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Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

Apreche
87 replies
1d17h

While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough.

If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many.

But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble.

As an anime and manga fan, I actually want that to happen. Pay the animators what they deserve. Give them good working conditions.

People just have to accept that means the industry will shrink dramatically. So many things will just never get made.

That also means far fewer people will get to become animators. They’ll have to find some other job as competition for the jobs that remain will be sky high.

And that competition is what brings down the wages in the first place. There are just so many people that want those jobs.

chasing
53 replies
1d17h

The "if we paid people fairly things would be prohibitively expensive" argument is a terrible one, just to note. First, it rarely seems to actually be the case since the requirement that employees be paid fairly mostly just drives away low-value efforts. It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.

ekianjo
32 replies
1d15h

First, there is no such thing as a "fair pay". All of it is driven by demand and supply, always, except when regulations or external factors somehow break things.

Second, of course increased costs of production lead to consequences for end users or people who buy the content. We see that all of the time in every industry.

Arainach
21 replies
1d15h

Businesses do not have an inherent right to exist. If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close.

Predictions of dire consequences rarely pan out. Fast food employees in Seattle are earning $15-20/+ per hour and prices did not double - in fact they're not significantly higher than in neighboring counties with lower wages. It turns out that labor costs are only a small fraction of overall costs.

imgabe
8 replies
1d15h

Employees also do not have a right to any particular career. That's nice that people have a dream to make anime for a living. I hope they get to realize it. But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want. If you can't make enough money doing a certain job, maybe go get a different job then.

Brian_K_White
2 replies
1d9h

There is no job that is ok to pay nothing or as good as nothing. It doesn't matter what "career".

If a job needs doing by a human at all, then that human does indeed deserve a reasonable baseline which allows them to exist and even do so with reasonable dignity.

As time goes on and jobs are done by machines, and there are fewer and fewer jobs that require a human, then the output and ownership of those machines simply should one way or another be distributed enough to have the same effect.

All they have to do to earn that is not be being a criminal right at that moment.

And this extends to people who can't do anything obviously productive too. Even a sick old grandma doing nothing but telling stories to kids for one hour a week is productive, and we have no excuse not to provide for even the ones who can't even do that.

Because even if "the Earth is a life boat", we don't exist in an environment of hardship with fixed and insufficient resources where there just isn't enough food and building material and energy to go around.

There simply is no excuse for the way we treat some people. They didn't do anything wrong enough to deserve it, and it is not forced by physical limits.

Talking about what value someone provides to earn their existence is just a way to rationalize taking advantage of others. None of this equates to "I will be forced to spend 20 years learning medicine to give my time away for free to bums!" But even if it did, why is that a bad thing exactly? Because it's what, like slavery? You mean, slavery is bad after all?

imgabe
1 replies
1d8h

These are not slaves. They are free to leave. Nobody is forcing them to work at this job for so little pay. There are plenty of other jobs that pay better. They should go get one of those if they want more money. If enough of them did, the supply of animators would fall and pay would increase.

Brian_K_White
0 replies
2h13m

It doesn't matter if "they are free to leave". There is still no excuse for the employer to pay less than a livable amount for whatever work they get.

If it's 500 freelancers competing for the equivalent of 2 1-day jobs, the employer still has to pay something reasonable for a days work to 2 of them, and nothing to the rest. Or the granularity can be smaller like per hour, but the per hour rate is still some minimum that actually works.

It doesn't matter what the powerless individual worker is ostensibly "free" to do.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
1d14h

But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want

Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors.

There are just plenty of loopholes and a lot of off the clock overtime that complicates things. Not just in anime but most of the Japanese workforce. That's a whole other topic to discuss, though.

gruez
0 replies
1d2h

>But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want

Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors.

A minimum wage doesn't guarantee "a particular wage". It only guarantees that if an exchange of money for labor occurs, that the price paid will meet the minimum. However, it doesn't guarantee that the transaction will occur, and if you're unemployed your "wage" is arguably $0.

Goronmon
1 replies
1d15h

I'm not convinced that workers shouldn't have any rights or protections. That sounds like a pretty extreme viewpoint. Or just one coming from an employer's perspective where I can see why you might desire no limits on treatments of workers.

pjmlp
0 replies
1d7h

It is quite common in highly capitalist societies, workers should be thankful they get a couple of pennies if at all.

They should learn to be hard workers, saving all the penies they can, never be sick, and some day if they don't die before it, living the dream of being their own boss.

kiba
0 replies
1d14h

Nobody has a right to a business to exist or any particular job exist and yet nonetheless there are the rules of the game that people must abide by to make society works.

ekianjo
6 replies
1d15h

Are you inherently saying that the Japanese anime industry is not following regulations? Because they are, and they have been surviving this way for decades and have no problem finding people who want to work there.

Arainach
5 replies
1d13h

You skipped over the first clause of the sentence: "If you can't pay a living wage"

ekianjo
4 replies
1d12h

japanese animators are not living in the streets, homeless and starving so I am not sure what this "if" is about

pjmlp
3 replies
1d7h

I bet they aren't living great either, when compared with western consumers with bookshelfs full of anime.

mlrtime
2 replies
1d5h

You just moved the goalposts.

pjmlp
1 replies
1d4h

Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses, getting rich from western money while exploring passionate slaves, in modern feudalism.

gruez
0 replies
1d2h

Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses

That can't happen by definition unless you get rid of inequality altogether, or engage in shenanigans like defining them as "contractors".

oatmeal1
4 replies
1d13h

If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close.

The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! And whether you personally find a business model morally "valid" is not a good reason to make economic changes. People deserve a cost-benefit analysis before their livelihood is taken away. The economic consequences of increasing the minimum wage will be just the same as previous attempts. More automation, less customer service, more unemployment among low-skilled workers.

sangnoir
3 replies
1d12h

The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy!

Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?

lobocinza
2 replies
18h42m

That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation.

Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many are) is just that free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.

sangnoir
1 replies
18h18m

free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.

I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods?

It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit

Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states

lobocinza
0 replies
13h39m

I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions?

Maybe not.

Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods?

I don't think we should base our choice of economical system in the eventuality of an all-out war. Regardless of what I think in the event of an all-out war government will try to appropriate the resources it wants and gear the economy towards its needs because it can. A free market always efficiently allocate resources however I imagine the goals of the economical agents would be closer to preventing the destruction of wealth and human life than winning a war at all costs but this is context dependent.

Ukraine is an example where people from all over the world on their own volition contributed to the war effort in ways beyond what state violence could achieve. And Russia is the opposite example, top-down and dysfunctional.

Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states.

People should have the freedom to use whatever they want as exchange medium. I don't know what is best but the current system with unsustainable growing debt do more harm than occasional adversarial nation-states could.

johnnyanmac
3 replies
1d14h

I mean, "minimum wage" is the federal definition of "fair pay". So in that lens it isn't fair.

Second, of course increased costs of production lead to consequences for end users or people who buy the content. We see that all of the time in every industry.

When possible. The issue is a lot of anime in Japan still relies in broadcast, so it's much harder to increase the cost of entry. Streaming is becoming more popular, but nowhere near as prevalent as the western streaming services.

