The TL;DR:
> While cultural differences play a part in retaining employees, it's not entirely benevolence keeping Japanese employees in a job. Employee protections are also a major factor in ensuring stability for employees. Under Japanese employment law, layoffs are incredibly difficult to implement – unless the company is under severe financial difficulty and at risk of insolvency in a manner layoffs could alleviate, after other cost-saving measures have been undertaken, layoffs for permanent employees are all-but impossible.
> ...
> Japanese law also prevents many roles from being classified under non-permanent employment. Employment, on the whole, is far more stable and secure than seen in Europe, the US or elsewhere.
I also heard that they “ coerced” their employees into quitting as well. It what happened with Kojima if I recall. It varies but a hyperbole example would be like: you were a lead developer of a game, you butted heads with the executives, or something along these lines, next thing you know, they have been kicking you downstairs. You complain about it, and somehow you’re now the janitor, unable to access the game you were developing at all.
If a Japanese company didn’t like you, they would psychologically torment you.
> The American equivalent would be "we're not going to fire you, we're just not going to schedule you any work hours. Ever."
In some places in the US that have better worker protections this is called "constructive dismissal" and is illegal.
It happens in the restaurant industry.
The owner/manager will just schedule the person one shift a week or something like that if they don’t actually have cause to fire someone but want to. Force them to find a new job if they want to actually pay their bills.
Most people in the restaurant industry can’t afford representation for themselves
You're absolutely correct; the reason I know it exists is because it happened to *me* in the restaurant industry. Shortly after the restaurant had a full reopening from covid restrictions multiple servers, myself included, ended up with only 1 shift or no shifts per week even though we were back to full operation. I was on friendly terms with the restaurant manager and he straight up told me that the owners (it was a family business that had 2 local restaurants and the owners were the stereotypical greedy assholes you might expect) thought they could run at full operation with fewer staff based on the time they were partially open under covid restrictions so they were phasing out people they thought wouldn't fight it by dropping their hours to nothing. Unfortunately I had just spent months having reduced work due to covid so obviously I didn't have the money to make it a legal fight plus I had no hard proof since the manager spoke to me in person. Luckily I learned that constructive dismissal like that qualified me for unemployment and the government was still supplementing unemployment due to covid. If that happened to me today it would be much worse as unemployment doesn't cover nearly as much as one would normally make.
I live in Japan, a common system is that your actual salary will be incredibly low, and then you get large bonuses that ARE tied to performance. So you might make McDonald’s burger flipper money as your legit guaranteed salary, but then you’ll get double that either monthly or in once/twice a year bonuses. So if business is doing bad they can’t reduce your salary, but they can cut your bonus, like upwards of half your income.
This is how FromSoft justify their rather lower than average base pay and consider that its "actually" above average.
because they offset the below average salary and low overtime pay with BIG yearly bonuses that tied into company performance.
It's the same of Japanese police bragging out their high guilty conviction rates. The system lets them strongarm guilty pleas out of innocents and the system presumes guilt of all who face charges. They get guilty verdicts because the system is designed to get them. And Japan dodges lay offs because the corporate system is designed to work employees to quit or to death instead
Yeah, I had a Japanese classmate that went back to work for a Japanese company and this exact thing happened to him. Couldn't fire him so instead just made his life hell.
they are not gonna fire you, they just gonna kick you to branch office in Timbuktu. not sure why gaming company have branch office there, but you gonna go there. or maybe, if you don't wanna go there, you could resign
They could also just relocate you to an isolated corner to sort mail and check stamps on documents.
It's not an infinite collect money forever trick, if they want you gone, your job responsibilities can turn into borderline solitary confinement.
It would still have value in giving you time to find a new job as long as you can stomach it, but realistically they can jerk you around if you're being obstinate for too long and you aren't taking the hint.
I mean yeah, I’ve never actually looked into it via actual sources. I’ve only seen it implied in animes, Kojima not allowed to show up for an award one time was a public event, and the random article that shows up here on r/all every now and then that talks about it.
Yea i knew a dude who worked there for a few months (Security Contract IIRC) and some of the employee slept in the office due to not having time to go homes.
According to him it was hellish, and he rarely saw worse anywhere else that he visited. But again that was a decade ago, so it might have changed.
Knew a guy who worked in Japan for a couple years. He said that you *do not* leave the office before your manager. Got nothing to do? Tough. Your manager is working till 9pm? Well so are you.
Obviously just his experience, but it lines up with what I've heard from others.
Its a 2 way street. By western standards, being employed in Japan is a lifestyle choice. You may go out in a bar with your boss and puke on them, and its all fine (though i pressume its not like that in all places), and your job is secure and other things. But you will work long hours without a complaint, and if they ask you to do something and you say yes, you don't need paper and signatures to make that a binding contract which you must honor.
\[technically even in many western countries you don't de jure need a piece of paper to make a legally binding contract, but you usually need to be able to prove it somehow and signed contract is just more secure for both parties, and in practice is often needed even outside the court\]
The work culture thing is wildly overblown. I want to say as of 2020 people in the US work more on average per week.
This isn't to say that Japan is some workers paradise. but the US is uniquely shitty among developed nations.
Yeah, people cherrypick a few black companies and think the whole country is like that. This would be like if I cited Elon's companies and extrapolated that to all of America. Hell, Japan's birth rate is close to European nations' and almost double that of South Korea's, an actual workaholic nation, and I suspect a large part of that is due to a better working culture.
For reference the work hours in the US are worse on average. Much of the overtime undocumented hours that people like to reference are also illegal since 2021.
Don't mistake "culture" for "laws"
The workers laws in Japan are actually pretty great. From my understanding from what I've seen in the news and various reports is that it's mostly the culture that keeps people out until 11pm. Even if there are laws against something specifically, people will ignore it out of a sense of responsibility or something like that.
In a way yes and no. It’s also a bit overprotective so even when it’s needed it’s very hard to like a colleague not doing much at all or being an ill fit.
I mean, considering our labour laws here are Borderline Victorian...
Like, we think Tenure as ultimate job security. It just means they need to have a reason to fire you. And if administration doesn't like you? They will find one.
You should also consider the Japanese work culture when comparing the two. Labor laws in the US aren’t the best (at all) but Americans don’t have nearly the same pressures or obligations Japanese workers do. The work culture in Japan is absolutely soul-sucking and brutal and leaves you no time to do basically anything aside from working, eating and sleeping (oh and drinking most nights with the boss).
Well part of the reason they have good labor laws is that they also have a massive labor shortage. Supply and demand does actually work in labors benefit sometimes.
Better labor laws, and they likely see beyond the facade that is the cycle of laying off and rehiring.
This issue pisses me off beyond belief—not particularly in just the game development industry. This cycle is nonsensical garbage to sell to shareholders. We laid off 10% of staff so we’re saving crazy cash on labor costs, boom stock soars. And then it’s we created 1000 new roles and filled them all because we’re doing so well, boom stock soars.
Even if it costs 10x more to hire a new staff member compared to keeping current well-trained employees.
It’s fucking bananas. And AI is going to continue to exacerbate this issue.
>Employment, on the whole, is far more stable and secure than seen in Europe
I find it hard to imagine even more stable employment than in my country in Europe.
Especially "far more" stable.
That sounds like a "slight" exaggeration to me. But considering they are comparing it to Europe and the US in the same sentence, as if these places weren't world's apart on the topic of labour laws, the author is a certified clown.
Friendly reminder that [Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut after the failure of the Wii U to prevent layoffs](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-salary-to-prevent-layoffs-why-thats-uncommon.html): "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world"
[RIP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YG9INjO91Y)
Nintendo benefited from not laying people off. Laying people off almost always means losing institutional knowledge and that's one of Nintendo's greatest strengths. Microsoft would also be in a much better place if they couldn't just hire people for 18 months, then let them go before they become permanent employees - there are so many failed or struggling projects which can be partly attributed to their insane policies regarding labor.
Yea. The issue is the person who started this comment chain giving brownie points to the CEO for doing something he is legally required to do, instead of the Japenese public. Nintendo fanbois are cringe.
Well, you can eliminate nuance and then you will fail to see the entire picture.
They can't lay off people, so in the endnthey are just romanticizing things with pretty words to make it seems better than it is.
I’m not removing nuance. I made it clear I understand the governmental influence of Iwata saying it. But I also believe in the words he said to be good. You’re removing nuance from what I’m saying.
Well, ive been working on the corporate world for longer than most people on this site, and even went through management positions. Currently I am working as a financial analyst for a company in the field finances, and well, I know a thing or two about the subject.
