Road to the Japanese Games Industry

• Ubisoft Nagoya
  

I can’t say I know much about Ubisoft Nagoya, other than they make Hamster games, but I’ve been informed by a recruiter that they both hire foreigners, and have even been known to sponsor visas for good candidates. Ubisoft’s global site has more info on positions in both their Nagoya and Osaka office.

• Inis
  

Inis, music game developer and creators of Lips, Elite Beat Agents and Guitaroo Man are based in Tokyo and seem to have quite an openly ‘foreign friendly’ feel to their website, as well as quite a non-corporate feel to it. They have interviews with some of their staff describing the company (including an American guy) and these are available in English and Japanese. 

• Floor

Floor both have offices in Australia, and have been known to advertise their jobs in English through recruiters. I know little else about them and their website isn’t too forthcoming with what games they are working on, but with an Australian office they must have some need for foreigners within their ranks?

• Indie Development

Of course, for the braver developer, with a wide range of skills and experience, Indie Development is an option that could be executed from anywhere. What with Apple offering 70% of App Store sales back to the developer, and XNA now offering ways for developers to monetise their efforts, there has never been a better time than now for the indie developer to make a living. A good colleague of mine has been attempting this brave feat recently, a blog of his efforts can be seen over at Front Room Coder.

In this post I hope to cover some of the places in Japan that seem to already have some foreign staff within their ranks. Obviously, this list is far from comprehensive, based only on my limited research. Which, to be honest is probably as all seeing as, say, a mole subjected to several hours of floodlights. But I’d say I’ve read more articles, sought and applied for more jobs, spoke to more agents, and attempted to network with people in games in Japan a little more than most, so I reckon my research to date is worth sharing on these pages. Additionally, I’ve been asked by friends and coworkers where they should consider applying if looking for work in Japan, so it does seem that perhaps this is a good question to try and answer. I’m including both places and agencies in the below list, as both are inevitably of use to the person seeking games work in Japan. Anyhow, without further ado, let’s get on with the list!

• Q-Games

Kyoto-based Q-Games and creator of the Pixeljunk series has both a sizeable proportion of Western staff and offers the chance of language improvement as one of the advantages to working there. A recent behind the scenes article as well as the companies blog both give a good introduction to the companies culture.

I get the impression their staff base is pretty small and experienced, but if you have a few years experience behind you, it would definitely be a good place to apply to.

• Grasshopper Manufacture

Grasshopper Manufacture too are known to hire folk from overseas, one of them has written an article on working in games in Japan. The article contains some interesting links on visa’s and other logistics of working over there, and is definitely worth a read. He also talks a little about some of the sacrifices and challenges of working in Japan, which are also worth considering if you are thinking of making the jump.

• Ippo Recruiting

IPPO Recruiting specialise in game recruitment in Japan. An interview over on Zillion Monkey with Sam Thomas, Vice President of IPPO Recruiting gives an introduction to the company as well as some insight into recruitment over there.

Check in next time for the second part of this post (or alternatively, add me to your favourite reader), where I’ll be introducing more Japanese games companies. Until then, goodbye!

Just a quick one this week; again I’ve been pretty busy in my spare time and haven’t been doing too much blog writing. However, here’s a few links I’ve found in the last few weeks which may well be of interest.

First of all, Square Enix to publish ‘Quantum of Solace’ game in Japan. This definitely shows continued commitment and follow up to the companies previous statements about it’s overseas business plans.

Next up is an article on GaijinPot on finding IT work in Japan. It makes some good points which have been mirrored by conversations I’ve had in the past both with people working in games over there and with recruiters. A lot of the advice revolves around ‘get over here, visa’s are easier to apply for’ and ’speak Japanese as well as you can’.

Finally, I found this interesting looking blog written by a music lover in Tokyo. I’ve only read a couple of posts, but I’ll definitely be reading more. He’s also got quite an interesting banner… I needs to get me one of them pretty soon!

Next, hopefully, I’ll be writing about ‘Where to work in the Japanese Games Industry’, a selection of companies, sites and links that might be useful to anyone seeking work over in the Japanese games industry. Until then, enjoy the links!