And physical media... Well, feel free to look up your favorite anime's pricing in Japan. Not only the prices but the fact that they tend to bundle seasonal anime in batches of 2-3 episodes, not an entire seasonal box.

Arainach
2 replies
1d13h

The Federal Minimum Wage was last updated in 2009. Since then, costs for food have gone significantly up and costs for rent have skyrocketed.

johnnyanmac
1 replies
1d12h

Sure, the US federal minimum wage. That's definitely an issue but one mitigated by states raising their own minimum wage.

But the topic here is on Japan. They did increase their minimum wage last year, after the pandemic caused inflation in the Japanese economy for the first time in 30 years. Their economic situation is extremely different from the US which exploded (then receded, then kept rising) in those decades.

Arainach
0 replies
1d11h

And yet the compensation and quality of life are very poor in this industry, as described in this article.

chasing
3 replies
1d15h

All of it is driven by demand and supply, always, except when regulations or external factors somehow break things.

This is very much not true for worker salaries. For one thing, workers can not easily hop from area of expertise to area of expertise like capital can — and workers oftentimes lack the ability to take the high risk that might comes with quitting a job in search of another or attempting to switch career paths.

The natural state is for owners to drive down worker compensation until it's essentially slave labor. In a "competitive" world for owners, competing means driving down costs which means an across-the-board destruction of worker benefits.

We have some protections in this country (thank you, unions!) and full-stop rules against slavery that prevent us from actually seeing this, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen.

And trust me: People in financial power would absolutely grind workers down to a penny an hour and still claim it's "fair pay" if they could. They'd say "well, if it wasn't fair pay people wouldn't do it" while making sure the entirety of society was arranged to prevent people from leaving their jobs.

Ferret7446
2 replies
1d7h

For one thing, workers can not easily hop from area of expertise to area of expertise like capital can

Uh, last I checked, capital is not capable of hopping from area of expertise to area of expertise. A GPU cannot decide to become a burger flipping robot (much to the dismay of some crypto investors).

Prickle
1 replies
1d7h

I thought capital in this context meant investment money. Not finished products.

A investor can quickly move capital from one industry to another, but the worker cannot.

lobocinza
0 replies
19h12m

He must sell his participation which in this context would be done probably at significant loss.

to11mtm
0 replies
1d14h

except when regulations or external factors somehow break things.

That is one hell of a hand wave.

To say nothing of the lack of other regulations making it to where even with proper payment transparency one has no clue if an employer has a corporate culture that in many states would constitute an abusive pattern in a domestic partnership yet most of those same states have at best some limited carve-outs to do anything about it.

The entertainment industry in particular seems to be really good at exploiting folks, but in IT there is still a sort of elephant in the room; So many of us who read and post want to be the sorts of folks with vested-FAANG security cushions, however we know through self or colleagues plenty of cases where many shops will have a huge uphill battle to make a huge impacting change and the result is a nice review; in the extreme cases the reward/value is in multiple orders of magnitude.

And maybe that would be OK if it wasn't for the other pressures; which is probably something animators deal with too based on general tone and the times the industry tries to cleverly sneak jokes in about the situation.

michaelmrose
0 replies
1d13h

One could reasonably define fair in terms of a nations minimum wage while discarding any nonsensical carve outs designed to appease particular industries, you could define it in turns of what it costs to live a reasonable life in the nation in question, and you could define it in turns of ratio of gross profit to income of average employee.

There are so many ways to define fair we could write essays on which method was most accurate and useful.

Free markets only exist in economics textbooks. Real markets unconstrained are always hopelessly broken. Bereft of rules most of the work would end up owned by a tiny number of companies who would agree what wages should be and agree not to hire each others workers. They would make access to all the most desirable work they control contingent on rules designed to strangle up and coming competitors in the cradle and gradually increase price to the absolute most the market would bear. Impoverishing the people who actually do the work would poison the pool of workers gradually destroying quality of content while companies increased prices to make up for lost profit and blamed piracy.

Capitalism is a toddler left on a rug with a cocked gun. The kid always finds the gun.

cmdli
7 replies
1d16h

While I agree with your argument, it's not as simple as "letting the low value efforts die". If most anime were to stop being produced, most of the animators would also be fired and be unable to continue what is (I assume) their passion and career. The simple fact is that there isn't enough money going into the industry to pay all the animators a fair wage, so either animators get paid less or there are fewer animators.

kmeisthax
6 replies
1d15h

Vocational awe is a curse. If you have an endless supply of people willing to work pennies then the industry will build itself around paying them pennies. This does not mean that this is the only way you can build an animation industry - just that this is the path Toei and Sunrise took.

The amount of money that goes into the industry is not static. The original linked article specifically cites cases in which members of the production committee (often toy companies like Good Smile[0]) decided to deliberately take less money because they didn't want their control diluted. They're only able to do this because they can fleece animators into working longer for less money rather than having to get more capital in the project.

As for animators having to find new work... good? The current situation is one in which animators pursue their passions, and then have their passions completely take over their life and crush their soul. If they quit en masse, that would be backpressure against productions that want animators to fall on their swords, and production committees that want shit done cheaply.

[0] Who, incidentally, funded Hiroyuki Nishimura's[1] buyout of 4chan in exchange for all those J-List ads the site had.

[1] Former operator of 2channel who got pushed out in an incredibly sketchy way by his website host.

jstarks
5 replies
1d14h

As for animators having to find new work... good?

Isn’t this a paternalistic point of view? Why do you know better than the animators who are accepting these jobs? Who are you to tell them that their career choice is wrong?

kmeisthax
1 replies
1d13h

The animators themselves are saying they hate their working conditions and their dream job has become a nightmare.

Ferret7446
0 replies
1d8h

Why don't they quit?

kiba
1 replies
1d14h

We have regulations like minimum wages and other labor regulation rules to prevent abuse.

Unless you want to say that getting paid a minimum wage paternalistic?

smabie
0 replies
1d12h

I'd argue yes it is paternalistic, actually

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1d14h

Who are you to tell them that their career choice is wrong?

I mean, in this scenario they wouldn't get a job, or it'd be an evergreen job that they shouldn't expect to get early in their careers. They wouldn't just laze around if they can't get paid as an animator (especially not in Japanese culture).

At best they'd try to be their own entrepreneur and make money that way, while gathering experience for these now-evergreen studios. At worst they give up or try another career. Paternalistic or not, almost every first world country has labor laws precisely so a job can't pay pennies to sustain its business. And governments do that because they don't want income hoarded by the managers and stifling the middle/low class economy.

jandrese
4 replies
1d14h

I always like when small business complain that "payroll is the majority of our expenses", but when you look at the expenses it is something like:

    Income: $100,000/month

    Expenses: $50,000/month

    Payroll:
    Cashier: $290/month
    Cashier: $290/month
    Cashier: $290/month
    Janitor: $290/month
    Security: $290/month
    Manager: $1,000/month
    Owner: $45,000/month
"How can I keep my business afloat? We've already cut the staff down to the bare minimum and we're barely getting by!"

jxf
2 replies
1d14h

$290/month? If those cashiers are working 100 hours a month they're making about a third of (US federal) minimum wage.

stevenwoo
0 replies
1d14h

There’s data comparing EU prices for equal fast food like MacDonalds and the pay for workers and the cost of the final product appears to bear little relationship to worker pay, i.e. corporations crying poor at the usa minimum wage are full of it. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-workers-denmark/

jandrese
0 replies
17h56m

They're working 39.5 hours a week to make sure they aren't in danger of getting benefits.

crazygringo
0 replies
1d13h

That isn't remotely the type of breakdown of any business I've never seen. Not even close.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but you'd be better off using real numbers to do it. I've never come across a business owner taking 45% of total income. Competition ensures those kinds of profit levels generally don't exist.

numlock86
3 replies
1d16h

It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.

