Salary overview 2006

I have often alluded to the fact the salaries in the Japanese game industry are lower than those in the west without ever letting myself get pinned down on the details, and with good reason! Salary details are incredibly hard to find, and so far I haven’t been that successful, but I have at least garnered enough data to present a rough picture of the situation which is, if personal email queries are anything to judge by, what people are interested in most.

Some important things you need to keep in mind:
Some of the Japanese salaries quoted below are nothing more than educated guesses! It is very hard to find these figures as game companies don’t usually quote salaries on their recruit pages. If you’re feeling optimistic you could think it is because they want to find good candidates and not scare them off with salary preconceptions. If, like me, you are more pessimistic, you may think it’s because salary is the one thing they cannot use to court potential employees. They must rely on their willingness to work for your company alone as salaries are too low to attract anybody.
The figures I did find are for Japanese companies and Japanese employees. So what of foreigners? There are two schools of thought in this area. One thinks the only foreigners foolish enough to move to Japan are those desperate to work in games, so they can be exploited and paid less than their Japanese colleagues. Another thinks of foreigners as valuable employees that bring in outside knowledge and expertise that can benefit the company and due to their outsider status they can circumvent social etiquette and demand higher salaries. Whichever you face depends largely on the company and how you present yourself.
The salaries quoted are yearly salaries; as a full-time employee you will be part of the bonus scheme which skews the monthly income somewhat. It also doesn’t reflect tax, which is pretty decent in Japan, and benefit deductions, cost of living or holidays. All these figures can do for you is to give you an extremely rough indication of what kind of salary you may be looking at or have to negotiate for. A very rough, big picture painted with broad brushstrokes is what I’m getting at here, do not quote these figures as well-researched proof!
The split between junior and senior isn’t as pronounced in Japan as it is in the west. Often the most important factor in deciding your wages and seniority is age, with people in their twenties earning less than people in their thirties, regardless of talent or experience. For convenience I have upheld the split between junior and senior in the figures below with junior in Japan meaning people in their early twenties, and senior meaning people from their thirties onwards.
Salaries in similar careers are higher, sometimes much higher. IT workers for example could earn twice as much as a games programmer. If you have exceptional skills and great Japanese abilities you are probably wasting your talents in the game business. Certainly if you’re out to make money games is probably the worst choice. So a desire to work in the Japanese games industry is a must, but it does open you up to exploitation.
Foreign companies in Japan seem to have higher salaries though sometimes they can take the mickey and offer equal or lower salaries than Japanese companies. Like most things it is highly recommended to shop around! Like every business experience counts for a lot, so you may need to accept a bad offer for your first job in Japan; having Japanese experience makes you a more attractive prospect for future employers.
Salaries increase somewhat with promotions but generally not by much. As in the west the very best way to improve your salary is to find a new place of employment. Job-hopping is slowly losing its stigma in Japan but be warned that too many short-term engagements on your resume still reflects badly on you. Make sure you are at least comfortable with your salary when you accept a job as pay-rises are hard to come by once you’ve started. Be warned that aggressive pay negotiation will prolong the employer’s decision making process immensely!
Remember that once you have signed your contract you have accepted the salary on offer and the conditions that go with it! It is no use complaining that you’re not earning enough or, say, start a blog to complain about the bonus system. Go into every job interview well informed and decide what you want before you sign any contract.

The following conversion has been used, as of December 13, 2006:

1 US$ = 0.507 GBP = 117.160 JPY
US$ and GPB are rounded off to the nearest 1000, JPY to the nearest 100,000 to keep the figures easy to read.

Average salaries in the U.S.
U.S.
US$
GBP

JPY

Programmer (jr)
73,000
38,000
8,600,000
Programmer (snr)
90,000
46,000

10,600,000

Artist (jr)
61,000
31,000
7,200,000
Artist (snr)
68,000
35,000
8,000,000
Designer (jr)
54,000
28,000
6,400,000
Designer (snr)
70,000
36,000
8,300,000
Audio Designer
47,000
24,000
5.600.000
Assistant Producer
66,000
34,000
7.800.000
Producer
127,000
65,000
14.900.000

Average salaries in the U.K.
U.K.
US$
GBP

JPY

Programmer (jr)
46,000
23,000
5,400,000
Programmer (snr)
73,000
37,000

8,600,000

Artist (jr)
42,000
21,000
4,900,000
Artist (snr)
70,000
35,000
8,100,000
Designer (jr)
44,000
22,000
5,100,000
Designer (snr)
64,000
32,000
7,400,000
Audio Designer
48,000
24,000
5.600.000
Assistant Producer
46,000
23,000
5,400.000
Producer
79,000
40,000
9,300.000

Average salaries in Japan
Japan
US$
GBP

JPY

Programmer (jr)
26,000
13,000
3,000,000
Programmer (snr)
43,000
22,000

5,000,000

Artist (jr)
24,000
13,000
2,800,000
Artist (snr)
41,000
21,000
4,800,000
Designer (jr)
28,000
14,000
3,200,000
Designer (snr)
39,000
20,000
4,500,000
Audio Designer
35,000
18,000
4,000.000
Assistant Producer
39,000
20,000
4,500.000
Producer
52,000
26,000
6,000.000

Comparative chart
Sources: Game Developer Magazine, IGDA, The Chaos Engine, Seesaa.net, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Job Direct and numerous company websites.

