"When asked how he feels about there being less prolific “auetur” developers in the scene, like Hideo Kojima, Suda51, SWERY, and Kenji Eno, Niikawa suggests that this might be due to the “corporate” nature of the video game industry. “That’s a bit unfortunate, to be honest. To put it in my own words, I feel like the salaryman-ification of creators keeps progressing,” he says. For context, a “salaryman” in Japan refers to white-collar workers, employed at large corporations, who stereotypically prioritize work over anything else and are subservient to their organization."

"On the other hand, when you’re a developer who works for a company, various other factors, like company policies and decision-making, as well as profitability, come into play, making it more difficult for “individuality” to come through..."

Isn't this also happening in the West? In any case, AAA rarely appeals to me; almost underground-like indies/mods/Foss games are the places to find the really experimental works.

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[–] 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

EVERY industry in Japan is a corpo cubicle slave farm. And 90% of people aren't paid enough nor have enough free time to even think about pursuing the indie path to freedom. Also society doesn't exactly encourage pioneering and risk taking.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    Also most corpos in Japan will fire you if you have a side hustle. Even if it just a small YouTube channel. They see a side hustle as not being dedicated to the corporate mission. So many devs don’t even dare to make a game on the side

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Source? I can see people violating their visa conditions but, AFAIK, there are very few cases in which a company can legally stop you from working a side hustle or fire you for one. The one exception to that is conflict of interest/non-compete.

    Some companies can have social media policies that would make youtube a bit more annoying, but not impossible.

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