That is how (modern) society works already on a global scale. I am not saying it's good, but it's the way things are.

Retric
2 replies
1d15h

The worlds economy isn’t underpinned by an underpaid underclass.

Every major commodity cobalt, shoes, cellphones etc has large scale automated production. What’s going on is essentially a parallel system where people making almost nothing can barely out complete automation. However, because both are occurring at the same time consumers wouldn’t notice a significant change if 100% of that production was automated.

Granted without infrastructure and a skilled workforce you can’t instantly swap to automation, but that’s a different question.

chii
1 replies
1d15h

Every major commodity ... etc has large scale automated production.

the automate-able industries have done it, leaving behind the ones that aren't as automatable. This is why there's still many developing countries that export cheap labour. You can think of those as the "underpaid" class.

Not necessarily bad, since i believe they are not being forced under lock and chain in slavery. They are merely economically incentivized.

Retric
0 replies
1d13h

I don’t think there are low value non automate-able industries right now. Try and name some.

That’s not to say nobody is making subsistence wages making shoes, just that there’s robots making shoes in another factory. It may not be 1:1 in every niche as a train isn’t a drop in replacement for a long haul trucker, but they are still in competition.

threatofrain
0 replies
1d11h

No, if anything, the above comment is saying the opposite by advocating the bitter but moral vision of a smaller economy with fewer seats, and in this case less anime. We can say that the anime might be better, and that maybe the anime which dies is shitty anyway so good riddance, but we can also say that we're envisioning a smaller economy with fewer artists and less art.

Similarly, maybe we should have fewer musicians and less music, but at least we have an absence of the slave economy you mention. Maybe the medical profession is doing something right by limiting the flow of the pipeline.

ericd
0 replies
1d16h

There's a big difference between unpopular and low-value. And it takes time to get really good at something, it can be helpful to be able to work for less, if your skills aren't yet good enough to command a high value.

charlieyu1
0 replies
1d12h

People do like their work and would rather be paid less than to see the industry fold.

soulofmischief
13 replies
1d15h

If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable.

A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war.

People just have to accept that means the industry will shrink dramatically. So many things will just never get made.

I've accepted that. Now let's pay people fairly for their time and skill.

That also means far fewer people will get to become animators. They’ll have to find some other job as competition for the jobs that remain will be sky high.

The online independent animator community is thriving. If people create something that has appeal, they are able to at least partially subsist from subscriptions and donations. I contribute to several animators' Patreon accounts (though Patreon takes far too much out of it). If there isn't enough appeal, well... I'm sorry. Either everyone agrees to a fair wage based on these market conditions, independent efforts raise money through crowdsourcing, or... people find other ways to sustain themselves. That's just a healthy economy in action.

nvm0n2
5 replies
1d9h

How is telling people to live off donations not just an end run around your wage rules? They don't apply if you're self employed?

soulofmischief
4 replies
1d5h

My wage rules? You think fairly compensated labor is just some idea I came up with?

Most of the people whom I contribute to are able to work full-time on their passions through donations and make more than they would if they were traditionally employed.

mlrtime
3 replies
1d5h

There is no such thing as a fair wage, fair is subjective and this can be debated for hours by academics.

What we have (in some countries) is: 1) Minimum wage: defined as the least amount legal to pay someone. 2) Living wage: loosely defined as the wage needed for minimum living standards for a given region 3) Market wage: What the market determines your value is worth based on supply/demand.

None of these are "fair" and they aren't usualy the same but sometimes can be.

soulofmischief
2 replies
1d4h

There is no such thing as a fair wage

Bollocks. A fair wage is a wage which is agreed upon by employee and employer, and is livable according to local cost of living. Let's not get into a semantic argument.

gruez
1 replies
1d2h

That's your definition of a "fair wage". The parent's point is that it's subjective and others might disagree. For instance I've seen people take the marxist position that software engineers earning 6 figures isn't "fair" because the company is making even more money from their labor and that amount is effectively being stolen from them.

soulofmischief
0 replies
16h12m

It's not just my definition of fair wage, it's the insight that "fair" can only be determined by the parties involved in the transaction, providing they have adequate information such as minimum and market wages for their craft, the value created by their effort, etc.

This is the key insight that OP is missing which makes them incorrectly think that "fair" can never be determined because it is some kind of objective goal post. It's not, it's highly subjective and local.

idopmstuff
3 replies
1d15h

> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable.

A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war.

I suspect the end result here will actually be fairly comparable to post-slavery agriculture, in that technology will eliminate a lot of these jobs. Tough to imagine that GenAI doesn't have an enormous impact on anime over the next few years.

johnnyanmac
2 replies
1d14h

Tough to imagine that GenAI doesn't have an enormous impact on anime over the next few years.

It depends a lot on the culture there.

1) there are actual labor laws in Japan, so they can't just cut off 90% of their workforce at the snap of the finger

2) there is a much stronger culture of conformity in Japan. So it is much easier to shame a company when getting negative PR in Japan and those complaints can overcome raw profits.

Also, tech wise AI is at least 5 years out from anything animated. What I've seen in motion so far is extremely crude.

Ferret7446
1 replies
1d7h

Also, tech wise AI is at least 5 years out from anything animated. What I've seen in motion so far is extremely crude.

I... think you are overestimating that by a lot. We went from nothing to AlphaGo to ChatGPT to Midjourney et al within a few years, with the timespan between each shortening.

idopmstuff
0 replies
1d4h

Yeah, the stuff Runway has been coming out with absolutely blows my mind. Can't wait to see what it looks like by the end of this year, let alone five.

pubby
2 replies
1d15h

Slavery ended as industrialized agriculture was taking off. While farmers are paid better now, there are a lot fewer of them.

Perhaps we will see the same with animation; there will be a few well-paid and highly-skilled artists that are automating with a bunch of AI. I doubt that will be the solution to equality though.

wahnfrieden
0 replies
1d15h

US and other first world countries such as S.Korea still have slave labor agriculture, it's a fact and it's still economical

Aeolun
0 replies
1d7h

It does not seem outside the bounds of reason that all the ‘in-between’ stuff gets done with AI. At that point you only still need your keyframes.

Doesn’t really make things much cheaper because the people drawing those in-between frames are already paid peanuts :/

hdnfofbrbt
4 replies
1d13h

No no and no.

Companies will find a way to make things work even if labour costs more. Every company and neo liberal says that same thing about regulation, employee wages, tax increases .... Funnily enough when those same regulations/wage increases/taxes come in they do not leave the market ... Strange.