Help Japanmanship!
Should this post be interesting to enough people I may be persuaded to keep my data updated and corrected as much as possible. As such I would ask readers to provide me with reliable sources for this data and other information which can help expand the usefulness and accuracy of these kinds of comparative charts. In particular I am interested in average working hours, tax rates, holiday pay and more detailed salary information. Also it may be interesting to add Australia, Europe and other popular areas to the whole if such information can be found.
Please use the email address in the side-bar to send me any additional information, preferably sources, which can help with this. Anonymity, if required, can be guaranteed.

48 comments:

  1. Apologies for the wonky tables. Blogger does many nice things but dealing with table html isn't one of them.

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  2. So, er, how easy is it to get a green card? ;)

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  3. wow... so very interesting... thanks for dissuading me to go work and live in japan lol.

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  4. It seems unfathomable considering the higher cost of living in Japan than in the US.

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  5. Yeah... I don't really understand how game industry people can be paid so poorly in a country as or more expensive to live in than the US or UK!

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  6. As I mentioned it is not a good idea to take these figures at face value without thinking of the good tax rates, benefits and cost of living; I think those "cost of living in Tokyo" rumours are somewhat overblown. It is expensive but not crippling.

    Still, the big picture is: salaries here are lower.

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  7. What about those little shops and stuff, the little mom & pops noodle places. How much do you think they make? Over here a corner store makes about 25 - 30k on a good year.

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  8. California really borks the average American salary. The cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area and parts of Los Angeles(where most of the game development in CA occurs) is Tokyo-level.

    You are likely to make less money in the mid-west vs California, but to be fair, your costs of living are also dramatically lower.

    With Japan and the UK, you don't really need to worry about health care costs whereas if you work in America, read over your benefits package carefully.

    You also tend to get less paid time off in the USA than the rest of the world.


    JC said it best. You have to look beyond salaries too.

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  9. I'm curious to know how income tax actually affects take home pay. With Japan's salaries seemingly so low, maybe their taxes are much lower compared to US and UK?

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  10. Just a question: what do you mean by "adding other interesting places like Europe"?
    Isn't the UK supposed to be part of Europe?

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  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. I think tax is 5% in Japan, while it's 16-21 in western europe. Also, most stuff in Tokyo is much cheaper than most of w.eu. The videogame programmer salaries seem a bit off tho, I have a friend working there and gets around 7-8 million yen.

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  13. "Isn't the UK supposed to be part of Europe?"
    You're obviously not a Brit. :)
    I was specifically referring to mainland EU, like France, Netherlands, Eastern Europe, etc. Any figures for those freely available?

    Anon above, I *guarantee* your friend is the exception, not the rule.

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  14. I'd take half the salary to work with people who *actually know what they're DOING*.

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  15. Roger, you say that now, but wait until you have pretty much all your pay go on rent with the rest going on basic living expenses with no money left over for "enjoyment".

    If you find a girlfriend there or if you want to start a family, say goodbye to that too. Sometimes you have to weigh up dreams of working in games vs actually having a life.

    I was thinking about working in the games industry in Japan, but if I decide to move there I will probably end up in the design industry instead as there is less exploitation it seems.

    I really think it is quite shocking considering how much money the games industry makes for Japanese companies. It's also a very big export, so companies not paying their employees competetive salaries IS exploitation. I'm not accepting the "take tax etc into consideration" argument as salaries are not as low in comporable industries as mentioned.

    Games is an industry people WANT to work in so companies exploit that by paying them next to nothing. It's disgusting.

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  16. Those numbers are total BS - I run a game company and I have never heard of a Jr programmer getting 73,000 a year (more like 40-50 to start). Also Jr. ARtist - is more like 35,000 to start.

    These numbers are obviously bogus.

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  17. "I run a game company and I have never heard of a Jr programmer getting 73,000 a year (more like 40-50 to start). Also Jr. ARtist - is more like 35,000 to start."

    really depends where you live. Cost of living. Sure if your studio is in the middle of nowhere, you can pay less. If you work in San Diego, LA, SF, or Seattle, it is going to be a lot more.

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  18. Anon two up: the US figures came from a massive poll conducted by Gamedev magazine. They're "averages". I'm sure they're not mean to reflect the wages at your particular company directly, as you can imagine.

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  19. Those salaries for Japan are objectively low, even if they are accurate. It does not surprise me because Japanese people put up with it so they expect foreigners to do the same. If you can read Japanese well and have contacts, I'd think it's possible to make a much better living as a translator there. I was making over 200K (US) ten yrs ago. Working freelance, of course. Japanese companies pay crap wages in every field.

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  20. I was told recently 7 million/year is the national average. If you earn more than 9 you're considered "well off" and less than 5 is "worse off". I have no idea what the breadline is but I suspect it's probably surprisingly low.

    For the longest time all Japanese considered themselves middle-class, but recently the divide has begun. Rich get richer and all that.

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  21. Well, for comparison, the richest paid profession in the world has to be hedge fund managers. The top 26 HF managers last year averaged about $340 million a piece, up from a quarter-billion a couple years ago. Those are not typos, and they are average figures for a single person.

    The differences in Japan are quite minor compared to the US, where there is less stigma against large salaries. But in both places, the real big money is mainly made by the owners of capital, not the people doing the work.

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  22. I'm studying in SF now and i was told that the average starting wage if u were to work there is between 40-45k, with close to 50k for exceptional cases.

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  23. So how does a Freelance translator fare in all this? I've applied to a position and they liked my resume and want me to continue with the application process.

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