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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Atlus Japan has announced a 15% increase in the average annual salary of its employees. The starting salary for new members (joining the company in April 2024) will be an average of ¥300,000 compared to the current estimation of ¥257,000. This increase was in response to the growing worldwide reputation for game titles released in recent years and to further strengthen their IP and become competitive in the market.

Atlus also raised the average annual salary by 5% back in April 2023, and together with this year’s raise, the annual average wage of employees is expected to increase by 20% by the end of April 2024.

Atlus Japan Announces 15% Average Annual Salary Increase - Noisy Pixel

Atlus Japan has announced a 15% increase in the average annual salary of its employees. The starting salary for new members...

noisypixel.net

 

[Hudo]

Bobby Kotick's, Strauss Zelnick's and Yves Guillemot's heads are exploding right now trying to comprehend this move.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Wages in Japan are quite low in general I think. Google tells me min wage in Tokyo is just 1,100JPY, or about £5.90GBP/$7.25USD. In the UK it will soon be £11.00 nationwide for those 23 and over.

 

[Dick Jones]

We rightly shit on companies who fuck over employees, but fair play to Atlus for bucking the recent gaming trend with its staff.

 

[Dcr1d3r]

Always great to see hard work being rewarded!

 

[Silver Wattle]

$24k USD per year, what a joke.

 

[FingerBang]

Great news, but before using this to shit on western companies, you have to understand that the starting salary has been something like 250000 yen for probably 20 years.

When I moved to Japan 10 years ago that was the starting salary. Unfortunately, cost of living has also skyrocketed and salaries are lagging behind. And if you include the average overtime/working hours (lunchtime isn't included in your 8 hours btw), ridiculous PTO, no sick leave and almost no real benefits, you would still prefer to work for Activision.

 

[Hudo]

Great news, but before using this to shit on western companies, you have to understand that the starting salary has been something like 250000 yen for probably 20 years.

When I moved to Japan 10 years ago that was the starting salary. Unfortunately, cost of living has also skyrocketed and salaries are lagging behind. And if you include the average overtime/working hours (lunchtime isn't included in your 8 hours btw), ridiculous PTO, no sick leave and almost no real benefits, you would still prefer to work for Activision.

Good to know. Didn't know about the stagnant salaries over there. But I am not that surprised. That being said, I found the cost of renting apartments inside at around Osaka to be much more reasonable to prices you see in Germany, for example, where the housing market is a complete shitshow.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

$24k USD per year, what a joke.

It's possible to get quite low cost rented apartments in Japan, usually they're absolutely tiny though, but still it'd be a struggle to build savings and seek to own your own property on a salary like that whilst having to pay rent, bills and other outgoings.

 

[Holammer]

Wages in Japan are quite low in general I think. Google tells me min wage in Tokyo is just 1,100JPY, or about £5.90GBP/$7.25USD. In the UK it will soon be £11.00 nationwide for those 23 and over.

Japan has been a low wage country since the '91 collapse.
The cynic in me suspects they do this to guard against Chinese money headhunting talent for peanuts.

 

[flying_sq]

I mean, that is still pretty low. Assuming that is every two weeks, that's 52k

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Well, they have 10 or something developers anyway

$24k USD per year, what a joke.

different regions have different standards of salary. In some countries, people earn 150$ per month for example...

 

[diffusionx]

Wages in Japan are quite low in general I think. Google tells me min wage in Tokyo is just 1,100JPY, or about £5.90GBP/$7.25USD. In the UK it will soon be £11.00 nationwide for those 23 and over.

Japan has had a stagnant economy since the 1990s with very low to no inflation. It's started to tick up recently.

 

[STARSBarry]

Good to know. Didn't know about the stagnant salaries over there. But I am not that surprised. That being said, I found the cost of renting apartments inside at around Osaka to be much more reasonable to prices you see in Germany, for example, where the housing market is a complete shitshow.

It's everywhere, I left gaming almost two decades ago because cashier wages in retail where higher in the UK. Unless you have the word "senior" in your title your paid fuck all... you can get far more elsewhere with better work/life balance, its the same for any creative endeavour these days, plenty more college kids waiting to work for peanuts lining up.

I suppose if I was truly passionate I would have stuck around and gone indie, but things like xbox live arcade had just started off in those days, wasn't really an option.

 

[Phase]

Wages in Japan are quite low in general I think. Google tells me min wage in Tokyo is just 1,100JPY, or about £5.90GBP/$7.25USD. In the UK it will soon be £11.00 nationwide for those 23 and over.

And if you look at the whole USA is super low too. Your statement means nothing. What is the average pay in their games industry?

 

[Fake]

What Japan can vs western can't.