Edit: clarity

Companies can and will adapt.

raincole
1 replies
1d13h

Companies will find a way to make things work even if labour costs more.

The way is to move / outsource to where it costs less. There is a reason that iPhones are mostly made in China.

Aeolun
0 replies
1d7h

There is a reason that iPhones are mostly made in China.

If they were made in the US and cost $2000 instead of $1000 people would still buy them.

nvm0n2
1 replies
1d9h

They do leave the market. Where did you get that idea from? My parents have extreme difficulty travelling now because they have a dog, but their local dog kennels have been closing down. When the last one went my mother talked to the owner. He said the rise in minimum wage was killing the business. People were willing to work there for lower than the new minimum because they love dogs basically, but customers weren't able to pay the new higher prices. So he had to fold and was quite bitter about it because the government had basically killed his business that he'd spent years building, in the name of "fairness". So all the workers lost their jobs and of course there's a knock on effect on the wider economy because that particular service made it easier to do leisure spending.

But socialists never think about this stuff. They just pretend there are no downsides to central control of prices.

mlrtime
0 replies
1d5h

Agree with your post but sort of offtopic:

We have the same problem, "dog hotels" are too expensive. We just pay someone to come to our house a few times a day. A kid we know in the neighborhood, don't tell the government but they charge less than minimum wage! shock

madrox
3 replies
1d14h

This is, basically, what happened to movies. Because of that, you'll see very few risks, and the people who get to be creative tend to be the ones who have an established track record. People have been complaining that the theater is full of sequels and superhero movies for decades.

toast0
2 replies
1d14h

People have been complaining that the theater is full of sequels and superhero movies for decades.

Yeah, but the thing is people go to see superhero movies and sequels and remakes. And have been for a long time.

When people stop going to superhero movies, they'll stop getting made. Except for Spider-Man; Sony is going to keep rebooting that and doing another series of three movies until they are bought by Disney; if they lose that license by not making a film in time, they'll never get it back.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1d14h

The fact is that most people aren't enthusiasts for every thing they participate in. And things like big super hero movies aren't targeting the cinemaphiles to begin with.

It's always unfortunate hearing commentors thinking "people are tired of Marvel" when seeing low sales for The Marvel's, when the reality is much more boring external factors like Disney+ cannabalizing sales and cinemas still not truly recovering from the pandemic.

fbdab103
0 replies
1d14h

Planet Money did an episode about this, The Spiderman Problem: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076531156/the-spider-man-pro...

Short story is that Marvel licensed Spiderman for cheap with a clause that Sony could keep the license so long as they produced a movie every N years.

tw04
1 replies
1d15h

If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many.

But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble.

So give the artists their current meager salaries and bolster it with a percentage of profits?

Seems really easy to fairly compensate the artists.

andsoitis
0 replies
1d14h

Seems really easy to fairly compensate the artists.

they want just the upside, not the downside as well.

lettergram
1 replies
1d14h

People are paid fairly, they accept the wages they’re being paid. In the alternative world you describe, many/most wouldn’t have a job (at least not doing what they enjoy).

wyre
0 replies
1d14h

Ha. There’s already a large cohort of people that are not being paid fairly and/or working a job they don’t enjoy and/or don’t have a job.

dclowd9901
1 replies
1d15h

Unionization sounds like the answer here.

What does Japanese culture think about unionization?

charlieyu1
0 replies
1d12h

Any left-leaning politics is not going to sell in Japan.

bane
0 replies
1d14h

It's a supply/demand problem. There's an endless number of of people who want to be animators, but relatively few positions. So the pay is crap.

This further reduces the budget of productions so that all kinds of junk can be produced at rock bottom prices and still have a chance at making money.

And let's be honest, the vast vast majority of anime is utter crap.

If things were different however, anime might end up as a more hit-driven industry the way Hollywood productions (or heck even startups) are.

RockRobotRock
0 replies
1d15h

That's a great point. Niche anime is likely subsidized by merchandise and people addicted to gacha and pachinko gambling that use their most popular IPs.

Osmose
0 replies
1d16h

They would be untenable at current profit margins. Significant profits could still be made while also paying a living wage if current profit margin expectations were reduced and viewed across a property as a whole (i.e. merch sales, ongoing streaming rights, etc.), but production committees are in a position of power and choose not to.

MrVitaliy
0 replies
1d12h

Japan has a fascinating culture. Wouldn't you say the same thing about video games? Which studio can sustain 6-7 years of active game development (The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild) exclusive for one console?

madrox
52 replies
1d17h

When I read things like this, I think back on my experience in games and entertainment. I believe that the more generally prestigious the industry is, the more likely it is to see worker exploitation. Part of your pay is wrapped up in getting to brag that you work in industry X on product Y. Almost by definition, that means young, passionate labor. Industry leaders quickly learn how to exploit the young and passionate.

This is exacerbated in Japan, that already has a significant salaryman culture. However, I'm not sure this could be fixed through regulation. It's very wrapped up in human nature, and is a problem that you see across the world. Ultimately, the people involved have to make a choice about how they spend their lives. I might be wrong, but people have tried to fix the systemic issues for longer than I've been alive.

savanaly
35 replies
1d17h

I totally agree with your diagnosis, but I don’t see why it’s considered to be a problem. Why shouldn’t people be free to trade off salary against other desirable traits in a job? Even at the extremes?

madrox
22 replies
1d17h

I tend to agree with you. In the end, salary reflects what the market will put up with, and if you're not willing to take a salary hit to work in games, someone else will. This is why I don't think regulation will fix this. It has to be on the individual to decide what's right for them.

Ecstatify
21 replies
1d17h

Yeah let’s get rid of minimum wage while we’re at it.

swells34
18 replies
1d16h

I'd much rather implement a maximum wage, would do a huge amount of good for our society. Let's say a cap on any more than $10M a year for total wealth gain for any individual. Everything else is taxed at 100%. Suddenly, we could all have healthcare, kids would get the supplies they need for school, a UBI scheme would be doable. Basically, we could finally stop acting like a poor third world country.

tomcam
13 replies
1d16h

Is it your thought that a 100% tax rate would increase the productivity of those being taxed at that rate? Or even leave it unchanged?

lacrimacida
12 replies
1d16h

Not exactly 100% but high enough to keep greed in check after a certain cap

lotsofpulp
10 replies
1d16h

Why tax income? Wealth should be taxed. The problem is hoarding, not doing valuable work.

For example, owning land that is empty or an empty building for years just so it appreciates deprives the community. Tax the shit out of it so it forces the owner to use it productively or sell it so someone else can figure out how to use it productively.

tomcam
8 replies
1d15h

If you use your car only couple of days a week, should you be taxed more on your car than someone who uses theirs every day of the week? What about a piano you haven’t practiced on for a few years? The expensive ski boots you haven’t touched since high school?

lotsofpulp
7 replies
1d13h

Maybe, but we can at least start with the more fundamental resources that have to be shared amongst people and are in limited quantities, such as land.

