Major Japanese Video Game Companies Eager to Recruit Personnel

By Shodai Niki / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

7:00 JST, January 20, 2025

Major Japanese video game companies are stepping up their efforts to recruit personnel. The number of staff needed for game development is increasing because graphics are becoming ever more sophisticated.

The domestic video game industry is facing labor shortages as companies face stiffer competition with foreign rivals. Individual creators deciding to develop indie games by themselves on a low budget are also growing in number. Companies are busy taking steps to address the shortage, such as by hosting game development competitions and raising employee wages.

Nurturing talent

Capcom Co. is set to host a game development competition for the first time in its history, mainly targeting university students in Japan. Teams of up to 20 people can take part in the event where they will develop a game over a period of six months with the support of professional game developers.

The company will release online the system it uses to develop recent installments in its popular “Monster Hunter” and “Resident Evil” game series. Participants will be able to create games in the same environment as the company’s developers using their own computers. If Capcom judges that a game has commercial potential, it may provide support to the team who developed it.

“We would like to nurture as many people as possible to become involved in the game industry,” said a spokesperson for Capcom.

Sega Corp. is hosting a contest for its music arcade game “Chunithm.” Participants will create music to match characters in the game. If they win the top prize, their music will actually be used in the game.

Koei Tecmo Holdings Co. held an event in which participants submitted original scenarios to be used in an installment of the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” series released in October 2024.

Market expansion

The reason why companies are expediting their efforts to find new talent is the labor shortages caused by the continuing growth of the global video game market.

PwC Consulting LLC estimates that the size of the global video game market grew to $246.9 billion (about ¥39 trillion) in 2024, up 8.5% from the previous year. Video game companies are reinforcing their organizational environment for developing games and making other improvements as further growth is expected.

As hardware evolves, the technology needed for the graphics is also becoming more advanced. It is essential to hire people with specialist skills who can create beautiful and dynamic images.

Companies are stepping up their efforts to improve employee wages to gain an advantage in the competition for talented personnel.

Nintendo Co. uniformly raised the basic salary of its employees by 10% in 2023. Sega increased the annual salary of its full-time employees by an average of about 15%. Capcom will raise its starting salaries for those scheduled to enter the company in April 2025 by about 30% to ¥300,000 a month.

The Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association announced last year that the average annual salary of workers in the video game industry, including those working in related industries, was ¥7.08 million. This was about 50% higher than the average salary across all industries of ¥4.58 million. Major video game companies are willing to secure human resources through significant pay increases, which they hope will make up for the tough working environment caused by trying to keep up with development schedules.

In the game industry, there has been an increasing number of cases in which indie games, which can be developed by individual creators, have become global hits. Competition for personnel with overseas companies and other industries is also fierce.

“There is a limit to improving employee working conditions,” said Hideki Yasuda, a senior analyst at Toyo Securities Co. “The video game industry as a whole needs to work on developing personnel.”