I’ve been keeping my head down the last week, doing some programming, and bits and bobs of Japanese study, and generally not writing things for the blog. Specifically, I’ve been trying the problems over at www.projecteuler.org, with a slight twist. I’ve been using a different language per question, in an attempt to expand my breadth of knowledge of programming a little further, and to bring the problems more into the domain of linguistics/programming. I’m not sure how useful this exercise is exactly, but it’s certainly been pretty fun so far. I’ve solved problems in Ruby, Eiffel and Perl to date, and I’m currently trying to puzzle out LISP’s interesting syntax for a fourth question, hoping to unlock the secrets of the universe while I’m at it. I currently feel more like my brains being pressed through a fine seive after taking a tenderising with a scud missile than any kind of enlightenment, but I hope it’ll come to me before I get frustrated and code it up in brainfuck instead.

In other news, and in a similar FAIL fashion to the above image, I also recieved some dissapointing news the other night. I’ve been turned down from the Daiwa Scholarship, which I applied to just before Christmas. This, if I had succeeded, would have provided a years paid language tuition, followed by an internship within my chosen industry. This would have provided an excellent route into the Japanese games industry, as well as giving me enough time out to get some really decent Japanese study done. I of course would recommend anyone with career ambitions in Japan to pursue this oppurtunity, but it seems I wasn’t what they were looking for this time.

Oh well, there’s no point dwelling on these things, and rather than, say, sulk into my pint for a few days, I’ve been doing other things in an attempt to forward my goal of getting into games in Japan. First, I’ve started properly translating my CV, and writing a proper Rirekisho. I’m hoping to have these dusted off in the next couple of weeks and posted up here on this website, so I can start pointing agencies and companies at them. Secondly, I’ve started planning a small portofolio of work to put up on this site; nothing special, probably just a few small things tidied up and put here for the time being until I can spend some decent time putting something more substantial together; better to have something up and to build on it than nothing at all, right?

Let’s face it, perhaps I was just fooling myself into wanting to go back to a student lifestyle for at least another year with this scholarship thing anyway

I updated my Mixi last night for the first time in ages after coming across several groups related to game development on it. Mixi, for those that don’t know, is a social networking site similar to Facebook, with a focus on ‘community entertainment’. Mixi’s groups, known as ‘communities’ (コミュニティ, or コミュ for short) are core to the Mixi experience, drawing people of similar interests and location together.

I found a handful of communities based around game development. If you’re a member of Mixi and like me are interested in getting into the Japanese industry, it wouldn’t do you any harm to go and check these out and see whats there. There’s self introduction sections, job search sections

IGDA Japan have a couple of communities here and here, with links to job pages, self introduction pages, SIG groups and various other communities based around games. Another game creation community can be found here.

Of course, this is all rather academic if you don’t already have a Mixi account or if you don’t have a Japanese mobile email address. Then again, where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?

Ok I promised a 2nd part to my earlier thread about the postive aspects of working in the Japanese games industry. So, without further ado, here comes a few more reasons!

4) Onsens

In a nutshell, onsens, or Japanese hot springs, are awesome. And unlike other aspects of Japanese culture that have successfully been imported here in the UK, onsens are one of them aspects of Japanese culture that will simply *never* work over here. I’ll never be able to get an onsen here; the idea of getting publically nude is so abhorrent in the UK, that onsens will never make a successful business over here, and even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t be as cheap as in Japan where an onsen can be had for as cheap as a few hundred yen. The nearest thing we get really is the Scandanavian import of the sauna, and generally we only get them in sports centres, where they’re far from the luxurious experience the average onsen gives you.

Obviously, getting naked with coworkers then getting pissed isn’t to everyones taste, but I personally think onsens are great.

5) Economic

The yen in recent months has been soaring in value, and the pound crashing. Job’s that, 6 months ago, in terms of pound sterling, didn’t look so attractive are now looking significantly more attractive. 3 million yen equates to approximately £23k under the current financial climate, and that’s in a country with a generally cheaper cost of living. I used to live a good quality of life on a disposable income of around 100,000 yen a month last time I worked in Japan. Taking that into consideration, I think it would be possible to save a fair proportion of a pay cheque, and still live a good life (something that is very difficult to do on a similar amount in the south of England). In short, working in Japan and sending money back to the UK would be a definitely worthwhile thing to do.

