Job requires 3 languages (business lvl) + Customer support & Localisation XP. Pay is… 22万 GROSS A MONTH ?!

40 comments

1. Get into IT!

2. Did you ask if they do 残業　

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   Like it’s the gaming industry, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they ask you about 80 hour of over work per month

3. Is this a full time job for a Japanese company? If it is usually it comes with a twice a year bonus, housing allowance or subsidized company housing, full health and benefits, health insurance allowance, etc etc. Japanese companies are all about the bonus and side pay. You base pay is just to cover your everyday expenses.

4. Is the company Wit One? I was looking at their job listings recently and saw the same kind of thing. But yeah any industry which has a fandom where people want to work in that industry will exploit them by paying less. Manga is similar I’ve heard. Same with voice acting and even regular acting. It’s basic supply and demand.

   You can use the position as a resume builder and get some experience and then try to find a higher paying position in a few years.

5. They know some poor person coming from a bad situation will fill the seat, or they’ve exploited someone like that recently

   You can work in a factory or assemble sushi behind a kitchen for more money and less hours, don’t sell yourself short

   Find a legit gaming company

6. >However I also came the conclusion that the best choice for people like me who wants to build a certain experience in translation and ultimately get some great freedom + good money is to take the path of ”in-house translator” AND getting a specialisation first.

   The path to great freedom + good money is to be your own boss.
   But this path isn’t for everyone because it’s not a “secure job”. It can be really stressful.

   Anyway, you knew how much they’ll pay you and you went anyway.. no need to be surprised. You’d be their slave, I think it’s a job for someone who is desperate, if you aren’t desperate then it’s not for you.

7. Tiens toi loin des scams japonais mec, tu vas en arracher sinon. Le paysage salarial au Japon est extrêmement déprimant dans 99% des cas je dirais. T’es mieux ailleurs.

8. Yeah…salaries for the gaming industry here can be kinda low, especially in Osaka. A lot of people want to get into gaming, so in some respects if you turn it down there’ll be someone else willing to take it. Sometimes the base salary will be kept low but they’ll boost it up with allowances and what not. You can decide to take it if you really do want the experience and to get your foot in the door in the industry.

9. Japanese Gaming industry, enough said

10. Yeah that’s quite typical. Do you have formal translation experience or a certification? The idea is you get into the industry doing this kind of work (or volunteer work), a couple of years or a year at the same job, then either advance to a higher position within the company or get a better job (make sure you have a job locked down before you quit). I am working in almost the exact same field but backend support/ translation

11. I work as a professional recruiter with 10 years experience recruiting in Japan.

    Unfortunately translators, interpreters and localization employees don’t make that much due to it not being considered a skill set but more so along the lines of where you have lived and grew up.

    There are many international people in the world therefore this type of position is the type of role that there are so many other international people that will do the same job for less.

    Thus it doesn’t pay much.

12. I don’t know about the translation industry but the gaming industry is very attractive to younger generation. As you said the travel industry hasn’t quite recovered, so my guess is the localization job has more supply than demand.

    Is this a position that requires job experience? If it requires no experience it is pretty much treated as a intern / new grad job. The salary is around or slightly more than the pay new grads get. They survive with around 10-15万 so, yeah it’s rough.

    Could also be a クロ会社. But if you have already done your research and you said the wages are low then it might just be the industry / job.

13. I mean…you’re overqualified for the position i suppose. Speaking 3 languages is a huge deal already. Too low for the salary, try to negotiate.

    But to be honest, just find other company man.

14. I mean, are there any other benefits like paid housing and such? My friend’s pay is about that but they also pay for I think 90% of rent and utilities and stuff, so while it’s not paid out as salary she is saving several 万 per month with that. Sometimes the benefits can be good as you don’t pay taxes on the extra income that you’re just turning around and paying as rent. That would be a step above conbini jobs that don’t pay those kinds of benefits I guess. But yeah, sounds low…

15. There are more perks for 正社員 than the actual numbers on your monthly income, as someone has mentioned here, such as bonuses, housing allowance/rent support, health insurances, and so on.

