I’m American/Japanese working in Japan right now as a production assistant at a small CG company and I hate my job.
I hate the lack of work-life balance most, with everyone staying until ~10pm daily, and my salary is minimum wage. My commute is 2 hours total on top. It’s all not worth the misery.
I’ve always wanted to be an artist or creative working in the games industry, but I’m worried that most/all studios in Japan are just as bad.
Is my concern true? Would I have a better chance at a more reasonable work-life balance if I moved to a studio in the US?
8 comments
Generally speaking those who make the real content (artists, programmers, designers, musicians…) are always busy anywhere you go, BUT if you manage to get into a big company which mainly focuses on outsourcing/producing/directing and has plenty of resources things get better.
It also depends not only by company but also by project and stage of development, I have seen people going home doing 0 overtime and people doing 80 hours a month within the same company.
My recommendation is that you build your resume and portfolio and you change companies, which will also give you a better salary. The “you should stay at the same company for at least 3 years” rule does not apply in those industry as much.
I heard they are nonexistent. Or at least used to be? But I also heard a lot of people still enter the industries every year so maybe things are indeed changing.
A lot of foreign animators in Japan nowaday, maybe you can find people whose work and positions interest you on twitter and reach out to them?
The creative industry is amongst the harshest because it’s fueled by people who either are willing to make sacrifices to someday become independent or just plain love their job. You always hear about it being “not for the money”, which translates to “not for the time” too because you’re spending longer working and improving your skills.
I would almost guarantee you that studios in the US provide you with better work-life balance.
The best jobs in terms of work-life balance in Japan are foreign IT firms and also unionized manufacturers like the automotive industry
Game, pretty good. Work from home for 4 years now.
Salary is lower than US but around 90- 100k year.
Work is your life and your life is work. Perfectly balanced. Why would you want to do anything other than work? It is your life? And life is your work. There is no difference.
It depends on the studio honestly.
Ive worked in studios where I’ve slept in the office many times but also worked in ones where there was rarely ever any overtime.
It is true that a lot of game studios have 30-40 hours of overtime backed into your contract, so they make up part of your base salary, only after 30 hours of overtime do you begin getting extra pay for it. This doesn’t mean you need to do any though.
If you’re a production assistant now then I’d suggest sharing some of your work as an artist, the quality bar can be pretty high, but again that depends on the studio.
Theres no golden rule when it comes to games, compared to most other industries games are pretty bad the world over, but there are great companies in there who treat staff well and have realistic deadlines.
Sometimes thats as easy as having a strong relationship with a publisher, othertimes the studio might *be* the publisher, so deadlines can be more reasonable.
Source: Technical Artist for nearly 20 years, 16 of those in Japan.
I dont have any “skills” here. (alt -> Car Mechanic -> building factory equpiment, now robot mechanic)
For me its either so so pay and shit work life balance. OR totally shit pay and free time but can afford anything.
Start job hunting and get on linkdin etc.
Mostly work, almost no life (ex SQEX here).