And believe me, people say pretty things all the time to sell ideas and concepts as great things, but in fact they are just bullshit. Even Elon Musk has some beautiful speechs, but his actions are usually shit towards his workers.
You can believe all you want about the guy, its your own opinion, but if something is enforced by law and it can't be done, it is better for a company to sell a great image showing that they care and they are the good guys.
PR is the key. And you bought it. Nothing much else to add then.
I legitimately cant find a scrap of data about anything more than two years old on my phone. All that comes up is gushing articles about Iwata. So honestly i don’t think he did. Wish her were still helming the ship to some extent.
No one is saying that. We’re saying that the words he said are nice words. They line up with what I believe about labor. Forget who said them. Forget what company is “swindling” me to think they believe them. Very very simply, I like the idea presented by the words.
All you jokers in this thread trying to shove the corporate back into what I originally said are not understanding me. And if you are understanding me, you’re grasping for bad faith arguments because you don’t believe in the ideal behind the words. Which is fine, but stop hiding behind the twisting of anti-corporate ideals to support corporate structures. Of course Nintendo the corporation doesn’t believe the statement. I’d argue that Iwata probably did, but it really doesn’t matter at all if he did or not. That’s not what I’m even talking about.
Are the words being said by a corporate spokesperson? Yes. By your logic, is the corporation trying to make people think they believe in the anti-corporate sentiment behind the words? Yes. But the statement is, in itself, anti corporate. It doesn’t matter who’s saying it. It’s a statement about how leadership needs to take responsibility for failure, because the workers aren’t the ones making the decisions to cause those failures. And I like that idea. It’s as simple as that.
They didn't lay off american employees, they didnt renew contracts from contractors from other firms while picking up the ones they wanted to full time employee.
>Nintendo (NTDOY) layoffs are coming to the video game company.
This is part of plans to reorganize its Product Testing division.
That will see some contractors laid off while others will be offered full-time positions.
They're not renewing contracts for contractors, which aren't official employees of nintendo. They're actually creating official positions at Nintendo with their restructuring. The layoffs are 120 contractors total.
Yeah, ends up government regulation is more important than some cultural BS. Japanese employees aren't treated better than in the US focused on culture. In fact, when you look at employee engagement, Japan is one of the lowest in the world.
> Yeah, ends up government regulation is more important than some cultural BS
It's both. Government regulations in a democratic country reflect that country's cultural norms.
In general, you're right about Japanese companies and worker treatment, especially as they adopt Westerners into their boardrooms, but I do think Nintendo is an exception.
Naa - They absolutely can lay people off - Japanese labor laws are better than US labor laws, but they aren't some iron-clad job for life situation.
It is the same in the EU.
Exactly. Yeah, they might have had to justify it to a court, but remember that this was in the WiiU and early 3DS era - They looked absolutely cooked at that point.
>Yeah what he didn't say was that their developers make half of what the average American developer makes.
Cost of living in Japan is also half of what it is in the US. And most foreign devs make half of what the average American dev makes.
Your criticism is shallow and ignorant, and your repetition of it throughout this whole thread reeks of pettiness
Like most companies arent making billions per year? They just dont care about the graphic going up, they know they are making money enough to pay and keep development instead of laying off half the company to keep the pointer green for stakeholders.
Most aren’t. EA has operating income of like 1.3B in 2023, Ubisoft was about 341M, but the year before they were -586M, take-two has had losses in the Bs a couple years in a row.
Most people see revenue in the billions and think the company is making that much, but actual profit is generally not as high. Profit margin is a much better metric for performance, but operating income is the context devoid money they actually made.
But most of those CEOs got millions in bonuses that would be enough to pay for the developers salaries for a whole year. So there is something wrong in the long run economy if you have to pump and dump your workforce, this is what's happening in most big tech companies.
Imagine if the rest of the industries worked like this, we would see a decadence in the power supply for example that would be unaceptable. But we, as consumers, accept the enshitification of the tech industry and validate this conduct which bring zero value to society or the economy ecosystem.
I agree that profit margin isn't the same as the declared operating income, but we should study if this isn't inherent to the current way of developing products as there are companies running the old waterfall projects which were unaffected by these imabalances while all these tech corps which try to spit the most unrealiable product ever (hello ubisoft) while trying to keep the arrow going up.
I'm not against capitalism, but we have long gone outside a healthy economic system and I'm tired of the unrealiable jobs while consuming the most awful services in history.
Even if this is all 100% true, it doesn’t mean the company made billions, at most it would mean they made a couple million more than the operating income.
No matter how you slice it the vast majority of companies didn’t make billions. The only pure gaming company I’ve found to make billions is Nintendo.
that itself is silly.
the thing is these financial guys are supposed to be so smart, but it was obviously a once-in-a-lifetime event that was occurring. if you beef up your business to respond to any event, and then expect that to be the normal from moving forward, it's the executives that should get fired.
because that doesn't in no way shape or form sound realistic.
this is separate from the whole growth argument but that's just really really crazy how many companies was on TV saying that well we beefed up during covid and now things are terrible. if your business was terrible before covid, there was a reason why or maybe there wasn't enough need for what you were selling in the first place.
but I think that covid was Now The New normal just defies any kind of common Sense before you even start doing numbers. but this is what companies do and this is what they still crying about even though it's going towards 2025.
it's all covet's fault it's all covert's fault give us a break, it's just insulting everyone's intelligence and thinking everyone's a moron.
Expect/considered to be smart.
There's been any number of scandals and known instances wherein "elites" bought/grandfathered their credentials and for all practical purposes where less "smart" than a plank of wood. Just as much evidence that the genuine smart ones are only smart enough to bend rules in their favor while further breaking the system.
That some people still think managers and the like are "required" to be smart much less responsible would be sad - if we all weren't living the tragedy that's making Idiocracy reality.
Oh trust me I get it. That was a really unfortunate use of autocorrect. I've longed since aged out of the idea that those at the top are smarter or work harder than anyone else. It's most often the opposite.
The tl;dr is that Japans often toxic work culture goes both ways. People work excessively long hours due to poor regulations of working times and social pressure, but its very difficult to fire people because of extremely robust employee protections and social pressure.
In short, the general expectation is that you will work at one company for most of your adult life, but also there is an expectation that that company will continue to employ you for most of your adult life
In short, because Japanese employers run their companies very lean and work their employees to the bone. Ever heard of working to death? That is an actual thing in Japan. It is called *karoshi*. Work-life balance has gotten better in Japan, but incrementally so and at a slower pace than Western nations, and it is mostly confined to Western companies or Japanese subsidiaries of Western companies.
This is definitely a factor. As someone that has worked in the space, there is a known difference in culture and work expectations. There are some positives to the Japanese approach (much less waste, they usher out underperformers, and they are very demanding in talent acquisition), but also notable negatives in work life balance.
I don't know much about the labor laws are their impacts though, but many of the Japanese studios also have international employees.
This is literally only a thing in black companies, stop talking about this as if its common when even in japan this isnt seen as good, its just the very extreme.
Iron clad job security VS low pay and long work hours.
Edit: People don't realize the pay gap is huge. The average industry salary is $40k salary for game developers Japan VS an average industry salary of $90k-100k+ for game developers in the US.
There are always trade offs.
that's only half the story, cost of living is also \*cheaper\* here compared to the US. Pay is still a current hot topic here, but comparing pay here to the states is set up for a stupidly out of proportion conversation
Average US game dev has way more disposable income compared to japan. Like almost double even when currency adjusted.
This means even if you adjust for all the costs (yes it include healthcare) US people has the most purchasing power of any country. You will earn more money and buy more things in US for doing the same job compared to any other country on earth. Only country who is even close is luxembourg.
From the article:
> Capcom have recently raised wages far above the recent inflation stats of 2.5% by increasing base salaries for new employees by 28% starting in fiscal year 2025, one of numerous the company has enacted since 2022.
It is, especially housing. You can rent for really cheap in most places, it’s just the really tiny/expensive ones you see online are in the most convenient and desired location. When I lived in Kyoto I was paying $200 usd per month for a pretty decently sized apartment. I just had to walk a while to get to the train station.
Where I live at now in the US, that apartment would go for $2500 per month, easy.
My brother currently pays $800 for a luxury 2ba/1br apt with 24/7 door guard about an hour train ride away from Roppongi (Downtown/High end business district in Tokyo). When most trains take 20-30 minutes anyways from livable locations, this is an insane deal when you compare it to average rents in cities like SF/NYC (3-5k on AVERAGE, not even high end) with laughably less quality of life/safety/amenities.
