Rumor: Japanese game programmers report low salaries

by JC Fletcher on Mar 2nd 2010 4:30AM

It would be, like, totally glamorous and exciting to be a programmer for a game company in Japan, right? Maybe not so much. According to anonymous responders on Japanese super-forum 2ch (as translated by CNNGo), salaries for game programmers are far below what you'd expect for a tech job in one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in.

"¥130,000 [$1,457] for 256 hours of work a month," one poster reports. "¥160,000 [$1,793] and I am ready to die," another laments. "I can't even afford the 'recruit suit' I'll need for interviewing for another job." How do you live in Tokyo on that kind of scratch? "¥180,000 [$2,017] a month, no bonus, and only thanks to the company dorm can I afford to live in Tokyo," one responder explains.

It seems that game development is considerably less prestigious than other fields. "I'm 27, live in Tokyo, working for a major company, and make ¥680,000 [$7,622] a month, with a separate yearly bonus," one anonymous poster boasts. "But it isn't in the game industry. Ha!" The moral of this story is this: Don't work for a game company in Japan.

[Via Kotaku]

Source

Tags: developer, development, japan, programmer, programming, salaries, salary

Reader Comments (59)

Well apparently in America if your gaming company is TOO successful you can still get fired. Should be more like, don't work for the gaming industry period amirite?

Topical!

(Don't take this too harshly, I laughed at your comment. It's all good!)

It's absolutely disgraceful that in general all programmers in almost every company, gaming or not, get paid so little.

It's a job that requires a decent amount of ability and usually college or university is required to learn the skills for the job. And yet, these companies, who should be having huge profits (if it wasn't for their terrible management *cough* EA *Cough) pay their staff shit wages and treat them like crap.

While I agree with this (being a programmer and all, and making far less than those clowns down the hall that work for 'the business'), I think that in general wages are on the rise for developers because there are not quite enough of them. So it ought to even out soon enough.

The problem with working for game companies is that the jobs are highly-sought. That small amount they are paying is probably pretty competitive when you think about how many people want to be developers for Nintendo or Capcom, etc. Look at Google. The starting salary there, I hear, is about 40k, and yet it is in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America. It's because everyone and their dog wants to work for Google. Economics explains again!

yeah I used to do advertising for a company in the rock and roll business. work was fun as all hell but they got away with paying me very little with no benefits,
because they could replace me in a week with the amount of resumes they got.

I left that place went to an ad agency and more than tripled my income, but the work was beyond boring. I quit two months later. I eventually went back to the rock and roll company, making double what I made before, but it was still very little for the field.

I hear Mtv, and adidas are notorious for that because so many college students want to work there

I'd say welcome to America but honestly it's welcome to capitalism.
Better yet, welcome to HR controlled corporate culture.
My boss can't promote me, can't give me a raise and can't fire me. All he can do is send stats regarding HR policies. My fate is governed by a group of people that will never meet me or truely understand what my job is or what my true value is to the company.

I did the math once on what it would cost the company to replace me, given experience, knowledge and taking into account how many hires it would take to find a truely suitable candidate and it's 1/4 of a million dollars. That's low balling it.

Given that I could jump ship for a few grand more a year, that's a lot to risk to not pay someone what they're worth,

Just to remind everyone:

Pirating = Stealing the income of the programmers

If software is heavily pirated, the companies won't be making the money to pay the developers. If companies can't pay for the best programmers, you'll get shoddy work. The productivity/success of the best programmers is orders of magnitude better than even average programmers.

Support the industry! Buy your games!

Very few artists in general get paid well, because it's a popular field. It sucks, but at least you get to do something you like, as opposed to just showing up to something you hate for a little more money.

No matter what you do for work eventually at some point your not going to like what you do anymore.

Its the very nature of having to do something that ruins your enjoyment of it.

What world do you live in? I'm working as a programmer and my wage is quite good... and I know people working for EA in Vancouver (very costly city to live in) that are also being componsated very fairly.

Programmers make plenty. The worst pay I've seen are starting salaries in the 40 - 50k range.

A few of my friends are game programmers and make serious money, the same amount as someone in another industry with the same experience or maybe more

I think these people need to L2Negoti8

DAMN........ HOW CAN THOSE PEOPLE AFFORD EATING SUSHI EVERYDAY??? !!

That's probably the reason they have to eat fish raw.

You know how expensive it is to buy a stove/cooker, pots,
pans and gas/electricity to make it hot?!

Spartan, thanks for explaining your joke, I couldn't figure out how not having money would translate to eating raw food until you went into more detail

no nintendo.

I've worked in the game industry for years, in a few different countries, and offer this advice.

If you want to get rich or make a ton of money in games:

DON'T get a production job

If you want to have a good life and good money:

DO become a Producer, Executive, a CEO, or the sole owner of a profitable IP or technology with licensing potential.

You will thank me later

So basically you're saying, to get rich making games, you should take advantage of other people's talent instead of allowing someone else to take advantage of your talent? You've just blown my mind about getting rich.

wow, thanks Stiched, without you I never would have wanted to be in a position of money and power.

Is that why you became batman?

Yup, working in production does suck, get treated like shit and work your ass off whilst the "managers" that know next to nothing about the job spend their big fat bonuses. Sorry, stressed at work, hard to let off some steam.

Why? So you can get thrown out of your own studio by The Douche Of Activision?

Become a producer without going into production? Oro?

@Omega

Production = labour
Producer = supervisor

Somewhat simplified, but that should clear it up.

JAYYYSUUUNNNN

This explains why the Japanese suck so much at game development, they pay their developers next to nothing.

