Nintendo Japan pays its employees an average salary of $80,000 (¥90.3 million) per year. Alongside the salary, employees often work less than eight hours a day. This information was revealed in a posting by Nintendo detailing the benefits on offer for prospective graduate employees.
According to games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, who spotted the job advertisement, Nintendo Japan employs over 2,000 people with an average age of 38.6 years old. The salary and the length of working days aren’t the only benefits for workers at Nintendo Japan, either. Employees reportedly have the chance to earn a bonus each June and December as well as a potential pay increase each April. The conditions seem to be appealing for the employees, who stay with the company for an average of 13.5 years. The job advertisement was for Nintendo Japan’s graduate scheme, which aims to hire 81 graduates in 2019. The 81 graduates would be a substantial rise from the 59 they hired in 2018.
The statistics demonstrate positive working conditions at a games development company in a time when they are under more scrutiny than ever. Activision Blizzard recently came under fire for its letting go of 800 staff despite claiming to investors it had a record year. The layoff news was punctuated by the Activision Blizzard CEO being named among the most overpaid, alongside EA’s CEO. The news is in stark contrast to the approach Nintendo’s CEOs have often had to business. In 2011, Satoru Iwata famously took a pay cut due to poor 3DS sales.
Job security is not the only issue plaguing developers. Nintendo Japan’s sub-eight-hour work day contrasts the crunch culture of many games companies. Rockstar drew significant amounts of criticism for its “100-hour weeks” comments following criticism of its crunch practices leading up to the release of Red Dead Redemption 2. Many spoke out in support of Rockstar, however, an employee of Rockstar Lincoln (a QA branch of the developer) spoke anonymously about their hardships. Western games workers are now taking action. A union was recently established in the UK and progress is being made towards a union in the US.
In other Nintendo news, Nintendo of America recently saw the departure of their beloved boss Reggie Fils-Aime. Abhorrently, he was replaced with Bowser (Doug Bowser). If you want to remember the good times before the company was led by a Peach-capturing giant, we compiled a list of Fils-Aime’s best moments.