Driving giant pickup trucks for no productive reason also uses up a societal resource, and increases societal risks, so I would not mind seeing extra taxes on those compared to more reasonable methods of transport, and a case could be easily made that all personal vehicles should be taxed much higher to incentivize public transit construction and use.

Society is not losing out much if you don’t use your ski boots since college, but maybe society does benefit if you consume less throwaway things, so a generally increased tax on consumption, perhaps based on mass and distance (since more mass moved further distances takes more energy to move) might work. Easiest way to do this is simply 10x tax on fossil fuels, it will flow down to everything.

Tax things you don’t want. Taxing the result of productive work (income) is disincentivizing something we do want. We want people working hard and striving to do the difficult tasks that are in short supply of expertise (and higher income).

tomcam
6 replies
1d9h

Does property tax count in your scheme?

Do you understand that for many people in the world, the car you or at least people in your peer group might drive would be the equivalent of a giant pickup truck to them? Who decides what a reasonable method of transportation is? For example, the bus system is terrible where I live. Am I allowed to have a giant pickup truck under your scheme or should that be taxed the same as if I had a better mass transit system near me? How would you monitor use of my giant pickup truck to be sure I was using it practically in a way that meets your requirements for proper pickup truck usage?

lotsofpulp
5 replies
1d6h

Property tax is the same as a wealth tax.

Do you understand that for many people in the world, the car you or at least people in your peer group might drive would be the equivalent of a giant pickup truck to them?

Yes, I am aware these schemes would require reducing consumption for quite a few people.

Who decides what a reasonable method of transportation is?

Society? But it has to be planned with long term consequences in mind. Are we prioritizing pedestrians over individual car owners and detached single family home owners or not, because the two are wholly incompatible.

For example, the bus system is terrible where I live. Am I allowed to have a giant pickup truck under your scheme or should that be taxed the same as if I had a better mass transit system near me?

You are allowed to have whatever you want, just like you can have a $10M home right now, but society does not need to give you the streets and parking lots to use the giant pickup truck.

The mass transit system will come about eventually, but probably will take decades of rezoning. I think voters making this kind of sacrifice is realistic at all, people’s priority at the polls is which politician will allow them to consume as much as possible.

How would you monitor use of my giant pickup truck to be sure I was using it practically in a way that meets your requirements for proper pickup truck usage?

Again, high fossil fuel prices take care of this, especially at marginal tax rates. Use a little fuel? Less tax. Use more fuel? Higher taxes. At some tax rate, it will no longer make sense for 90% of people to use a pickup truck if they don’t need it.

tomcam
3 replies
23h11m

What about the people who install your HVAC or hang drywall? Are they allowed to use their giant pickups without punitive taxes? Will it help inflation to tax them heavily? Will it help them lower their prices? Will it lower housing prices?

lotsofpulp
2 replies
22h37m

Why is it “punitive” taxes? If they are performing sufficiently productive work with the giant pickup, then they will be able to pass down the cost to their customers.

The purpose of the tax is to dissuade frivolous use that harms society at large. If the use is valuable enough, it will be reflected in the prices of the services it helps provide.

tomcam
1 replies
22h6m

Taxes by their nature tend to inhibit the thing being taxed. This is why every state in the USA has heavy liquor taxes, and it’s why places like New York City and Seattle tax soft drinks extra.

The taxes you are proposing are literally designed to inhibit people from buying the vehicles they want.

lotsofpulp
0 replies
18h53m

FYI, NYC does not have a soft drinks or any sweetened drinks tax.

Yes, the tax is supposed to dissuade people, but obviously if you are paying $5 per mile in tax to use the pickup truck, but earn $20 per mile profit from the work accomplished using it, people will still be able to buy and use the truck for a productive purpose.

tomcam
0 replies
20h22m

The mass transit system will not come about eventually in my opinion. Self driving cars will almost completely replace mass transit, especially in the suburban areas.

jazzyjackson
0 replies
1d15h

This is neo-georgism, no? I knew somebody always advocating for this while simultaneously resigned to the fact it wouldn't ever be pulled off (too much inertia in the status quo i guess) but i like it a lot better than "eat the rich"

tomcam
0 replies
1d15h

How much would keep people motivated while solving the problems of society?

jazzyjackson
0 replies
1d16h

This is literally how the freemasons started as a secret society btw. After the black plague there were salary caps on skilled labor but the masons decided to hell with that and colluded to demand higher wages under the table

if you wanted a cathedral or a city hall built they held all the leverage

jahewson
0 replies
1d16h

Yeah so that’s not how taxes work.

j7ake
0 replies
1d16h

Please explain why taxing people beyond $10M at 100% will result in better social programs?

Your theory can also be countered with another theory: people making a certain amount of money will simply leave the country, leaving you with less tax revenue than the current system.

Also, how does one tax unrealized stock market gains (which is what most wealthy people's wealth are)? I have not seen that policy anywhere and I imagine it would be very difficult to implement.

Gormo
0 replies
1d16h

Suddenly, we could all have healthcare, kids would get the supplies they need for school, a UBI scheme would be doable.

Could you explain the reasoning by which the policy you propose would be expected to produce these outcomes?

s1artibartfast
0 replies
1d17h

100% would agree.

madrox
0 replies
1d17h

Minimum wage does solve a certain kind of unskilled worker exploitation. I don't think passion tends to be at play for minimum wage jobs. This is a different kind of exploitation that's more difficult to regulate.

Andrex
5 replies
1d17h

If unionization were endemic to the global economy, that might work.

Lacking that, power dynamics are such that workers need protections enshrined in legislation. If salaries are a race-to-the-bottom, nobody benefits except the ones doing the hiring. You may have a "job," but the market salary average would be depressed while the companies enjoy a large talent pool of replaceable workers.

If I didn't know history too well, I likely wouldn't hold this position. But it's clear as day if you crack open a history book.

financypants
2 replies
1d17h

When would candidates compete to work for less? I haven’t seen that demonstrated anywhere. I have seen firms compete on pay.

badosu
0 replies
1d17h

When they can replace you no matter how talented you are, it only takes hiring the next bright eyed young aspiring artist.

Andrex
0 replies
1d16h

When would candidates compete to work for less?

The first example to jump out in my mind is gov't contractors, which isn't a direct analogue to workers but the mentality of undercutting your competition to get ahead is basic human nature IMO.

Two candidates vying for the same job wouldn't consciously sabotage each other (let's assume). But if they both give a salary quote, why wouldn't the lower-priced candidate be a more appealing hire? With no protections, it would come down to whoever is willing (or able) to cut more pieces of their body off to win the job.

And that behavior is not conducive to a well-functioning economy that supports a large and contented middle class, which is the preferred economic status of all state actors.

madrox
1 replies
1d16h

Unions were on my mind when I read this. However, for some reason unions don't tend to take over in creative fields or fields of passion. SAG-AFTRA is the only exception to this that I can think of.

This is why I think it's become common practice for tech companies to profit share. We take it for granted now, but it's not common...especially for artists.

Andrex
0 replies
1d16h

"Creative" unionization (for lack of a better term) doesn't pop up often in the news but it's absolutely out there and growing. Keep an eye on the gaming and VFX industries over the next few years.

https://www.theverge.com/23789935/sega-union-cwa-unionizatio...

https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-activision-bl...