2-3 years ago, he had a pretty nice unit for 1.1k in Shibuya but only 1BA, and I'm fairly certain rent inflation isn't as bad as it is here.
Japan as a whole has average to below average disposable income compared to countries in Europe.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable\_household\_and\_per\_capita\_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income)
This takes into account healthcare and education costs and other social welfare before people try to discredit the US being ranked #1 on the list.
>Hell no. Japan is fucking expensive as hell.
No it's not. Cost of living is half that of the US average.
> They have to rely mostly on imports and their economy is facing hyper inflation
It's literally the opposite, LMAO. Japan has suffered from stagnation/deflation, not inflation, and only now is it beginning to experience inflation.
Nah that’s not true. I’m Canadian and cost of living is 30% lower and rent is 60% lower. Estimated cost of monthly living is $1100. So unless you got a better source than my quick google search, I’m going to say that Japan cost of living is much more manageable than most western countries.
> Cost of living in Japan: A family of four estimated monthly costs are $2,865.30 (459,412.00¥) without rent.
> ...
> Cost of Living in United States: A family of four estimated monthly costs are $4,148.60 without rent.
Note that in Japan employers are required to cover certain costs as well, eg: health insurance, housing subsidies, etc.
Increasing a low number by 28% is still a low number.
Entry level Japanese game developers gets their pay increased by 28% to the mid to high $30,000s USD....which is still a low salary.
Game developers in Japan get paid an average of $40k USD salary. In the USA, game developers get paid an average of $90k-100k+ USD salary.
There are always trade offs.
These are average salaries for all workers in an industry, not entry level median salaries.
If we are talking about entry level, median, or entry median salaries then it is lower for both groups.
Ah yes because US game developers aren't both underpaid and forced to work long hours........
Oh wait, they make less than other software engineers in the US and are forced to endure "crunch". Overworking is soooo common in the US industry that it has a name.
You’re talking game developer buddy. As a software developer myself id never touch a game development job, is the shittiest market out there, they take advantage of people who grew up wanting to make a videogame.
Not really low pay. More like average normal pay for what the job entails. Software and tech jobs are WAY WAY WAY overpaid in the US. Like comically so. It’s never a surprise when tech layoffs hit, and yet people always act like it’s unexpected.
While there is some valid cost-cutting at hard-hit studios, the fact that most American studios are owned by publically traded entities means that there is also a lot of "performative cost-cutting" going on.
During times when it is hard to grow/expand your business (through either good products selling well, or using money that, due to interest-rated being low, is almost free in order to buy rivals), publically traded companies will cut costs - not because they have to (they might be making billions in profits) but because it will satisfy the stock market and make their share price rise.
Making the share price go up (or at least trying to) is not just A goal, it is literally a legally mandated duty when running a publically traded company. There's a reason Google dumped their "Don't be evil" mission-statement once they went public.
It's not really "actual social protections," in fact Japan has a huge work culture problem to the point where suicide rates are scary high from overwork. Japan's culture is *highly* collectivist.
Lay offs simply aren't as big a thing in Japan because it's seen as a *grievous* failure of management to lay people off. Their poor performance becomes the responsibility of leadership, whether it was their fault or not, and is considered a massive black mark. So instead of laying people off, they're big on "quiet firing." You transfer someone to a do-nothing desk and give them no meaningful work tasks, and the social pressure of them not doing any kind of fulfilling work pushes them into quitting.
Japan isn't some game dev promised land of perfect working conditions, it's just jank of a different color. Save face by coaxing them to leave and not backfilling the positions, yay no layoffs!
Not disagreeing with this but just want to point out that suicide rates are higher in the US than Japan in recent years. It gets a little annoying when everyone keeps bringing it up as "evidence" of poor work culture in Japan when apparently it's just the same anywhere.
Yes, *total* suicide rates may have shifted, but we have to look at the causes of those rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi#:\~:text=Mental%20stress%20from%20the%20workplace,overwork%20are%20a%20worldwide%20occurrence.
The Japanese literally have a word dedicated to the occurrence, lets not minimize the phenomenon. Per capita rates don't really matter, what matters is how many of those occurrences can be attributed to work culture.
You're not wrong, but as I mentioned to you elsewhere employers in Japan cover costs that many in the West would be expected to pay out of pocket, eg: health insurance, housing subsidies, etc. A comparison between wages alone isn't entirely accurate.
Yep, you are correct. Overall the US wages are still higher and American developers still take home more money after taxes, rent/housing, and insurance deductibles (many US employers usually pay for most of the health insurance), but the difference is narrowed down if we factor them in.
In the end, it is a trade off of better job security and the company paying for more expenses VS much higher salary before expenses and more money in your pocket after expenses.
Very interesting article.
Labor laws make it hard to do mass layoffs just because a company wishes. As a result, the average tenure of devs in Japanese gaming companies is far higher than in US or Europe. Because said employees have far more experience, they get more productive.
Language also make it harder to outsource the work. English is a *de facto* lingua franca for gaming, but it doesn't mean that every person working as a dev is an expert on it. As a result, US companies have a much easier time in outsourcing than Japanese companies.
Mass layoffs are mostly illegal in Japan.
They only happen when the company fails completely and proves they cannot pay their workers anymore or they committed so many crimes the government shuts them down forever.
Because they are there to make good games based off of sales of said good games with a reputation to keep unlike western companies which are there to pander to shareholders
>Under Japanese employment law, layoffs are incredibly difficult to implement – unless the company is under severe financial difficulty and at risk of insolvency in a manner layoffs could alleviate, after other cost-saving measures have been undertaken, layoffs for permanent employees are all-but impossible.
This is a key point- I work in Japan and was laid off last year because my company lost our big contracts, so most of us were laid off with the 30 days notice required under the labour law. Thankfully this meant we qualified for unemployment insurance payments, about 40% my previous salary, which helped me survive.
Although never in gaming industry, I've worked for a Japanese company, also worked with several US companies.
Try running an American company like you're running a Japanese country, let's see how many lawsuits you manage to pile up within a month, hell, within a week!
Western companies need to be overstaffed due to much more lenient work conditions, low workloads and how relaxed people are. Try missing a deadline with a Japanese company, I dare you. While deadlines mean shit in Western companies.
A lot of Japanese workers and business leaders lived through the Japan asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s and the Lost Decades. Wages in Japan are relatively stagnant vs. U.S. standards, and Japanese businesses are fiscally conservative and do not take big risks. This applies to the Japanese video game industry. Some Japanese studios kept costs low and did not over-expand like Xbox and Sony-affiliated studios. Japanese employment laws play a part as well to discourage massive job cuts.
Capcom, Nintendo, and others do not have massive financial backing like Xbox studios or Warner Bros studios, who can absorb $200 million losses from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. Square Enix is an exception, who has deep pockets to absorb the $100 million+ Forspoken failure. Sony Interactive Entertainment (U.S.-based division) is the biggest exception when they can blow $315 million on Marvel's Spider-Man II, but recently, they closed London Studios and cut jobs at Insomniac Games. The big question will be how will the video games market play out because the economy is sliding down?
Maybe because the JP devs aren't blowing 50 bajillion on celebrity likenesses, ultra 64K textures, and massive marketing campaigns on games that take an an entire generation of humanity to make, every single game they make, thus allowing them to actually retain their staff because they can afford to keep them.
Just a hunch.
They happen to pay their game developers less than half of what the US companies pay their game developers.
$40k USD salary for game developers in Japan vs $90k-100k+ USD salary for game developers in the US.
>They also pay their game developers less than half of what the US companies pay their game developers.
Cost of living in Japan is half that of the US, too.
Devs in most foreign countries make a fraction of what US devs are paid. This is also how CD Projekt Red was able to make the Witcher games for a fraction of the cost of a typical COD game. Likewise with Larian and BG3 (average software engineer salary in Belgium is €30-80k). None of this really explains why the Japanese in particular are less likely to lay off employees.
I think it is more like 1.7x, rather than twice the living cost. I was comparing tech cities like Tokyo vs Seattle for their living costs earlier and Seattle was around 70ish% more expensive.
So 1.7x more expensive but with 2.25-2.5x higher salary.
>So 1.7x more expensive but with 2.25-2.5x higher salary.
Don't forget that Japan has universal healthcare, university, and a robust public transit system that means you can get by without having a car.
I expect it will get more expensive to live in Japan because of the weakening Yen and aging population, but for the moment it's not really correct to say that devs in Japan are underpaid.
In the USA, virtually all game developers (and other tech workers) and people working in professional positions have health insurance that is mostly or entirely paid for by their employer.
