. Geography is one of the biggest differences between the two, and it shifts week to week in our country data.
Partly. Maya is common to both as a core tool. After that they diverge: VFX adds Houdini and Nuke, while games is built around real-time engines (Unreal Engine and Unity). The shared base is why moving between them is possible; the divergent tools are what you would need to add.
We recount this every week.
The balance between VFX and games shifts as studios open and close roles. We recount both fields every week - openings, tools, pay and where the work is - and send the snapshot straight to your inbox. Get the weekly read, free.