I also think that, in the mid term, the Japanese are going to weather out the current ‘financial crisis’ better than most. From my understanding, a lot of the problems have been caused by financial establishments lending too much money, and on individuals borrowing too much money, which they couldn’t afford. I’d say in the UK that debt culture is pretty endemic at the moment. Japan however, from my understanding doesn’t have the same level of credit culture. Credit cards are not ubiquitous, hell, the ATM’s even close late at night like they used to do here! When I worked there, I used to get paid in at the end of the month, cash in an envelope, which I had to stamp for.

Now I won’t pretend to know much about money and the economy, but I’m prepared to, on a hunch, guess that Japan will be hit less hard than other countries in the coming months (and perhaps years).

6) Health

Japan is a healthy country. The lifestyle seems to promote being healthy, and you’d have to work really hard to eat a bad diet. When I lived there last time, I lost 2 1/2 stone in as many months and stayed this quite trim level for the whole time I was there. When I came back, everyone commented on how healthy I looked (dispite working 60 hours a week and developing a 20 a day habit).

Now I’ll admit that I’m quite a lazy person. Well, not exactly lazy, but I’m rather… Taoist in my outlook when it comes to certain decisions. Certainly, the believe in the path of least resistance often comes into play, particularly after a drink or two. Unfortunately for me (or rather, my waistline), the path of least resistance here in the UK after a couple of drinks seems to lead to a kebab or some fried chicken on the way home, which puts a significant dent in any aspirations I may have for healthy living. Suffice to say, I put that 2 1/2 stone on as quick as I lost it over in Japan, and my weight settles at a significantly less trim level. Therefore, I add health to this growing list.

So, there you have it, some of the good reasons for working and living in Japan as I see it. Here’s another link to a thread with people giving their reasons for living in Japan

Of course, it’s important to not romanticise a place too much, it’s easy to get caught in only seeing the best in something, when the reality of the place is like everywhere else, there’s positive and negative aspects to living there. So, I intend shortly to write a similarly titled topic, but investigating some of the negatives against working in Japan.

Until then, cheeriebye, and I hope you’ve found some interesting reading in this post. Feel free to comment with some of your own reasons for or against living in Japan (or any other country for that matter!).

I suppose to start with, I should give a spoiler alert for them people who believe that my description of a film’s plot will leave some kind of undelable mark on their memories that will destroy all enjoyment of the film forever for them. Personally, I wouldn’t hold so much faith in my plot recall facilities and remember that, well, there’s about 10 million other films out there for you to get through. But, so you know, several paragraphs down I will be discussing plot, so you may want to skip this post if you are one of these type of people.

There won’t be any warning, so be on your guard, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A few nights ago I watched Sonatine, a Yakuza film directed, edited and starring “Beat” Takeshi Kitano. I first came across Beat Takeshi as the apathetic, mildly sadistic teacher Kitano in 2000’s Battle Royale, and was intruiged by his expressionless, emotionless acting style back then. I later found out that this was, in part, due to facial paralysis brought on by a motorbike accident, although having watched Sonatine, the guy only seemed to have a handful of facial expressions back then too.

Sonatine is pretty notable in part to the lack of things that actually seem to happen in it. Perhaps my brain has been slightly warped by years of Hollywood blockbusters, and overstimulating anime and computer games, but there seems to be whole swathes of this film
where very little actually happens. Not that this is a bad thing; a fair amount of the not much happening seems to be done with plenty of noir/gangster style, and with a general air of menacing nihilism. It’s minimalistic, but is certainly packed with atmosphere.

The story roughly runs as follows. Aging Yakuza Murakawa (played by Takeshi) is sent to Okinawa to help end a gang dispute, where Murakawa and his men are ambushed in a bar while carrying out their duties. Takeshi, even in the several gunfights he partakes in in the film manages to remain completely expressionless and unanimated during them, bullets whizzing round his head whilst he just stands and shoots.

The men flee to a beach and then proceed to spend the next hour of the film mucking about doing very little, setting sand traps for one another, messing about with fireworks and generally horsing round in a way presumably only Yakuza can horse about, while waiting for events to blow over.

During one great scene, Murakawa and one of his men play a tabletop game of Sumo wrestling, with a chalk ring and small origami wrestlers.
Setting the wrestlers up in the middle of the ring, they both tap the sides of the table, causing the paper sumo wrestlers to hop about, and ‘wrestle’ each other out of the ring or onto the floor. They decide to take this outside, and recreate the game on the beach, with the two young lads of the crew mimicing the origami sumo’s by hopping about while remaining in the same static, rigid body position as the paper wrestlers. Takeshi and the love interest in the film kneel at the edge of the ring, thumping the sand in a similar fashion to the table tapping, to cause the two lads to ‘hop’ about.