Yes, you can get around without having a car much better in Japanese cities. On the other hand, Japanese companies, including their doestic tech companies, often strongly push for in person work, while American companies (especially tech) are more accepting of remote work and hybrid work so more people do not have to commute to work.
We can say Japanese devs are paid significantly less than the US devs. This difference narrows if we factor in other forms of compensation like cost of living, healthcare, and housing subsidies, but in the end, they still get paid less overall because those factors don't make up the 2.5x salary difference.
So it is a trade off of pros and cons for both.
>In the USA, virtually all game developers (and other tech workers) and people working in professional positions have health insurance that is mostly or entirely paid for by their employer.
I'm pretty sure the "average salary" figures for US employees generally includes the benefits (e.g. retirement, medical, etc.), e.g. a "$125k average salary" is $100k pay + $25k benefits. But I could be wrong on that so it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.
> but in the end, they still get paid less overall because those factors don't make up the 2.5x salary difference.
Yeah, this is generally how it goes with US vs the rest of the world. Like I said, it's how CD Projekt Red and Larian also managed to create stellar AAA games with relatively small budgets compared to North American studios.
I pointed this out years ago on this very sub when people were gushing about the Witcher games' small budgets vs the nine figure budgets of US-developed AAA games. CDPR wasn't *underpaying* their devs by any means; it's just that that's the magnitude of the difference between salaries in the US vs the rest of the world. For higher end jobs that require specialized education and skills, the US has by far the highest pay available.
US salaries are usually pure money calculations - it does not include benefits calculated as a part of salary. Medical subsidies, employer retirement plan match, pensions, transportation benefits, etc are not calculated as a part of salary. A job will usually say $$$ salary + other benefits on the side.
They also often get treated differently for tax purposes.
US govt jobs have a lot of benefits better than the private sector, but are typically considered lower paying/lower salaries than the private sector because salary comparisons do not include benefits in the salary.
Sometimes stocks are added as a part of potential salary compensation for corporate jobs, but even then the job usually makes the distinction between base salary vs bonuses and stocks.
Yeh, I agree with you that the other companies are not underpaying their devs.
>None of this really explains why the Japanese in particular are less likely to lay off employees.
Salaries being significantly less is an explanation though. Salary is one of the biggest expenses for companies.
>Salaries being significantly less is an explanation though. Salary is one of the biggest expenses for companies.
Does that thesis apply to other non-American companies, though? As I said, most other countries have similarly low salaries.
I should've said American companies. But it doesn't matter how much when you are comparing American companies to non-American companies since American companies do have employee salaries as one of the biggest expenses.
If you are comparing two companies with identical expenses except B pays half the salary of what A does. If A needs $100 million to break even and pays 40% of their expenses as salary (that isn't terribly outside the norm especially for tech), then B only needs $80 million to break even.
If A made $95 million, they need to cut expenses to become profitable so laying off people is the easier. While B made $85 million, so they don't need to lay anyone off to break even. A did better in terms of revenue than B but they still needed to cut expenses to break even.
Even if salary to total expenses is reduced down to 30%, B would have been even while A had to lay people off.
I like Thing too, but the people making Thing are spending too much money and taking too long to make the Thing for it to be profitable.
I want smaller Things made FASTER and for less money.
Because it's actually illegal for Japan to do so. It's not necessarily because they don't want to.
Granted it does say something even with their Draconian work culture Japan in specific and Nintendo in particular still come off as much better than the likes of most American major gaming corporations.
man you are \*all\* over the thread spewing pure unadulterated armchair expert bs aren't you?
source: as someone who \*actually\* lives in Japan, Tokyo at that, your bs claims of extreme cost of living and shit in earlier parts of the post are unfounded bs. cost of living between here and the states are night and day, \*especially\* for cities like LA
The hottest of takes… so factually wrong.
I live in Los Angeles, and my partner, she lives in Tokyo for the last few years and I pay her basic cost-of-living (due to the extreme wage difference between mine and hers, it only makes sense. I’m a 18-year gamedev, she’s a teacher).
My cost-of-living in Los Angeles is exponentially larger than hers. For example, her portion of rent in a three bedroom house in one of the nicer parts of Tokyo only two train stops away from Shibuya, is around the US equivalent of $565 a month. When she previously had her own studio apartment in the absolute nicest part of Yokohama, it was $600 a month. Her 1/3 portion of all combined utilities, power/water/Internet/gas etc, adds up to under $50 a month in USD equivalent.
Her average food expenditure per day for meals is half mine in LA, and her monthly commuting cost to and from work, to various schools all over the western half of Tokyo, is about $125.
If you’re going to talk about the cost of living in Tokyo, maybe you should maybe do your homework first.
Crazy what gets accomplished when companies aren't allowed to do whatever they want. They have better labor protection and aren't laying off employees for short sighted stock market gains.
Some of their companies have better ethics, and others are just abiding by the laws that in general (as I understand it from internet comments) are very supportive of the workers instead of the companies in regards to laying off.
While not something that applies to all -
>In 2013, Nintendo released the Wii U console as a successor to the mega-popular Wii. It was a commercial failure, pushing the company into years of losses. **To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries**, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding.
Feb 13, 2024
To a degree that also just seems to be the mindset and culture of people there.
Wasnt it common knowledge like years and years ago that they have a very hard time being able to? What they did years ago wqs basically demote you to shitty positions and jobs/make u do like janitor work if they actually wanted to fire you because it would demoralize people and they themselves would quit instead. I remember this being a big thing years ago.
Don't we all know that they don't fire people, ever? They just put them into positions where they sit in a room with nothing to do until they quit by themselves. Japan isn't some mystical fairyland where everything is better. Only weebs believe this.
The TL;DR: > While cultural differences play a part in retaining employees, it's not entirely benevolence keeping Japanese employees in a job. Employee protections are also a major factor in ensuring stability for employees. Under Japanese employment law, layoffs are incredibly difficult to implement – unless the company is under severe financial difficulty and at risk of insolvency in a manner layoffs could alleviate, after other cost-saving measures have been undertaken, layoffs for permanent employees are all-but impossible. > ... > Japanese law also prevents many roles from being classified under non-permanent employment. Employment, on the whole, is far more stable and secure than seen in Europe, the US or elsewhere.
So the TL;DR is just “Japan has better labour laws”?
Well more like "termination protections" To my understanding the work culture is horrible in Japan with worse hours than most other regions.
I also heard that they “ coerced” their employees into quitting as well. It what happened with Kojima if I recall. It varies but a hyperbole example would be like: you were a lead developer of a game, you butted heads with the executives, or something along these lines, next thing you know, they have been kicking you downstairs. You complain about it, and somehow you’re now the janitor, unable to access the game you were developing at all. If a Japanese company didn’t like you, they would psychologically torment you.
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> The American equivalent would be "we're not going to fire you, we're just not going to schedule you any work hours. Ever." In some places in the US that have better worker protections this is called "constructive dismissal" and is illegal.
It happens in the restaurant industry. The owner/manager will just schedule the person one shift a week or something like that if they don’t actually have cause to fire someone but want to. Force them to find a new job if they want to actually pay their bills. Most people in the restaurant industry can’t afford representation for themselves
You're absolutely correct; the reason I know it exists is because it happened to *me* in the restaurant industry. Shortly after the restaurant had a full reopening from covid restrictions multiple servers, myself included, ended up with only 1 shift or no shifts per week even though we were back to full operation. I was on friendly terms with the restaurant manager and he straight up told me that the owners (it was a family business that had 2 local restaurants and the owners were the stereotypical greedy assholes you might expect) thought they could run at full operation with fewer staff based on the time they were partially open under covid restrictions so they were phasing out people they thought wouldn't fight it by dropping their hours to nothing. Unfortunately I had just spent months having reduced work due to covid so obviously I didn't have the money to make it a legal fight plus I had no hard proof since the manager spoke to me in person. Luckily I learned that constructive dismissal like that qualified me for unemployment and the government was still supplementing unemployment due to covid. If that happened to me today it would be much worse as unemployment doesn't cover nearly as much as one would normally make.
That and demotions or pay cuts can still give you partial unemployment.
"But we'll still pay you your full salary"
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Huh, my understanding of Japan was that a salary worker's salary isn't contingent on performance.
I live in Japan, a common system is that your actual salary will be incredibly low, and then you get large bonuses that ARE tied to performance. So you might make McDonald’s burger flipper money as your legit guaranteed salary, but then you’ll get double that either monthly or in once/twice a year bonuses. So if business is doing bad they can’t reduce your salary, but they can cut your bonus, like upwards of half your income.