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/marvel-vfx-artists-unanimous...

https://iatse.net/avatar-vfx-artists-file-for-union-election...

It also must be said that during the Hollywood strikes last year, it was the Writer's Guild that drove the talks and were the ones to get the studios to capitulate. And I find writing to be the building block of creativity and passion for a lot of industries. Every story starts somewhere, these days usually on a writer's PC.

That the WGA is demonstrably one of the strongest unions in America makes me very happy, but a little forelorn other unions aren't nearly as strong. IATSE isn't regarded nearly as respectfully in Hollywood, for instance.

Moru
3 replies
1d17h

Because it's a very uneven power balance. Big company using young inexperienced workers that just want a foot in the door on a childhood dream and have no idea how much their work is worth. Most companies knows to exploit this to the full. Especially known in arts, music and game industry. Less so with (metal) industry jobs where there are old unions helping the workers to a healthier power balance. Except for Musk that seems to be a strange new coin behaving like the industry did 200 years ago.

tomcam
0 replies
1d16h

Did people 100 years ago get stock options and similar forms of compensation along with their meager salaries?

double0jimb0
0 replies
1d16h

Tesla as an innovation-driven company couldn’t be further from the types of metal industry jobs you refer to. Why can’t an innovative company trade its “capital” to get the young and ambitious to work for less pay?

astrange
0 replies
1d15h

Anime doesn't really have big companies. Maybe Aniplex (Sony) at most.

ParetoOptimal
0 replies
1d16h

The problem is it becomes collectively forced and the value of their labor is devalued.

GuB-42
0 replies
1d15h

Because there are not many desirable traits. If people were really doing what they enjoyed, it would be fine, but the problem is that they often don't. I am thinking more about the video game industry, but I think there is a similar problem in animation and all other "fun" industry.

People who get in these industries often want to get paid for what they already do for fun, being doodling or coding small games. Or maybe they see the big projects like a popular anime or a game they loved and want to be part of it. But in many cases, what they only get is a repetitive, not very creative, and high pressure job, with all the fun sucked out of it. Which would be fine if the pay was worth it, but it isn't, and the prospects are not great either, because the really interesting positions are few compared to the grunt work.

Problem is that newcomers don't know that, or maybe hope they are special, and companies really play on that, schools too. What happens is that a few years later you get a bunch of guys that are completely drawn out, hopefully they find a better job elsewhere, to be replaced by a new batch of kids with a soon to be broken dream. Some are luckier and get the job they really wanted (it probably won't be you), and others are really unlucky because their skillset doesn't translate well to other industries and end up with burn out, depression and poverty.

itake
3 replies
1d16h

This doesn't hold water when you look at the prestige of tech companies and their compensation packages.

It is simply supply and demand. There are many people that can draw the characters, so their employees are fungible.

jimmyjazz14
1 replies
1d16h

I don't really think good artist are that common, then again I guess we are talking about anime here (jk, I appreciate the art of much anime).

itake
0 replies
19h21m

it really depends on what you mean by 'good artist'. Most of the labor in an anime is animating (copying) another artist's work.

I am sure the creative directors are paid well, but the people drawing each frame are probably a dime a dozen.

lacrimacida
0 replies
1d16h

Who takes the money home though? Those too can be made fungible. Let’s not try to justify exploitation and grift.

ycdxvjp
2 replies
1d15h

It can be fixed.

People need to learn some basic finance if they want to influence how creator economy businesses run. If you can't do that make friends with business experience who you can trust and rely on. If you can't do either, don't get into a creative field.

Most of the time creatives just hand over all financial decisions completely to some one else.

And then guess what, the financial engineers gain much more influence over how the business run. Even Disney is being pushed around (see Nelson Peltz). And the reason Peltz and finance logic hasn't totally over run them is there are people with finance skills saying profit maximizing, cost cutting finance logic cannot run this shop.

You will not find a single sucess story in a creative field without someone with business skills involved.

mistrial9
1 replies
1d13h

You will not find a single sucess story

certainly depends on the definition of success..

charlieyu1
0 replies
1d12h

Disney is doing well in the finance department but its appeal is falling hard.

vvanders
2 replies
1d17h

I generally agree, that said we had a number of our animators move into gamedev from traditional VFX roles and from they way they told it gamedev was significantly better, uf da.

gpspake
1 replies
1d16h

What's "uf da?"

HeyLaughingBoy
0 replies
1d16h
mistrial9
1 replies
1d17h

minimum acceptable labor practices enshrined in law have a long term effect of reducing tragic outcomes for individuals, and the costs associated with that.. combine that with whatever ethical or moral system you may consider, and that starts to say why "anything goes" is an undesirable situation over decades.

that said, there are no other countries like Japan, so what works there has limited applications elsewhere, even for casual conversation.

madrox
0 replies
1d17h

I agree

scythe
0 replies
1d14h

I think the most extreme case of this is probably ski patrol. Dangerous, difficult, high skill, high cost of living, pays peanuts and pocket lint.

radium3d
0 replies
1d17h

They literally put it in the job descriptions -- "Must have worked on AAA game X" for the high paying job listings. This makes people think "ok, I have to do this shitty low paying job to get my name on a AAA game, so I will work for peanuts for now" but then the cycle repeats because the listing also says "within the last 3 years" or similar.

hindsightbias
0 replies
1d17h

In the 80’s, I always thought the Origin kids looked emaciated because they were working all night on games and forgetting to eat.

College kids flipping burgers made more and got leftovers. If there’s one set of people from that era I can never find on LinkedIn, it’s game developers. No idea what happened to any of them.

gmerc
0 replies
1d16h

I don’t think it’s about prestigious as much as it is about passion. People in these industry join and often work there out of genuine passion, which makes them do sacrifices that take years to regret.

sillysaurusx
27 replies
1d17h

Then by definition, that’s what their time is worth. It should alarm animators that they’re paid so little. It alarmed me as a gamedev when I saw how much webdevs earned in comparison. It’s partly why I left, and I was much happier for it.

No amount of legislation or shame articles will change the reality that market forces have profound effects, and these effects are difficult to break. Unions try. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a successful one yet for software, but I’m ignorant of the art world; maybe they have one. But be prepared to receive exactly what the union can give you, and no more.

steveBK123
19 replies
1d17h

This is like a collective action problem. Any industry with enthusiasts or which is itself a hobby is subject to this behavior.

People need to stop being so naive as to accept poorly paid jobs because they think the subject matter is 'funner'. Game Devs are the first example I thought of here.

If you love games, that's great.. but why not go work in literally any other software dev work for maybe 2x the pay and/or 1/2 the hours.

As Don Draper said 'That's what the money is for'.

Plenty more money and time to buy & play games.

huytersd
10 replies
1d17h

That’s never going to happen unless they unionize. People are not going to voluntarily turn down jobs as a collective everywhere at the same time in mass numbers.

sillysaurusx
8 replies
1d16h

But then by definition, that’s what their labor is worth. Unions can be a stopgap measure, but they can’t correct the underlying market forces. Or at least, I haven’t seen particularly persuasive evidence that unions can do more than make everyone collectively equal, which implies that everyone in X industry would be paid the same, or based on seniority rather than merit. Not my cup of tea, but I’m also privileged not to have chosen a field suffering from a surplus of labor.