My favourite part of the film, this hour of idyllic messing about and childish pranking is a real break from the more downbeat, nihilistic gangster elements before and after. Dispite the playing aspect to the men’s antics, everything is still underhinged with violence. The gangsters play Russian roulette with one another, attempt to shoot cans off each other heads, and, while firing fireworks at one another during one scene, Murakawa takes it one step further, pulling his gun out and shooting at the opposite team while laughing at their panic.

The idle times on the beach don’t last long however, a gunman takes out one of Takeshi’s men and, in vengeance, him and his men kidnap and assasinate a member of the rival gang. All hell breaks loose and Murakawa’s men are all mowed down. Murakawa takes an M16 into a room filled with the men responsible and takes them all out. Murakawa then proceeds to kill himself, never returning to the beach, where the afforementioned love interest is waiting for him. No happy ending here!

If you’re looking for a film filled with minimalist stylings and existential leanings then this film may well be for you. I’m not sure it’s the best introduction to the Yakuza genre in the world (it’s not the most accessible film, then again, I’m not sure what is a good introduction to the genre… Suggestions anyone?) though if you want to learn how to speak like a gangster, a skill  sure to land you your first interview, this may well also be for you. I’m sure the tone reflects the times well too, Japan being deep in recession in the mid-nineties.

I reward this film (for what it’s worth), 3 bowls of ramen out of 5!

And I promise part 2 of my earlier (and more relevant post) is coming soon. Until then, keep practicing your rolled “r’s” and underground slang, and don’t forget to utilise it during salary negotiations!

Square to Hire 40 Foreigners?

Well, I’ve mentioned in the past (perhaps not in this blog, but certainly, nay incessantly in the past to co-workers and friends) that Japan really needs to open it’s doors and allow more foreigners in if they want to retain their world position and make games that penetrate foreign markets.

Doing a bit of a job crawl yesterday I came across this site, definitely one of the more slick recruitment sites for foreigners in Japan I’ve seen, I think I’ll be signing up to that at some point in the near future.

But, back to the title of this post. On their main page they have a Square Enix is hiring link. Clicking on it takes you to the following page.

Now, my Japanese isn’t great, but I’ve managed to blunder through this page with the help of Rikaichan. Correct me if I’m wrong (that’s what the comments are for ) but this page talks about, in the “Background of Recruitment” section, the need to look to and grow overseas markets being the companies biggest and primary concern at the moment, and that they’ll be hiring more foreigners from here on in.

The number of positions required to fill comes to 40 on this page. What I’m not sure about is, does this mean 40 foreigners? Or 40 staff with a proportion of these being foreigners? Perhaps someone with better Japanese abilty than me would care to elaborate!

Certainly, in either case, this would seem to be a great oppurtunity for anyone trying to break into the Japanese games industry. Now, I suppose I should look into writing a rirekisho and translating my CV…

Rare Records - Koenji

I’m so moving here when I go back to Japan

Japan… The name conjures up images of glittering metropolises, blade-runner-esque skylines, small dainty plates of raw fish sitting atop delicately grated plates of daikon, and, of course, computer games. Some reading this blog must undoubtedly remember happy afternoons playing multiplayer sessions of Mario Kart or Bomberman with friends, or pouring solitary hours into developing characters in epic JRPG’s or mastering obscure shooters (Parodius anyone?).

In 1991, Akira was released in the UK with commercial success, and Manga Entertainment was started off the back of its success. Manga went on to (and continue to do so to this day) distribute successful animes throughout the UK, and as a youngster I watched as many of these a I could get my hands on (which wasn’t always that many, given the certificate and price tag most of them were given). Japanese computer games and films were a staple of my media consumption when growing up and it’s no surprise that their games industry holds the appeal that it does.

I think it’s important when considering big things like uprooting and working in another country, especially one as far away and different as Japan, to consider as many factors as possible, both positive and negative. So here below, based on my previous experience of living in Japan, and research to date, I present a list of some of the good reasons to live and work in Japan:

1) Culture

The culture of Japan is frustrating, fascinating, exciting, alien; all kinds of adjectives could be used to describe it. From choirs of shopstaff shout “Irrashaimase” when you walk into a shop, through to bizarre TV and the ever ubiquitous vending machine, Japan is a country that never fails to surprise, amaze and baffle.