    In addition, unlike in Western countries, income in Japan is mainly determined by your age (the longer you’ve been with the firm, the more money and bonuses you’ll earn), rather than how skilled you believe you are.

    Annual gross income of 2~2.5 million yen is fairly typical for fresh graduates and persons starting their first “real job,” and this is especially true for foreigners since your skills and past experience outside of Japan may not be well recognized.

    However, if you start with a 2~2.5 million yen annual salary, you would most certainly see your pay rise to close to 3 million yen after 3 years, and to 3.5~4.5 million by year 5~8 in the company.

    If you are from France, you should know how bad the country’s high tax and low income issues are. On the other hand, taxes in Japan are significantly lower, and life expenses are roughly the same, so even though sometimes base salaries/entry level in Japan do not appear to be high, you will have more money after tax, and hence a a higher level of affordability.

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    For example, if we do some simple calculations here,

    *(Using 2021 currency exchange rate)*

    with the same 2.5 million yen gross income,

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    In France, 2.5 million yen = 20,000 euro,

    – Income Tax 632 euro

    -Social Contributions 4,030 euro

    Total tax due 4,662 euro, which is 23.3% of your income, and your take home pay would be only 15,338 euro = 1.9 million yen

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    In Japan, 2.5 million yen,

    -Income Tax 60,750 yen

    -Residence/city Tax 124,000 yen

    -health insurance deduction 171,003 yen

    Total tax due 355,752 yen, which is 14.2% of your income, and you take home pay would be 2,144,248 yen = 18,850 euro,

16. So many JP companies think it’s 1922 here. JP wages have the lowest growth in the OECD and actually fell recently. Companies will pay women a miserable salary because they know they live at home with their parents. As if that’s anything to do with the job. But it seems to work for them. I see translators on miserable incomes for their skillset seemingly unable to hold out for better pay. Foreigners generally have low savings and no family locally to back them up. I don’t know what can fix it except an increasing drying up of applicants.

    Very tired of the JP govt being able to get away with dismal economic performance by blaming the worsening demographics as the cause and the Western media just eating excuses like that up. If it was true then salaries wold be sky-rocketing. In truth, the last 20 years of neo-liberalism and increasing flat taxes have nailed the workers to the floor.

17. Working in the gaming industry comes with the gaming industry tax: they assume you like games and will work for less. And if you don’t someone else will.

    It’s the same for programmers. I studied programming 3d graphics, physics all that, to work in games. Then the more I learned about the reality of the industry I decided to just go into distributed systems instead for better pay and reasonable hours

18. Lol might as well work at mcdoanlds

19. Welcome to the game industry !
    Actually even creative are not paid properly in this industry and usually horrible recruiters eat most of your salary

20. Looks like that specific position is not at a game developer but rather a company that works as professional assistance for online media for professional gaming and such. So your competition in the market is people who do free moderation online :p

    I image an actual game dev company would pay better.

21. The title is a bit misleading the job post states they are looking for someone who is bilingual in either (Japanese & French) or (English & French). For that they may have plenty of candidates with remote work. I don’t have any connection but looked because that did seem low for “requiring” trilingual candidates.

    I do think you being trilingual could ask for more since you can manage 3 languages. I hope you find a better opportunity for yourself.

22. Maybe they forgot a 0…..

23. Laugh in their faces

24. I think I got a message on LinkedIN about a similar job for German before. The amount of different things expected to be done all in one job already told me it would be the lowest of the lowest shit job that in Germany we would call “Mädchen für alles” (Chief cook and bottle washer?).

    Customer Service and “in charge of their players” or whatever big speak they use would turn out to be a nightmare anyway, just be glad you don’t have to do it. If they also indeed expect you to translate from French to Japanese as well (why would they test for that?) then you already know, they don’t really care about the quality of the translation anyway.

    Even that said, the pay is “expectedly” low, even the translation job I got for my Visa and quit after four months paid 26万, which was way too low for Tokyo.

25. The issue is that you are foreign and worked in hospitality/tourism. You are the prime example of an industry that exploits desperate foreigners looking to get a slightly better deal than what they had at home. The company that is looking at you believes you are cheap labor, hence they are talking to you and making a terrible offer. It’s fucked up to say but it is exactly what’s wrong with the system. They will probably not negotiate, but it shouldn’t stop you from trying. I wouldn’t accept their offer, it’s not likely you will be treated well.