People really can get themselves out, though. I did. There’s no reason for individuals to subject themselves to it unless that’s what they really want. I.e. it doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing that situations like these exist.

vlovich123
4 replies
1d16h

I haven’t seen particularly persuasive evidence that unions can do more than make everyone collectively equal, which implies that everyone in X industry would be paid the same, or based on seniority rather than merit. Not my cup of tea, but I’m also privileged not to have chosen a field suffering from a surplus of labor.

It sounds like you actually have a wildly incorrect view of how unions can and do work. you may want to do some more reading and research. For example, the WGA and SAG unions do not pay based on seniority nor does everyone make the same. They do mandate minimums for certain kinds of work but that’s about it. They also have rules about what the studios can and can’t do.

That being said, it probably does come at the cost of fewer people being able to find employment than the talent pool exists but it’s hard to measure / support that claim considering there’s more actors and writers now than ever before.

sillysaurusx
3 replies
1d15h

I’d be interested to learn. If there aren’t harmful effects to outliers (I.e. exceptional people can still earn a great deal) then that does give me pause. Possibly enough to change my mind.

Thanks. If you have any references on where specifically to start reading, feel free to drop them here. Otherwise I’ll start at the acronyms you mentioned.

jimkoen
2 replies
1d13h

Most union contracts still allow for KPI's and bonuses, which can be customized and based on personal goals you set with your employer. So not sure what you mean?

sillysaurusx
1 replies
1d13h

My question is: what are the downsides to unionizing? Whenever someone presents something as having no downside, it’s particularly important to try to examine that.

Comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39074679 are making me think twice, but there must be some catch with unions, or else everyone would do it.

vlovich123
0 replies
1d12h

The downsides are the same as any other organization of people with all the same flaws. The goals of the leaders diverging from the interests of the members, unions negotiating contracts that are harmful to the health of the business (although that’s also on the companies involved to some extent).

As for rewards, look at how actors, writers, directors etc get paid - the vast majority of those professions you never hear about and only hear about the ones that are making insane amounts of money from it. The union rules also covers things like residuals and stuff but again afaik it’s all about establishing minimums - the exceptional talent can always negotiate a better deal when they are in demand.

kmeisthax
0 replies
1d15h

Any sufficiently powerful group of people can make 2 + 2 = 5. In this case, the Japanese animation industry is concentrated, so they can demand lots of hours for little pay.

Of course, when you make 2 + 2 = 5, there's always a -1 floating out there that someone else has to suffer for. Right now, the animation industry sets the price, so the individual animators take the hit. If the animators unionize, then they can push back on that. The market forces here are that artists cost money, but the production committees and studios don't want to pay for them, so they arrange the industry in such a way as to keep artists out of the picture.

jimkoen
0 replies
1d13h

which implies that everyone in X industry would be paid the same, or based on seniority rather than merit.

You're implying that being paid by seniority isn't already the case for most of the tech industry. Last time I checked, most job adverts are looking for "X years of experience in Y".

Or at least, I haven’t seen particularly persuasive evidence that unions can do more than make everyone collectively equal

The work culture in europe is largely based on standardized work contracts, enforced by unions. For example, the entire railway industry in Germany is collectively unionized (~40k members) and is holding negotiations right now, to renew the terms of these standardized contracts.

The goal of a union is not to "make everyone equal", it is to enforce collective bargaining rights. This usually does lead to better employment conditions for everyone involved though.

huytersd
0 replies
1d15h

That’s exactly what a union is, a way to force the market to deal with a collective and buck wage lowering market forces. It involves putting gatekeeping licensing in place and making that license a legal requirement for any work done by that collective. This prevents rogue independents from depressing wages. With a union you give up some free agency in exchange for higher wages, better work life balance and job stability.

steveBK123
0 replies
1d16h

Yes, that is why I defined it as "This is like a collective action problem."

resonious
3 replies
1d14h

People need to stop being so naive as to accept poorly paid jobs because they think the subject matter is 'funner'.

Why? If I was really passionate about something, I would not mind low pay. For me, the blocker is that I'm not quite so passionate about anything. I suspect a lot of people think they're passionate about games but really are just addicted.

jimkoen
2 replies
1d13h

Congratulations, you just lowered wages for everyone involved across the board.

steveBK123
0 replies
1d2h

This is the classic problem for photography for example, which is a hobby of mine.

You see a lot of hobbyists elbow into paid work, to the detriment of people actually making a living of it. It puts a ceiling on what people are willing to pay for the typical work - engagement, wedding, headshot photography for example.

Photojournalism is a bit of a weird case because, in my opinion at least, its always been populated by nepobabies and other sorts who weren't commanding proper living wages because they didn't really have to.

resonious
0 replies
1d4h

I'm happy because I got the job!

johnnyanmac
1 replies
1d11h

If you love games, that's great.. but why not go work in literally any other software dev work for maybe 2x the pay and/or 1/2 the hours.

1. Work is still half your waking life for decades. Why not attempt to make it quality work instead of a slog if you can help it?

2. Less money =/= barely afford rent. I was still making $160k at my last role with 7YOE, so we're not talking "can barely pay rent". I'm a single 20's male with no car or school payments to make, and pretty low maintenance hobbies (hiking, games, art). Even in a high CoL area, doubling my salary won't necessarily double my QoL.

3. Gamedev is still a craft, so the more time you spend honing it the better a dev you become (generally). Even if I chose to leave gamedev as hobby work on the side, it reduces my ability to progress.

4. Gamedev works on similar "it's who you know" logic. And the best way to connect with fellow devs in a meaningful matter is to be in the industry. If you have aspirations to open your own studio one day these connections and portfolio is priceless for selling yourself to others.

5. Playing a game is very different from making one. Just because you like playing games doesn't mean you will enjoying making one yourself. The opposite can be true as well. Gamedev digs into domains like graphics, physics, UI/UX, and even psychology in applied ways that challenge engineers, even ones who rarely play games. A graphics programmer is a wizard who will be snatched by many industries if they open up, but if you wanna home your craft, you don't have too many other places for such specific work. Games, 3d animation, GPUs, and a few research labs (often looking for PhDs though).

steveBK123
0 replies
1d2h

Re: the money/time

The thing is that gamedev is one of the few industries you reliably hear people bully 60/80/100 hour weeks outside of say - medicine, law, finance. Or startups where you grind for a couple years hoping the lottery ticket of your equity pays off.

However, it does not pay anything near medicine, law, or finance wages. Nor do you get equity like a startup. And the labor practices of game studios in terms of benefits, layoffs, etc have always sounded far worse.

If the ROI is worth it for you, great (and $160k ain't bad to be fair, I've heard lower than that in gamedev). People just need to go into it with eyes wide open though and not foreclose their options early (by overly focussing on gamedev niche coursework in college for example).

fbdab103
1 replies
1d13h

Really hard to dissuade people from passion.

