> 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.
Siolear
Unfettered capitalism in the U.S. vs. actual social protections in Japan
Intranetusa
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.
magus-21
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”
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.
Bobby837
They didn’t go on a hiring spree during COVID expecting the market to stay the same?
OkishPizza
Probably because they simply make better games lol.
Redfeather1975
Because they are clean shaven. The universe works in mysterious ways.
Impossible-Garlic-92
I guess Japan will always be one of the temple of video games
No-Computer-2847
From what I’ve gathered from this thread so far, there are always trade offs.
thatnitai
IMO most of the best games in the industry are from Japan
Dudist_PvP
Square Enix sold off multiple studios it owned to embraced group, who then laid off a bunch of people.
So they did layoffs, just with extra steps.
44Kayz
Japan cares about there people
Recording_Important
Because they can still make games people want to play.
Hatook123
Job security isn’t really a good thing.
It usually comes with lower pay and worse employment conditions – Japan tech workers have dramatically lower pay and worse hours. It hurts the economy, because usually these people will probably do more beneficial work in a company that actually needs their services. It hurts the companies themselves, for obvious reasons.
The fact that so many people here are valuing job security, and take out their torches for any layoff announcement is mind boggling to me.
Yes, being unemployed is very stressful – even then, most of the tech workers that were recently laid off quickly found another job, because the unemployment in tech is still pretty damn low.
breadexpert69
Japanese companies tend to sacrifice the top of the pyramid first before layoffs are even needed.
It is not uncommon that a CEO of a company takes massive paycuts in order for the company itself to keep growing. That is why we dont really hear of Japanese mega millionaires even though they have several companies that are successful enough for it.
Like people have said, work culture is different and more intense in Japan than we can even imagine in the west. But this applies to the heads of the companies too.
wiriux
Because they have [this](https://imgur.com/a/yVZGsfV) in their offices to release stress thus they produce high quality code.
RefinedBean
“Don’t worry, we will never fire you from this job where we work you to death.”
Fayko
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.
AphroditeBlessed
Uh, because American CEOs have a monopoly on employee’s livelihood
22 Comments
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.
Unfettered capitalism in the U.S. vs. actual social protections in Japan
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.
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)
[deleted]
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 didn’t go on a hiring spree during COVID expecting the market to stay the same?
Probably because they simply make better games lol.
Because they are clean shaven. The universe works in mysterious ways.
I guess Japan will always be one of the temple of video games
From what I’ve gathered from this thread so far, there are always trade offs.
IMO most of the best games in the industry are from Japan
Square Enix sold off multiple studios it owned to embraced group, who then laid off a bunch of people.
So they did layoffs, just with extra steps.
Japan cares about there people
Because they can still make games people want to play.
Job security isn’t really a good thing.
It usually comes with lower pay and worse employment conditions – Japan tech workers have dramatically lower pay and worse hours.
It hurts the economy, because usually these people will probably do more beneficial work in a company that actually needs their services.
It hurts the companies themselves, for obvious reasons.
The fact that so many people here are valuing job security, and take out their torches for any layoff announcement is mind boggling to me.
Yes, being unemployed is very stressful – even then, most of the tech workers that were recently laid off quickly found another job, because the unemployment in tech is still pretty damn low.
Japanese companies tend to sacrifice the top of the pyramid first before layoffs are even needed.
It is not uncommon that a CEO of a company takes massive paycuts in order for the company itself to keep growing. That is why we dont really hear of Japanese mega millionaires even though they have several companies that are successful enough for it.
Like people have said, work culture is different and more intense in Japan than we can even imagine in the west. But this applies to the heads of the companies too.
Because they have [this](https://imgur.com/a/yVZGsfV) in their offices to release stress thus they produce high quality code.
“Don’t worry, we will never fire you from this job where we work you to death.”
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.
Uh, because American CEOs have a monopoly on employee’s livelihood
Well, their games are actually good.