Curious? A recent poll of nearly two thousand Japanese game developers reveals the average salaries for various jobs within the industry.
[Image: Japanexperterna.se | Flickr]
Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association carried out the poll, which can be read here in full here (via Cheesemeister).
A total of 1,808 individuals replied to this average 2015 salary question. Note that not all jobs are directly related to development.
Producer (44 replies): 7,673,000 yen ($100,517)
Director (111 replies): 5,772,000 yen ($75,614)
Software Engineer (919 replies): 5,129,000 yen ($67,190)
Artist (345 replies): 4,451,000 yen ($58,308)
Technical Artist (53 replies): 5,817,000 yen ($76,203)
Sound Designer (58 replies): 5,443,000 yen ($71,304)
Planner (Designer) (162 replies): 4,364,000 yen ($57,169)
Executive/Management (77 replies): 9,098,000 yen ($119,185)
Domestic Sales (8 replies): 5,900,000 yen ($77,290)
International Sales/Support (5 replies): 6,900,000 yen ($90,390)
PR/Advertising (10 replies): 5,610,000 yen ($73,491)
HR (6 replies): 5,617,000 yen ($73,583)
Corporate Planning (10 replies): 7,240,000 yen ($94,845)
Digging into the data further, there are some interesting tidbits Twitter user AEvanko, who works in the Japanese game industry, noticed:
Interesting enough, there is no real difference in pay based on educational history of the normal variety pic.twitter.com/dbM9LNf8Aj
— Gaijinprowler (@aevanko) August 23, 2016
Average annual salary for High School education about 54K, college grad was 54.7K. Ouch.
— Gaijinprowler (@aevanko) August 23, 2016
Average years in the industry for the producers was 12.1 years. I am at 13 so close to average!
— Gaijinprowler (@aevanko) August 23, 2016
Wow so director average salary in Japan is like 55,000 USD? that’s insanely low :/ Due to performance incentives?
— Gaijinprowler (@aevanko) August 23, 2016
Only half of the planners that were married had kids. I bet it’s due to massive overtime. No time to make kids!
— Gaijinprowler (@aevanko) August 23, 2016
Looks like Japanese game industry types make less than those in the West.
Comments
2 responses to “How Much Japanese Game Developers Make”
Ugh, the constant US$ comparison is so stupid. In Japan, around 2 million is “poverty line” , 4 million is a “decent” income that you can expect most office workers to make. The most common job for westerners is probably English teachers, which is around 2.5-3 million (I’ve seen some earn much less though, contracts are getting worse every year).
URGH I hate seeing unskilled / untalented jobs like HR earn more than designers and engineers