26. I run a job postings group on Facebook and whenever I share jobs for gaming localisation the salaries always tend to be on the lower side . However I’ve found the job postings I share are usually from other job boards online (like gajiinpot career cross etc) ..the better salaries tend to be not posted on such sites + the salaries tend to be for entry level positions too.

    The better salaries tend to be not shared unless/until you apply directly to a company . I recommend you search up gaming companies in Osaka in google – a bunch will come up and then look at their recruitment page

27. Remote job? Do it while having other remote jobs.

28. I was forced to turn down a localization job at a major Japanese game company years ago, after going through several interviews and beating out the other candidates.

    It wasn’t that the salary was especially bad (wasn’t particularly good either), but rather because of their strict no second job policy. Even with guaranteed overtime, it would not have covered the money I would have to give up from my other work, which I really needed at the time.

    I felt bad, because some friends of mine working there had helped set up the interview in the first place, and the company gave me a provisional job offer.

    But after doing the maths, I realized I just couldn’t afford to take it and had to turn it down.

    12 years on, I think I probably made the *wrong* decision 😉

29. They get away with it because they accept people who will just DeepL or Google Translate and half ass the job and they don’t really care about the quality. It’s insane how shit translators and localization specialists are paid and how shit they are treated.

    About to finish work? Hold on just tick, here’s a new 50,000 word video that needs localization and transcription and translation all done by end of the day today!! Get back to work you cheap robot!!

    But seriously, let them know why you turned it down and look elsewhere. When a job like that pays shit, they also treat you like shit.

30. If you want to be a translator gaming is the *lowest* paid specialization

31. > GAMING industry. Looks like my dream job on the paper

    That’s the problem. Everyone and their dog wants to work in the gaming industry. As a result they pay people crap and work them until they drop. Then they find the next sucker who’s dream job is working in the gaming industry. Supply and demand.

32. Any starting level job in Japan pays around ¥170,000 – 250,000 a month (I know, it’s like a part-timer’s wage, that’s why many japanese people don’t bother finding full-time jobs). Unless you’re highly skilled in like IT or engineering, I think you’d have to take the low pay and then hop jobs after a couple of years to increase the pay.

33. JET is almost double that. Tell them to pay you what you are worth or to go get f’d.

34. Gaming industry takes advantage of people because they get into the industry for personal rather than professional reasons. A tale as old as time unfortunately.

35. Sounds about right for pretty much no previous experience at a low tier gaming industry company in Japan. The pay is generally lower than new grad pay at the larger gaming publisher, and does not increase as much over time.

36. It’s not surprising. Also the level of that type of business is very low, it’s a nice bs job. I used to do localization in Tokyo and my pay was around 22 man, and « because of the economic crisis » never got upper even though I ended up at the top of my department after 6 years. I am also French, master 5 languages, and have a very good experience with trados and excel/vba programming. I tried to apply to different companies including game localization companies and the salaries were even lower than what you’re stating. They can find cheap worker anywhere and they know you need them for a visa so meh.

    I stayed at that job for 6years until I got my permanent visa and ditched them instantly afterwards. Having a lot of experience in one company is a big plus for finding better paying jobs and for getting long term visas.
    My job was utter bs, I made a VBA program able to do what everyone was taking 8 hours to do in less than 5 minutes, but nobody wanted to use it. So I started to do what everyone was doing : pretend working. I would do my job in 1h and then read fan fictions for 7 hours, get some zangyodai to be perceived as hard working and basta.

37. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT work for a Japanese company especially you are a trilingual talent. Always go for Gaishi companies that are willing to pay a better salary.

38. Translation + Customer Support + Gaming Industry. Sounds like a nightmare.

39. Head to Melbourne AU and make ¥3800/h working in a cafe making coffee, and use the extra free time and lack of stress to enjoy life!

40. Just in case, they don’t offer any other crazy benefit like free housing, right? The only time I’ve heard of such a low salary discussed in Japan was because the company paid almost all living expenses otherwise.