Then what is the Americans' excuse?

yaa, mine is also low

thou i am not japanese

you don't need a suit for a game industry job.

you don't need a suit for any computer related job, and if you do come in a cheap suit they think you can be had for cheap, especially if it's a cheap suit you don't know how to wear. and if you're acting desperate then all the cheaper. and everyone knows how cheap you can get a tailor made suit from china, essentially cheaper than what a pair of levi's might cost you in a western country. suit wearing people are interchangeable which makes them _less_ valuable.

now, this is of course in contradict to what most people are taught at school, or what most older folk will recommend you. but the thing is, they don't know anything about the business of making code&content.

if you have a degree they can pay you based on that - if you don't then there is no rules and they have to pay as much they need to keep you healthy and motivated, because you can't force results out of someone when you don't even have the slightest idea what the result would really need to be. the coders and artists are the alchemists of the tech kingdom - results being the only thing people outside "see".

wait a minute, cheap suits will make them pay you less...so you don't need one? What? Showing up in a t shirt in jeans is going to make them pay you more? "the coders and artists are the alchemists of the tech kingdom"? "the business of making code&content."? This is starting to sound a lot like the "Digital Chip Age/ Virtual Orgasmic Rape" asshole

Actually, a suit is pretty necessary in Japan, which is the country this article is about.

Besides the fact that this article is about Japan and nearly everyone wears a suit to work in Japan. Even if it is America you were a suit to an interview. I work as a programmer and I have had people show up to interviews with Jeans and a Polo, or something along that line. Those people start the interview already down. Wearing a suit to an interview, even a cheap one shows that you at least want the job bad enough to both to put on a suit. Common business practices people.

Now on the Japan side of things, if you showed up to an interview without a suit I doubt they would even both to interview you. Different culture, suits are very important. And one more thing. This is Japan nothing is cheap, I think the cheapest suit I have ever run across in Tokyo was 300$. which is about 20% of some of those guys salaries.

well, at least they get fantastic subsidized healthcare, and commuting in urban japan is a cinch.

"I'm 27, live in Tokyo, working for a major company, and make ¥680,000 [$7,622] a month, with a separate yearly bonus," one anonymous poster boasts. "But it isn't in the game industry. Ha!"
Man, what a huge asshole

I thought he was a cute asshole.

That's probably Reggie. He works in the chin industry.

[spam]

$1,457 for 256 hours of work? that's...$5.69 an hour! Lower than U.S. minimum wage!

This is nothing. In the United States, many game developers report having no job.

Besides, games and anime are almost synonymous in Japan. Because there are so many people that pursue those jobs I would assume it is very competitive. I am not an expert so I don't know what I am talking about, but that's just my guess.

"I can't even afford the 'recruit suit' I'll need for interviewing for another job." How do you live in Tokyo on that kind of scratch? "¥180,000 [$2,017] a month, no bonus, and only thanks to the company dorm can I afford to live in Tokyo."

...so really they're making 2g's a month with no rent to pay? They could be doing much worse.

They might have to pay for the company dorm.

To be fair, it's not clear that the company dorm is free.

Dr. Mike, $2000 is not much. It's doable, but it's not much at all. If you're in a company dorm, then you have to buy your lunch because you've got no kitchen to make your own in. So that's $11 a day. Dinner, which you'll need to buy between stretches at your desk, will cost at least that again. If your boss goes for drinks, so do you, and beer costs from around $7 a glass and up. Add in the fact that Japan has some of the highest income tax rates in the world and suddenly $2000 gross doesn't seem like much at all.

Figuring on what the programmer said and using the labor laws I know (Which prolly wouldn't apply in Japan) The math I did says that person got paid about 4.48 an hour. 120 hours in a work month. All other hours are overtime paid at 1.5 times normal pay.

120(x)+ 136(1.5(x))= 1457
120(x)+ 204(x)= 1457
324(X)= 1457
x=4.48

Well at least they aren't on a reality show for the coveted chance of becoming a video game tester.

Those hours don't surprise me at all. My friend worked as a localiser for a games company and he used to send me reports of the hours the Japanese employees worked. Here's one:

Oh my god the record has been smashed.

Suzuki-san put in an incredible 9am - 6.55am shift yesterday!

Awesome stamina. Tanaka will be licking his wounds like an angry tiger. His previous records have been smashed twice within a week by 2 different rivals. This is a body blow. Can he recover over the weekend from the disappointment?

This is a bit like those epic athletics moments in the 80s where you had 2 or 3 top performers with a healthy rivalry constantly beating each other's world records. like Coe vs Cram or all those Finnish chaps and the Javelin.

-----

He later worked out that Suzuki was working for 475 yen an hour that month - $5.33.

Choky...your dining argument does not hold water man - dorms have kitchens, Tokyo has grocery stores. And your argument about drink costs is hilarious. You have to drink alcohol because your boss does? What world are you living in?

...meant to reply to Chocky in previous comment...my b.

If this ends up in the wrong place: @Dr. Mike
My father was stationed in Japan because of his work in the Navy. One thing he did notice was the number of times the Japanese salaryman would go out after work with his co-workers. From what I heard, if a boss tells one of his employees that he wants to go out and have drinks, it becomes a somewhat compulsory action. If there is not a good excuse, bosses won't take kindly to a refusal. Also, don't forget peer pressure of other workers. Sum these together and a societal culture of wasting money on alcohol after work is born. I assume that this information isn't out of date, so if you live there now, feel free to correct me.

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Rumor: Japanese game programmers report low salaries

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