Among their daring escapades and thrilling adventures, it’s easy to forget our favorite video game characters often have a day job that pays the bills behind the scenes.
While saving the world may not always pay that well, how much would these iconic gaming characters be earning from their full-time career?
A new study has calculated how much the most infamous video game characters from Call of Duty, The Sims, Animal Crossing, and MORE would earn as a salary.
Mortimer Goth from The Sims could earn £62,489 in real life
Infamous Sims couple Mortimer and Bella Goth are amongst the highest earners, taking home £62,489 and £51,239, respectively. That is not surprising considering the lavish life they have lived throughout all four Sims games.
Of the fifty characters analyzed, Handsome Jack from Borderlands topped the list with an annual salary of £292,565. As the President of Hyperion Corporation, a super-powerful weapons manufacturer and self-proclaimed egomaniac, Jack has everything it takes to rise to the top of business. And if anyone tries to stop him, chances are they won’t survive.
Coming in at second place is Grand Theft Auto V’s Michael de Santa. Despite his criminal past and ill-gotten gains, Michael’s actual job was as a film producer, which would earn him a tidy £79,589.
In bronze, the position is Alex Mason, a CIA Operative first introduced in Call of Duty: Black Ops. He would earn a cool £65,138 a year salary, which doesn’t seem that much for the dangerous nature of his work—it’s definitely more than enough to pay his bills.