While obviously it has it’s frustrations, living and working in another culture day in, day out is a fantastic experience that I’d recommend to anyone. Certainly, never a dull day passes when you start interfacing with a culture as different as Japan’s.

Perhaps one day I’ll crave only the familiar, but until that day, Japan is a country I would like to live in and experience at this point in my life.

2) Food

For the most part, Japanese food is excellent. From hearty pots of white stew and nikujaga, to deep fried treats with sweet sauces, and immaculately presented boats of sushi, through to exotic pots of steaming oden, Japanese cuisine really has a lot to offer a self-confessed food-head such as myself.

And it’s not just the countries cuisine that appeals, but also the attitude towards food. Food is communal, food is shared, and the experience of eating at ease with others is of central importance in Japan. I can remember occasions, camping with co-workers, where we would spend 10 hours around a stove and a big pot of stew, slowly eating, slowly drinking (yukkuri is a great Japanese word for this, encapsulating this ‘take it easy’ attitude towards food), before falling asleep only to light up the same stove again in the morning and continue eating from the same pot, the flavours now rich from the hours of stewing and marinading that has gone on over the last 24 hours. Japanese food is to be eaten at ease, communally shared with friends, in a good environment, and preferably with beer. You can’t ask for much more than that.

Speaking of good environments, if anyone reading has ever experienced a good bowl of ramen on a cold winters night in a roadside Yatai, they’ll know what I’m saying when I say I’d give up a lot just to be able to eat at a good ramen store regularly again.

I can safely say, food is one of the biggest considerations for me when wanting to live in Japan.

3) Learning a new language

I have a life goal that I wish to become fluent in Japanese. Having spent a year there, and being thrown right in at the deep end working in an office with very few English speakers, working in an area with very few English speakers, I found that I picked up a fair bit of Japanese out of neccesity. I’m nowhere near fluent, but I also figure that I’ve made enough progress that I might as well continue developing my skills in this area, it’d seem a shame to not take my conversational level through to a fluent level when I reckon I’m half way there.

Also, I find speaking another language fun. Like programmers report a pleasant difference in looking at a problem from the perspective of a different language, I find there is a (usually) pleasant shift in perception when speaking Japanese. I simply don’t have the gramatical constructs or vocabulary to say everything I’d like to say in Japanese, so the result is I ‘play’ with the language more in an attempt to make myself understood. In my experience, if the listener is receptive to this, then the resultant communication is usually pleasant and amusing for all.

The other week, when speaking to a friend in Japanese over the phone, I wanted to say “I’m at my friends helping him move his things into his new place”, yet my clumsy Japanese only allowed me to say “I’m at my friends. He needs help. Stuff is moving about”. The amused reply I got back was “What, like in the Exorcist?”. Hohoho! The essentials were communicated, and we both had a chuckle. The really interesting thing about the experience is, I could hear the mistakes I was making as I was making them, which was quite an odd experience in lingual self-awareness.

I’d recommend to anyone who only speaks one language to go out of their way to try and speak another, and learn of the benefits and enjoyment this brings.

4) Career Development

I am also doing it for career development. Some people might say that, as a non-major language of the world, only really spoken in Japan, Japanese is not the most beneficial language to learn for career reasons. However, the Japanese games industry is still has the second largest game industry in the world, and while the lingua franca of game development is English, the Japanese still fall behind in learning it. Not only that, but there’s been a definite trend in the last year of the Japanese games industry increasingly realising that they need to look to Western markets more to assure their continued position in the global industry. I’m fairly sure that if I persevere, I can use Japanese language successfully in my career, and the language will only become more important.

Besides, if I acquired enough of a second language to be conversational at the age of 23, I’ve no reason to believe my langauge acquisition is too low to learn another one after Japanese. I certainly don’t believe in that guff that people stop learning languages after a certain age. Perhaps Japanese is a good bridging language to learning Chinese, which surely is beneficial from a career perspective?

Anyway, that’s enough for part 1, I hope to continue this list further with talk of baths, the economy and the environment!

Until then, take it easy.

Ja ne~~~~~