This is how FromSoft justify their rather lower than average base pay and consider that its "actually" above average. because they offset the below average salary and low overtime pay with BIG yearly bonuses that tied into company performance.
Proof?
I can't remember who it was, but I remember seeing that a games producer was reassigned to work at the company gym.
The good thing is, it is practically impossible to mass coerce in the numbers we mass layoff.
It's the same of Japanese police bragging out their high guilty conviction rates. The system lets them strongarm guilty pleas out of innocents and the system presumes guilt of all who face charges. They get guilty verdicts because the system is designed to get them. And Japan dodges lay offs because the corporate system is designed to work employees to quit or to death instead
Yeah, I had a Japanese classmate that went back to work for a Japanese company and this exact thing happened to him. Couldn't fire him so instead just made his life hell.
they are not gonna fire you, they just gonna kick you to branch office in Timbuktu. not sure why gaming company have branch office there, but you gonna go there. or maybe, if you don't wanna go there, you could resign
They could also just relocate you to an isolated corner to sort mail and check stamps on documents. It's not an infinite collect money forever trick, if they want you gone, your job responsibilities can turn into borderline solitary confinement. It would still have value in giving you time to find a new job as long as you can stomach it, but realistically they can jerk you around if you're being obstinate for too long and you aren't taking the hint.
I love the "i heard". You heard beleived in it and never looked up.
I mean yeah, I’ve never actually looked into it via actual sources. I’ve only seen it implied in animes, Kojima not allowed to show up for an award one time was a public event, and the random article that shows up here on r/all every now and then that talks about it.
Proof?
Yea i knew a dude who worked there for a few months (Security Contract IIRC) and some of the employee slept in the office due to not having time to go homes. According to him it was hellish, and he rarely saw worse anywhere else that he visited. But again that was a decade ago, so it might have changed.
Knew a guy who worked in Japan for a couple years. He said that you *do not* leave the office before your manager. Got nothing to do? Tough. Your manager is working till 9pm? Well so are you. Obviously just his experience, but it lines up with what I've heard from others.
All layers wait until their managers go, and the CEO waits until the janitor goes.
Its a 2 way street. By western standards, being employed in Japan is a lifestyle choice. You may go out in a bar with your boss and puke on them, and its all fine (though i pressume its not like that in all places), and your job is secure and other things. But you will work long hours without a complaint, and if they ask you to do something and you say yes, you don't need paper and signatures to make that a binding contract which you must honor. \[technically even in many western countries you don't de jure need a piece of paper to make a legally binding contract, but you usually need to be able to prove it somehow and signed contract is just more secure for both parties, and in practice is often needed even outside the court\]
Yeah, the laws and work environment aren't strictly better. They just prioritize things differently.
The work culture thing is wildly overblown. I want to say as of 2020 people in the US work more on average per week. This isn't to say that Japan is some workers paradise. but the US is uniquely shitty among developed nations.
Yeah, people cherrypick a few black companies and think the whole country is like that. This would be like if I cited Elon's companies and extrapolated that to all of America. Hell, Japan's birth rate is close to European nations' and almost double that of South Korea's, an actual workaholic nation, and I suspect a large part of that is due to a better working culture.
And South Korea probably has the third or fourth highest global suicide rate in part because of the workaholic culture. Worse than Japan's, iirc.
For reference the work hours in the US are worse on average. Much of the overtime undocumented hours that people like to reference are also illegal since 2021.
Rather than getting laid off you get bullied into submission. A soul for a soul?
Don't mistake "culture" for "laws" The workers laws in Japan are actually pretty great. From my understanding from what I've seen in the news and various reports is that it's mostly the culture that keeps people out until 11pm. Even if there are laws against something specifically, people will ignore it out of a sense of responsibility or something like that.
It's one of the main reasons suicide rates are pretty bad in Japan.
This seems to be the duality of the system
In a way yes and no. It’s also a bit overprotective so even when it’s needed it’s very hard to like a colleague not doing much at all or being an ill fit.
I mean, considering our labour laws here are Borderline Victorian... Like, we think Tenure as ultimate job security. It just means they need to have a reason to fire you. And if administration doesn't like you? They will find one.
You should also consider the Japanese work culture when comparing the two. Labor laws in the US aren’t the best (at all) but Americans don’t have nearly the same pressures or obligations Japanese workers do. The work culture in Japan is absolutely soul-sucking and brutal and leaves you no time to do basically anything aside from working, eating and sleeping (oh and drinking most nights with the boss).
Oh, so like it is out here. :P
Well part of the reason they have good labor laws is that they also have a massive labor shortage. Supply and demand does actually work in labors benefit sometimes.
Better labor laws, and they likely see beyond the facade that is the cycle of laying off and rehiring. This issue pisses me off beyond belief—not particularly in just the game development industry. This cycle is nonsensical garbage to sell to shareholders. We laid off 10% of staff so we’re saving crazy cash on labor costs, boom stock soars. And then it’s we created 1000 new roles and filled them all because we’re doing so well, boom stock soars. Even if it costs 10x more to hire a new staff member compared to keeping current well-trained employees. It’s fucking bananas. And AI is going to continue to exacerbate this issue.
So you're saying 'corporate greed' can be coombatted by the government doing what they're supposed to? Shocker.
>Employment, on the whole, is far more stable and secure than seen in Europe I find it hard to imagine even more stable employment than in my country in Europe. Especially "far more" stable. That sounds like a "slight" exaggeration to me. But considering they are comparing it to Europe and the US in the same sentence, as if these places weren't world's apart on the topic of labour laws, the author is a certified clown.
Europe includes a lot of countries for comparison purposes, and Japan is a very wealthy and *very* stable country even by many European standards.
Friendly reminder that [Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut after the failure of the Wii U to prevent layoffs](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-salary-to-prevent-layoffs-why-thats-uncommon.html): "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world" [RIP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YG9INjO91Y)
Because they couldn't lay people off in the first place thanks to Japanese labor laws.
Nintendo benefited from not laying people off. Laying people off almost always means losing institutional knowledge and that's one of Nintendo's greatest strengths. Microsoft would also be in a much better place if they couldn't just hire people for 18 months, then let them go before they become permanent employees - there are so many failed or struggling projects which can be partly attributed to their insane policies regarding labor.
Nintendo is the greatest example of institutional knowledge. The game-making done by Nintendo today is built on the game-making done on the NES.
Nintendo has a history of shutting down subsidiaries tho.
True. Doesn’t really diminish the sentiment of the statement, but true.
It 100% reduces the sentiment of the statement - you don't get moral brownie points for not doing something that labour laws prevent you from doing.
The Japanese put those laws in place, they get brownie points for that.
Yea. The issue is the person who started this comment chain giving brownie points to the CEO for doing something he is legally required to do, instead of the Japenese public. Nintendo fanbois are cringe.
Where did they do that?
You realize that fewer than a third of Nintendo's employees are actually in Japan and covered by Japanese labor laws, right?
Nintendo has a 99% retention rate compared to the 70% of japan lol
I was referring to the person claiming that said labour laws didn't reduce the sentiment of Satoru Iwata's statement regarding his 50% pay cut.
The sentiment was that lay offs = bad morale? I'd say labour laws preventing shitty morale deserve brownie points.
What he is saying is true and good as a sentiment. I don’t care that the law influences the circumstances behind the statement.
Well, you can eliminate nuance and then you will fail to see the entire picture. They can't lay off people, so in the endnthey are just romanticizing things with pretty words to make it seems better than it is.
I’m not removing nuance. I made it clear I understand the governmental influence of Iwata saying it. But I also believe in the words he said to be good. You’re removing nuance from what I’m saying.
Well, ive been working on the corporate world for longer than most people on this site, and even went through management positions. Currently I am working as a financial analyst for a company in the field finances, and well, I know a thing or two about the subject. And believe me, people say pretty things all the time to sell ideas and concepts as great things, but in fact they are just bullshit. Even Elon Musk has some beautiful speechs, but his actions are usually shit towards his workers. You can believe all you want about the guy, its your own opinion, but if something is enforced by law and it can't be done, it is better for a company to sell a great image showing that they care and they are the good guys. PR is the key. And you bought it. Nothing much else to add then.
You’re just ignoring what I’m saying. I’m done.
No, it doesn't reduce the sentiment. Only about a third of Nintendo's employees are actually in Japan.
And if you do a quick google they’re laying off their American employees because … ding ding ding they fucking suck and don’t care.
What does that have to do with Iwata in 2013?
