TOP-7 richest game developers

We are used to famous athletes and Hollywood actors earning millions of dollars and living in real palaces with airplane hangars and golf courses somewhere in the backyard. But if you think about it, successful game developers should live just as well. After all, GTA V alone brought its creators more than $6 billion! So we decided to get into the pockets of the superstars from the world of video games.

Let's start, perhaps, with the «rock stars». The founders of Rockstar Games, brothers Sam Houser and Dan Houser, are among the top richest people in the UK.

According to experts, their fortune today is $378 million. The growth in the number of players in GTA Online and Red Dead Online played a significant role here. Over the past year alone, the brothers' bank account has added $13 million.

It looks like Dan Houser wasn't upset at all by being fired from Rockstar. A few months later, the screenwriter bought a house in one of the most expensive areas of Los Angeles for a very modest $16.5 million. However, a mansion in L.A. — not the only British property in the United States. Eight years ago he bought a house on the East Coast. Rumor has it that Truman Capote wrote his story «Breakfast at Tiffany's» here. A historical place for a historical person.

We couldn't ignore the founder and CEO of Valve. In January 2017, American Forbes reported that Gabe Logan Newell's fortune exceeded $5.5 billion.

Thus, the developer not only entered the top 100 richest people in America (Gabe took a modest 97th place in the ranking), but also surpassed the current US President Donald Trump, who allegedly has $3.7 billion in assets.

The news that Newell spent the entire pandemic in New Zealand on his yacht was widely circulated. But finding out where and how the founder of Valve lives in America was not easy. According to the Virtual Globetrotting website, Gabe continues to live in his native Seattle. Looking at real estate websites, you can find that the cost of a mansion in the same area is about $2.5 million.

The third place is occupied by Michael Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, who left the company in 2018. Experts estimate his fortune at $1.8 billion.

After his retirement, he purchased a farm in the gated community of Rancho Mirage for $2.25 million. On an area of ​​half a hectare there are several buildings, including the main house with an area of ​​600 square meters.

However, Mike is the only one on the entire list (as far as we can find out) who not only spends the money he earns, but also invests it in various startups. So, in March, he invested $1.2 million in Rally Cry, a gaming technology company.

Unfortunately, the star of glory cannot burn forever. Our next hero, Markus Notch Persson, one of the creators of Minecraft, knows this like no one else.

There is almost no information about his property in open sources. It is only known that in 2014 he earned $2.5 billion by selling the rights to Minecraft and the Mojang studio to Microsoft. With this money, Persson bought a villa, which Beyoncé and Jay-Z were eyeing. The house is located in Beverly Hills and costs $70 million.

If you look at Marcus's Instagram, you can see photos taken on board a private jet. A hand with a Patek Philippe watch worth about $200 thousand flashes several times in the photographs. Notch himself wrote on Reddit that he didn't know what to do with that kind of money, since he himself grew up in a poor family. This is most likely true: major tabloids have repeatedly reported that the creator of Minecraft could leave a couple of hundred thousand dollars at the club in one night — certainly not the smartest way to manage the cash.

On the fifth line of our top were located Marcin Iwinski and Michal Kicinski, co-founders of CD Projekt. Polish Forbes included them among the top richest people in the country: the developers of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 took 3rd and 4th places in the ranking with a capital of $1.2 billion and $1 billion, respectively. The main reason for its success is the excellent sales of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, the Slavic brothers prefer not to brag about their wealth. We were never able to find information about large purchases such as a sports car or yacht. But, it is likely that such information will appear in the near future, because Cyberpunk 2077 will be released in less than a month.

Since we couldn't find any information about the property, we decided to figure out what they could buy with all their money. Marcin Iwiński will be able to purchase more than ten thousand Tesla Model X cars in the maximum configuration. And he will still have money left to buy a hangar for his fleet.

If Michal Kiciński decides to use his billion to buy new PS5s, he will be able to afford more than two million consoles at $499 each.

In sixth place is Gabe Newell's main competitor and also Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose fortune Bloomberg estimates at $7.16 billion.

Rumor has it that some time ago Sweeney collected expensive sports cars. Rare and expensive Ferrari and Lamborghini models were spotted in his garages.

However, over time, Tim realized that each sports car, in terms of land, is equal to 40 hectares — which means that buying up land is at least much more profitable. Tim sold off his cars, leaving only one Chevrolet Corvette. As Sweeney himself claims, he now has as many cars as he needs. Well, commendable asceticism.

«Money squeezer», «Chief of loot boxes» — whatever players call the publisher Electronic Arts. But to deny that the company's CEO Andrew Wilson [url=https://wallmine.com/people/8396/andrew-wilson]knows how to make money is stupid. As of the fall of 2020, his assets include at least $164 million. Mr. Wilson himself owns more than 250,000 shares of Electronic Arts worth more than $32 million.

Additionally, his official salary is $21,365,751 per year. However, it is difficult to say exactly how much the EA CEO earns. In 2019, according to the As You Sow Foundation, his salary was $35.7 million per year. For comparison, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick earns slightly less: his salary reaches $28.7 million per year. But that is another story.

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While working on the selection, we noticed one interesting feature. Game developers carefully care about their privacy and are not particularly keen to show off their fortunes. If you know how we can add information about our today's heroes, be sure to share it in the comments.