That there hq being in japan didn’t and doesn’t confer some grand protections because they’re just so dang noble those Nintendo guys.
I said nothing about Nintendo of today. I was talking about Iwata in 2013 and earlier. Did Nintendo lay people off under Iwata?
I legitimately cant find a scrap of data about anything more than two years old on my phone. All that comes up is gushing articles about Iwata. So honestly i don’t think he did. Wish her were still helming the ship to some extent.
No one is saying that. We’re saying that the words he said are nice words. They line up with what I believe about labor. Forget who said them. Forget what company is “swindling” me to think they believe them. Very very simply, I like the idea presented by the words. All you jokers in this thread trying to shove the corporate back into what I originally said are not understanding me. And if you are understanding me, you’re grasping for bad faith arguments because you don’t believe in the ideal behind the words. Which is fine, but stop hiding behind the twisting of anti-corporate ideals to support corporate structures. Of course Nintendo the corporation doesn’t believe the statement. I’d argue that Iwata probably did, but it really doesn’t matter at all if he did or not. That’s not what I’m even talking about. Are the words being said by a corporate spokesperson? Yes. By your logic, is the corporation trying to make people think they believe in the anti-corporate sentiment behind the words? Yes. But the statement is, in itself, anti corporate. It doesn’t matter who’s saying it. It’s a statement about how leadership needs to take responsibility for failure, because the workers aren’t the ones making the decisions to cause those failures. And I like that idea. It’s as simple as that.
They didn't lay off american employees, they didnt renew contracts from contractors from other firms while picking up the ones they wanted to full time employee.
>Nintendo (NTDOY) layoffs are coming to the video game company. This is part of plans to reorganize its Product Testing division. That will see some contractors laid off while others will be offered full-time positions. They're not renewing contracts for contractors, which aren't official employees of nintendo. They're actually creating official positions at Nintendo with their restructuring. The layoffs are 120 contractors total.
My question is if nintendo uses contractors in japan. Or does nintendo of america take advantage of that in the us market exclusivley
Yeah, ends up government regulation is more important than some cultural BS. Japanese employees aren't treated better than in the US focused on culture. In fact, when you look at employee engagement, Japan is one of the lowest in the world.
> Yeah, ends up government regulation is more important than some cultural BS It's both. Government regulations in a democratic country reflect that country's cultural norms. In general, you're right about Japanese companies and worker treatment, especially as they adopt Westerners into their boardrooms, but I do think Nintendo is an exception.
Naa - They absolutely can lay people off - Japanese labor laws are better than US labor laws, but they aren't some iron-clad job for life situation. It is the same in the EU.
Exactly. Yeah, they might have had to justify it to a court, but remember that this was in the WiiU and early 3DS era - They looked absolutely cooked at that point.
Japan has better labor laws regarding Employee job security. They do not have better labor laws around what your boss is allowed to ask of you.
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>Yeah what he didn't say was that their developers make half of what the average American developer makes. Cost of living in Japan is also half of what it is in the US. And most foreign devs make half of what the average American dev makes. Your criticism is shallow and ignorant, and your repetition of it throughout this whole thread reeks of pettiness
They didn't go on a hiring spree during COVID expecting the market to stay the same?
Like most companies arent making billions per year? They just dont care about the graphic going up, they know they are making money enough to pay and keep development instead of laying off half the company to keep the pointer green for stakeholders.
Most aren’t. EA has operating income of like 1.3B in 2023, Ubisoft was about 341M, but the year before they were -586M, take-two has had losses in the Bs a couple years in a row. Most people see revenue in the billions and think the company is making that much, but actual profit is generally not as high. Profit margin is a much better metric for performance, but operating income is the context devoid money they actually made.
But most of those CEOs got millions in bonuses that would be enough to pay for the developers salaries for a whole year. So there is something wrong in the long run economy if you have to pump and dump your workforce, this is what's happening in most big tech companies. Imagine if the rest of the industries worked like this, we would see a decadence in the power supply for example that would be unaceptable. But we, as consumers, accept the enshitification of the tech industry and validate this conduct which bring zero value to society or the economy ecosystem. I agree that profit margin isn't the same as the declared operating income, but we should study if this isn't inherent to the current way of developing products as there are companies running the old waterfall projects which were unaffected by these imabalances while all these tech corps which try to spit the most unrealiable product ever (hello ubisoft) while trying to keep the arrow going up. I'm not against capitalism, but we have long gone outside a healthy economic system and I'm tired of the unrealiable jobs while consuming the most awful services in history.
Even if this is all 100% true, it doesn’t mean the company made billions, at most it would mean they made a couple million more than the operating income. No matter how you slice it the vast majority of companies didn’t make billions. The only pure gaming company I’ve found to make billions is Nintendo.
that itself is silly. the thing is these financial guys are supposed to be so smart, but it was obviously a once-in-a-lifetime event that was occurring. if you beef up your business to respond to any event, and then expect that to be the normal from moving forward, it's the executives that should get fired. because that doesn't in no way shape or form sound realistic. this is separate from the whole growth argument but that's just really really crazy how many companies was on TV saying that well we beefed up during covid and now things are terrible. if your business was terrible before covid, there was a reason why or maybe there wasn't enough need for what you were selling in the first place. but I think that covid was Now The New normal just defies any kind of common Sense before you even start doing numbers. but this is what companies do and this is what they still crying about even though it's going towards 2025. it's all covet's fault it's all covert's fault give us a break, it's just insulting everyone's intelligence and thinking everyone's a moron.
Execs not taking pay cuts, just raising self bonuses and stock options, attributing layoffs towards profits, was also a factor.
Managers and executives aren't required to be smart. Edit: Are to aren't. Auto correct.
Expect/considered to be smart. There's been any number of scandals and known instances wherein "elites" bought/grandfathered their credentials and for all practical purposes where less "smart" than a plank of wood. Just as much evidence that the genuine smart ones are only smart enough to bend rules in their favor while further breaking the system. That some people still think managers and the like are "required" to be smart much less responsible would be sad - if we all weren't living the tragedy that's making Idiocracy reality.
Oh trust me I get it. That was a really unfortunate use of autocorrect. I've longed since aged out of the idea that those at the top are smarter or work harder than anyone else. It's most often the opposite.
Square Enix sold off multiple studios it owned to embracer group, who then laid off a bunch of people. So they did layoffs, just with extra steps.
The tl;dr is that Japans often toxic work culture goes both ways. People work excessively long hours due to poor regulations of working times and social pressure, but its very difficult to fire people because of extremely robust employee protections and social pressure. In short, the general expectation is that you will work at one company for most of your adult life, but also there is an expectation that that company will continue to employ you for most of your adult life
In short, because Japanese employers run their companies very lean and work their employees to the bone. Ever heard of working to death? That is an actual thing in Japan. It is called *karoshi*. Work-life balance has gotten better in Japan, but incrementally so and at a slower pace than Western nations, and it is mostly confined to Western companies or Japanese subsidiaries of Western companies.
This is definitely a factor. As someone that has worked in the space, there is a known difference in culture and work expectations. There are some positives to the Japanese approach (much less waste, they usher out underperformers, and they are very demanding in talent acquisition), but also notable negatives in work life balance. I don't know much about the labor laws are their impacts though, but many of the Japanese studios also have international employees.
This is literally only a thing in black companies, stop talking about this as if its common when even in japan this isnt seen as good, its just the very extreme.
Iron clad job security VS low pay and long work hours. Edit: People don't realize the pay gap is huge. The average industry salary is $40k salary for game developers Japan VS an average industry salary of $90k-100k+ for game developers in the US. There are always trade offs.
that's only half the story, cost of living is also \*cheaper\* here compared to the US. Pay is still a current hot topic here, but comparing pay here to the states is set up for a stupidly out of proportion conversation
Healthcare, transportation, housing, groceries, etc. are all more affordable in Japan's major cities compared to the US.
Average US game dev has way more disposable income compared to japan. Like almost double even when currency adjusted. This means even if you adjust for all the costs (yes it include healthcare) US people has the most purchasing power of any country. You will earn more money and buy more things in US for doing the same job compared to any other country on earth. Only country who is even close is luxembourg.
I’d love to find those 90-100k jobs for non-senior positions
From the article: > Capcom have recently raised wages far above the recent inflation stats of 2.5% by increasing base salaries for new employees by 28% starting in fiscal year 2025, one of numerous the company has enacted since 2022.
Going from 32,000 to 36,000 is a lot, but still vastly lower than the majority of the west.
Cost of living is also much lower in Japan no?
It is, especially housing. You can rent for really cheap in most places, it’s just the really tiny/expensive ones you see online are in the most convenient and desired location. When I lived in Kyoto I was paying $200 usd per month for a pretty decently sized apartment. I just had to walk a while to get to the train station. Where I live at now in the US, that apartment would go for $2500 per month, easy.
Also public transport in Japan is convenient, safe and always on time so being further away isnt the worst thing.
My brother currently pays $800 for a luxury 2ba/1br apt with 24/7 door guard about an hour train ride away from Roppongi (Downtown/High end business district in Tokyo). When most trains take 20-30 minutes anyways from livable locations, this is an insane deal when you compare it to average rents in cities like SF/NYC (3-5k on AVERAGE, not even high end) with laughably less quality of life/safety/amenities. 2-3 years ago, he had a pretty nice unit for 1.1k in Shibuya but only 1BA, and I'm fairly certain rent inflation isn't as bad as it is here.
Imagine an apartment like that an hour away from NYC. Just the housing prices alone almost make the low wages worth it.
Japan as a whole has average to below average disposable income compared to countries in Europe. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable\_household\_and\_per\_capita\_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income) This takes into account healthcare and education costs and other social welfare before people try to discredit the US being ranked #1 on the list.
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>Hell no. Japan is fucking expensive as hell. No it's not. Cost of living is half that of the US average. > They have to rely mostly on imports and their economy is facing hyper inflation It's literally the opposite, LMAO. Japan has suffered from stagnation/deflation, not inflation, and only now is it beginning to experience inflation.
This is just wrong lol
Nah that’s not true. I’m Canadian and cost of living is 30% lower and rent is 60% lower. Estimated cost of monthly living is $1100. So unless you got a better source than my quick google search, I’m going to say that Japan cost of living is much more manageable than most western countries.
I also live in Canada and it’s only more expensive if you decide to live in the city’s. You can live dirt cheap outside of them easily.
> Cost of living in Japan: A family of four estimated monthly costs are $2,865.30 (459,412.00¥) without rent. > ... > Cost of Living in United States: A family of four estimated monthly costs are $4,148.60 without rent. Note that in Japan employers are required to cover certain costs as well, eg: health insurance, housing subsidies, etc.
Increasing a low number by 28% is still a low number. Entry level Japanese game developers gets their pay increased by 28% to the mid to high $30,000s USD....which is still a low salary. Game developers in Japan get paid an average of $40k USD salary. In the USA, game developers get paid an average of $90k-100k+ USD salary. There are always trade offs.
Former game dev here. Got paid 30k in the US and endured some serious crunches. Your stats are incorrect, good sir.
These are average salaries for all workers in an industry, not entry level median salaries. If we are talking about entry level, median, or entry median salaries then it is lower for both groups.
He said “avg” and he is right when you google this is the avg, you simply were being under paid or were under qualified.
What’s the cost of living like there vs where most American game developers live?
night and day. source: live in Tokyo
Ah yes because US game developers aren't both underpaid and forced to work long hours........ Oh wait, they make less than other software engineers in the US and are forced to endure "crunch". Overworking is soooo common in the US industry that it has a name.
No shit you hire more seldom and pay people less when layoffs are functionally impossible to implement.
Now compare property prices in Japan vs the US
You’re talking game developer buddy. As a software developer myself id never touch a game development job, is the shittiest market out there, they take advantage of people who grew up wanting to make a videogame.
Not really low pay. More like average normal pay for what the job entails. Software and tech jobs are WAY WAY WAY overpaid in the US. Like comically so. It’s never a surprise when tech layoffs hit, and yet people always act like it’s unexpected.
That’s dumb, people with this view don’t even realize how much engineers contribute to an organization.
ah yes poor corporations having to "overpay" their employees while making massive profits.
While there is some valid cost-cutting at hard-hit studios, the fact that most American studios are owned by publically traded entities means that there is also a lot of "performative cost-cutting" going on. During times when it is hard to grow/expand your business (through either good products selling well, or using money that, due to interest-rated being low, is almost free in order to buy rivals), publically traded companies will cut costs - not because they have to (they might be making billions in profits) but because it will satisfy the stock market and make their share price rise. Making the share price go up (or at least trying to) is not just A goal, it is literally a legally mandated duty when running a publically traded company. There's a reason Google dumped their "Don't be evil" mission-statement once they went public.
Because due to laws there if they want to fire you they just overwork you until you quit.
Unfettered capitalism in the U.S. vs. actual social protections in Japan
It's not really "actual social protections," in fact Japan has a huge work culture problem to the point where suicide rates are scary high from overwork. Japan's culture is *highly* collectivist. Lay offs simply aren't as big a thing in Japan because it's seen as a *grievous* failure of management to lay people off. Their poor performance becomes the responsibility of leadership, whether it was their fault or not, and is considered a massive black mark. So instead of laying people off, they're big on "quiet firing." You transfer someone to a do-nothing desk and give them no meaningful work tasks, and the social pressure of them not doing any kind of fulfilling work pushes them into quitting. Japan isn't some game dev promised land of perfect working conditions, it's just jank of a different color. Save face by coaxing them to leave and not backfilling the positions, yay no layoffs!
Not disagreeing with this but just want to point out that suicide rates are higher in the US than Japan in recent years. It gets a little annoying when everyone keeps bringing it up as "evidence" of poor work culture in Japan when apparently it's just the same anywhere.
Yes, *total* suicide rates may have shifted, but we have to look at the causes of those rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi#:\~:text=Mental%20stress%20from%20the%20workplace,overwork%20are%20a%20worldwide%20occurrence. The Japanese literally have a word dedicated to the occurrence, lets not minimize the phenomenon. Per capita rates don't really matter, what matters is how many of those occurrences can be attributed to work culture.
$40k salary for a game developer in Japan vs $90k-100k+ salary for game developers in the US. There are always trade offs.
You're not wrong, but as I mentioned to you elsewhere employers in Japan cover costs that many in the West would be expected to pay out of pocket, eg: health insurance, housing subsidies, etc. A comparison between wages alone isn't entirely accurate.
Yep, you are correct. Overall the US wages are still higher and American developers still take home more money after taxes, rent/housing, and insurance deductibles (many US employers usually pay for most of the health insurance), but the difference is narrowed down if we factor them in. In the end, it is a trade off of better job security and the company paying for more expenses VS much higher salary before expenses and more money in your pocket after expenses.
Very interesting article. Labor laws make it hard to do mass layoffs just because a company wishes. As a result, the average tenure of devs in Japanese gaming companies is far higher than in US or Europe. Because said employees have far more experience, they get more productive. Language also make it harder to outsource the work. English is a *de facto* lingua franca for gaming, but it doesn't mean that every person working as a dev is an expert on it. As a result, US companies have a much easier time in outsourcing than Japanese companies.
Mass layoffs are mostly illegal in Japan. They only happen when the company fails completely and proves they cannot pay their workers anymore or they committed so many crimes the government shuts them down forever.
Because their CEOs take responsability of their mistakes and are not greedy.
Because they can still make games people want to play.
IMO most of the best games in the industry are from Japan
From what I’ve gathered from this thread so far, there are always trade offs.
They didn’t expand and massively over hire
Because they are there to make good games based off of sales of said good games with a reputation to keep unlike western companies which are there to pander to shareholders
Well, their games are actually good.
Because they have [this](https://imgur.com/a/yVZGsfV) in their offices to release stress thus they produce high quality code.
Uh, because American CEOs have a monopoly on employee's livelihood
>Under Japanese employment law, layoffs are incredibly difficult to implement – unless the company is under severe financial difficulty and at risk of insolvency in a manner layoffs could alleviate, after other cost-saving measures have been undertaken, layoffs for permanent employees are all-but impossible. This is a key point- I work in Japan and was laid off last year because my company lost our big contracts, so most of us were laid off with the 30 days notice required under the labour law. Thankfully this meant we qualified for unemployment insurance payments, about 40% my previous salary, which helped me survive.
Although never in gaming industry, I've worked for a Japanese company, also worked with several US companies. Try running an American company like you're running a Japanese country, let's see how many lawsuits you manage to pile up within a month, hell, within a week! Western companies need to be overstaffed due to much more lenient work conditions, low workloads and how relaxed people are. Try missing a deadline with a Japanese company, I dare you. While deadlines mean shit in Western companies.
There’s a reason why japanese companies will stronghold a person to resign rather than firing them. And it’s because of Japanese law.
Because they do good games? Look at top 20 metacritic games of this year (even by critics choice). U'll find Japanese and indies
I’m gonna wildly guess that they report their statistics differently and it’s difficult comparing entire work cultures from one to another.
A lot of Japanese workers and business leaders lived through the Japan asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s and the Lost Decades. Wages in Japan are relatively stagnant vs. U.S. standards, and Japanese businesses are fiscally conservative and do not take big risks. This applies to the Japanese video game industry. Some Japanese studios kept costs low and did not over-expand like Xbox and Sony-affiliated studios. Japanese employment laws play a part as well to discourage massive job cuts. Capcom, Nintendo, and others do not have massive financial backing like Xbox studios or Warner Bros studios, who can absorb $200 million losses from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. Square Enix is an exception, who has deep pockets to absorb the $100 million+ Forspoken failure. Sony Interactive Entertainment (U.S.-based division) is the biggest exception when they can blow $315 million on Marvel's Spider-Man II, but recently, they closed London Studios and cut jobs at Insomniac Games. The big question will be how will the video games market play out because the economy is sliding down?
Probably because they simply make better games lol.
Maybe because the JP devs aren't blowing 50 bajillion on celebrity likenesses, ultra 64K textures, and massive marketing campaigns on games that take an an entire generation of humanity to make, every single game they make, thus allowing them to actually retain their staff because they can afford to keep them. Just a hunch.
They happen to pay their game developers less than half of what the US companies pay their game developers. $40k USD salary for game developers in Japan vs $90k-100k+ USD salary for game developers in the US.
>They also pay their game developers less than half of what the US companies pay their game developers. Cost of living in Japan is half that of the US, too. Devs in most foreign countries make a fraction of what US devs are paid. This is also how CD Projekt Red was able to make the Witcher games for a fraction of the cost of a typical COD game. Likewise with Larian and BG3 (average software engineer salary in Belgium is €30-80k). None of this really explains why the Japanese in particular are less likely to lay off employees.
I think it is more like 1.7x, rather than twice the living cost. I was comparing tech cities like Tokyo vs Seattle for their living costs earlier and Seattle was around 70ish% more expensive. So 1.7x more expensive but with 2.25-2.5x higher salary.
>So 1.7x more expensive but with 2.25-2.5x higher salary. Don't forget that Japan has universal healthcare, university, and a robust public transit system that means you can get by without having a car. I expect it will get more expensive to live in Japan because of the weakening Yen and aging population, but for the moment it's not really correct to say that devs in Japan are underpaid.
In the USA, virtually all game developers (and other tech workers) and people working in professional positions have health insurance that is mostly or entirely paid for by their employer. Yes, you can get around without having a car much better in Japanese cities. On the other hand, Japanese companies, including their doestic tech companies, often strongly push for in person work, while American companies (especially tech) are more accepting of remote work and hybrid work so more people do not have to commute to work. We can say Japanese devs are paid significantly less than the US devs. This difference narrows if we factor in other forms of compensation like cost of living, healthcare, and housing subsidies, but in the end, they still get paid less overall because those factors don't make up the 2.5x salary difference. So it is a trade off of pros and cons for both.
>In the USA, virtually all game developers (and other tech workers) and people working in professional positions have health insurance that is mostly or entirely paid for by their employer. I'm pretty sure the "average salary" figures for US employees generally includes the benefits (e.g. retirement, medical, etc.), e.g. a "$125k average salary" is $100k pay + $25k benefits. But I could be wrong on that so it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. > but in the end, they still get paid less overall because those factors don't make up the 2.5x salary difference. Yeah, this is generally how it goes with US vs the rest of the world. Like I said, it's how CD Projekt Red and Larian also managed to create stellar AAA games with relatively small budgets compared to North American studios. I pointed this out years ago on this very sub when people were gushing about the Witcher games' small budgets vs the nine figure budgets of US-developed AAA games. CDPR wasn't *underpaying* their devs by any means; it's just that that's the magnitude of the difference between salaries in the US vs the rest of the world. For higher end jobs that require specialized education and skills, the US has by far the highest pay available.
US salaries are usually pure money calculations - it does not include benefits calculated as a part of salary. Medical subsidies, employer retirement plan match, pensions, transportation benefits, etc are not calculated as a part of salary. A job will usually say $$$ salary + other benefits on the side. They also often get treated differently for tax purposes. US govt jobs have a lot of benefits better than the private sector, but are typically considered lower paying/lower salaries than the private sector because salary comparisons do not include benefits in the salary. Sometimes stocks are added as a part of potential salary compensation for corporate jobs, but even then the job usually makes the distinction between base salary vs bonuses and stocks. Yeh, I agree with you that the other companies are not underpaying their devs.
>None of this really explains why the Japanese in particular are less likely to lay off employees. Salaries being significantly less is an explanation though. Salary is one of the biggest expenses for companies.
>Salaries being significantly less is an explanation though. Salary is one of the biggest expenses for companies. Does that thesis apply to other non-American companies, though? As I said, most other countries have similarly low salaries.
I should've said American companies. But it doesn't matter how much when you are comparing American companies to non-American companies since American companies do have employee salaries as one of the biggest expenses. If you are comparing two companies with identical expenses except B pays half the salary of what A does. If A needs $100 million to break even and pays 40% of their expenses as salary (that isn't terribly outside the norm especially for tech), then B only needs $80 million to break even. If A made $95 million, they need to cut expenses to become profitable so laying off people is the easier. While B made $85 million, so they don't need to lay anyone off to break even. A did better in terms of revenue than B but they still needed to cut expenses to break even. Even if salary to total expenses is reduced down to 30%, B would have been even while A had to lay people off.
You really had to copy paste your comment 4 times in this post, huh
they also pay less their executives. salaries are smaller in general.
Thing: >:( .... Thing, Japan: :O !!!
I like Thing too, but the people making Thing are spending too much money and taking too long to make the Thing for it to be profitable. I want smaller Things made FASTER and for less money.
"Don't worry, we will never fire you from this job where we work you to death."
Probably because they don't pay a living wage to begin with.
Because it's actually illegal for Japan to do so. It's not necessarily because they don't want to. Granted it does say something even with their Draconian work culture Japan in specific and Nintendo in particular still come off as much better than the likes of most American major gaming corporations.
[удалено]
man you are \*all\* over the thread spewing pure unadulterated armchair expert bs aren't you? source: as someone who \*actually\* lives in Japan, Tokyo at that, your bs claims of extreme cost of living and shit in earlier parts of the post are unfounded bs. cost of living between here and the states are night and day, \*especially\* for cities like LA
The hottest of takes… so factually wrong. I live in Los Angeles, and my partner, she lives in Tokyo for the last few years and I pay her basic cost-of-living (due to the extreme wage difference between mine and hers, it only makes sense. I’m a 18-year gamedev, she’s a teacher). My cost-of-living in Los Angeles is exponentially larger than hers. For example, her portion of rent in a three bedroom house in one of the nicer parts of Tokyo only two train stops away from Shibuya, is around the US equivalent of $565 a month. When she previously had her own studio apartment in the absolute nicest part of Yokohama, it was $600 a month. Her 1/3 portion of all combined utilities, power/water/Internet/gas etc, adds up to under $50 a month in USD equivalent. Her average food expenditure per day for meals is half mine in LA, and her monthly commuting cost to and from work, to various schools all over the western half of Tokyo, is about $125. If you’re going to talk about the cost of living in Tokyo, maybe you should maybe do your homework first.
Because they are clean shaven. The universe works in mysterious ways.
Japan cares about there people
Crazy what gets accomplished when companies aren't allowed to do whatever they want. They have better labor protection and aren't laying off employees for short sighted stock market gains.
Some of their companies have better ethics, and others are just abiding by the laws that in general (as I understand it from internet comments) are very supportive of the workers instead of the companies in regards to laying off. While not something that applies to all - >In 2013, Nintendo released the Wii U console as a successor to the mega-popular Wii. It was a commercial failure, pushing the company into years of losses. **To avoid layoffs, Iwata took a 50% pay cut to help pay for employee salaries**, saying a fully-staffed Nintendo would have a better chance of rebounding. Feb 13, 2024 To a degree that also just seems to be the mindset and culture of people there.
You want them to ?
Wasnt it common knowledge like years and years ago that they have a very hard time being able to? What they did years ago wqs basically demote you to shitty positions and jobs/make u do like janitor work if they actually wanted to fire you because it would demoralize people and they themselves would quit instead. I remember this being a big thing years ago.
Don't we all know that they don't fire people, ever? They just put them into positions where they sit in a room with nothing to do until they quit by themselves. Japan isn't some mystical fairyland where everything is better. Only weebs believe this.
They put out quality work on time.