From a different perspective: teachers. From most absolute criteria, teaching is a horrible profession. Significant credential requirements, lousy pay, hard hours, dealing with occasional rotten child/parent. Yet millions agree to do it because they want to impact the next generation.

steveBK123
0 replies
1d2h

So I'm 40, and I have to tell you a dark secret.. Most friends & family who ended up going into teaching.. don't particularly like kids by the time they are actually this far into their career.

I think a lot of people go into it because they have a comfortable middle/upper-middle class suburban upbringing, reasonably bright (but not like super high achievement focused), without any specific areas of interest (STEM), and teachers play an outsize role in their life as far as non-family adults. Teachers being an uncreative lot, suggest to them - hey, why not pursue teaching.

In theory teaching should be a good, portable middle class job in that you aren't restricted to 2-3 mega cities like tech or finance or whatever. In practice it doesn't really work out that way. For one thing the certification process varies by state so your degrees are not immediately portable.

Further, in teaching you literally have to wait for someone to retire or die to get a shot. Most of my cohort who went into teaching had to slog it out in bad districts, bad schools, hard/bad roles (ie - special ed) in precarious employment (substitute teaching for years, or non-union/tenure schools like charters).

There is maybe 2 people I know who actually made it teaching back home in their hometown like they intended. The rest eventually found a full time role within 30 miles of where they were willing to live, after 5 years or more bouncing around in precarious employment.

Osmose
2 replies
1d16h

Code for America's union ratified their first contract last year. Kickstarter United ratified their first contract in 2022. I myself was in the Glitch union when we won voluntary recognition several years ago.

(We had layoffs unrelated to the union and more related to a bad monetization scheme and high costs, during which the union negotiated increased severance and health insurance coverage vs we were initially offered.)

Union successes are definitely growing in tech.

sillysaurusx
1 replies
1d14h

Just wanted to say thank you, this is interesting to hear. Is there really no downside to unionizing? It seems too good to be true, or that it must come with some kind of catch. But enough people here have said nope, no catch, that I’m starting to reconsider whether it’s possible.

AuryGlenz
0 replies
1d11h

Unions can cause industries/companies to stagnate if they make it too hard to fire people or if they squeeze their respective companies out of too much money.

For union members pay, layoffs, etc. are often decided by seniority and not by ability or how hard you work.

Whether or not that's worth it is up to you.

munificent
1 replies
1d16h

> Then by definition, that’s what their time is worth.

Only if the market for animation is efficient.

chii
0 replies
1d14h

If it wasn't efficient, it is because some participants in the market (namely the animators) aren't choosing to maximize their economic utility by doing a different (higher paid) job.

toast0
0 replies
1d14h

but I’m ignorant of the art world; maybe they have one

The Film Actors Guild is a union in the art world with pretty significant market power.

pcwalton
0 replies
1d16h

It should alarm animators that they’re paid so little. It alarmed me as a gamedev when I saw how much webdevs earned in comparison. It’s partly why I left, and I was much happier for it.

Well, as a software engineer game development is among the lowest-paying jobs you can have, and you usually don't need any special training to switch to something more remunerative. As an artist, though, there's nothing hugely better you can just switch to without doing a lot of training, which is a tough bargain given how expensive art school can be. Sometimes people successfully pivot to graphic or UI design, which is generally more lucrative, but that's about it.

Ironically, game dev at a medium or large studio is actually one of the more stable and lucrative careers in the art world, unlike software development where it's the opposite.

To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a successful one yet for software, but I’m ignorant of the art world; maybe they have one.

Yes, animators in L.A. at many major studios (e.g. Disney) are unionized, and as a result they're among the best jobs you can get in that field. They still work long hours, but you can earn six-figure compensation with good benefits if you specialize in the right things (generally the more technical you are, the better off you are).

(Source: lots of friends in that industry.)

nitwit005
18 replies
1d16h

because people just don't particularly care enough to look through the glass.

No, I suspect absolutely everyone with any knowledge of animation knows animators are paid terribly. The article itself has a meme image about the pay.

astrange
17 replies
1d15h

Western animators aren't paid that terribly, just anime animators, and only some of them.

But part of the compromise that Western animation does to be more productive is that it all looks bad. There's a fake-anime style Superman cartoon on I saw that has the artistic quality of maybe a Japanese elementary schooler. And then Netflix makes animated sex comedies that look like old Flash cartoons.

Der_Einzige
6 replies
1d14h

I'm sorry, all western animation looks bad? Such sweeping generalizations, and so wrong.

Exhibit A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_NIMH

Exhibit B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_of_Egypt

Exhibit C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Into_the_Spider-Ve...

astrange
5 replies
1d14h

Two of those three are over 30 years old and the other is a movie with a $90M budget. I was talking about TV shows.

Though I've heard things like Castlevania are good, haven't seen it though.

bananamerica
1 replies
1d14h

The animation in Castlevania is in fact very good.

jubulence
0 replies
1d4h

The style definitely isn't for everyone, I personally very much disliked it when I started watching. But once you get into the parts where the animation shines, it really shines. Highly recommend an analytical watch by anyone into animation.

Der_Einzige
1 replies
1d13h

We are not living in 2028. Only one is "over 30 years old".

astrange
0 replies
1d8h

Dang I did the math in my head wrong.

ff2400t
0 replies
1d13h

You should also give Arcane a shot, it's one of the beautifully animated and written series I have seen.

nitwit005
3 replies
1d12h

From a quick search, that's probably "My Adventures with Superman", which is animated in South Korea:

My Adventures with Superman is an American animated superhero television series based on the DC Comics character Superman. The series is developed by Jake Wyatt, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and animated by Studio Mir in South Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Adventures_with_Superman

astrange
2 replies
1d11h

It is, but the style and production methods are controlled by Americans, unless they have direction and storyboarding being done in Korea as well.

I'm not sure how payscales work for Korean outsourcing vs Western animation, though I guess I'd like to know.

nitwit005
1 replies
1d10h

You claimed the quality issues were due to the cost of Western animators, not because of American management.

South Korea has long been a place to outsource animation to to cut costs. Plenty of Japanese animated works with Korean names in the credits as well.

astrange
0 replies
1d10h

I mean that they can afford to pay the animators better because they're more productive with the production methods they use for the project. Or in other words, the management cuts costs more. I've seen animators talking about how they'll only use one line weight when drawing a character to save time or things like that as well.

That's not the entire reason of course, they also have larger budgets.

dron57
2 replies
1d15h

Since you mention Western animation and Netflix. Have you seen Blue Eyed Samurai?

Amazing show and it has a beautiful style that looks like it's hand drawn and Japanese, but it's actually French made CGI. I suspect that even this industry can be disrupted by technology.

rishav_sharan
0 replies
1d14h

The French have their own thing going on. Fortiche and Blue Spirit are making some of the most beautiful animations we have seen in western TV series. They draw from a rich heritage of art and comics.

MikusR
0 replies
1d9h

If you think it looks hand drawn go to nearest eye doctor as soon as possible.

KennyBlanken
1 replies
1d12h

They're not "fake anime style."

A bunch of WB properties outsource their animation to Japanese anime studios.

astrange
0 replies
1d11h

But I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about one specific currently airing show. Though even if you outsource to Japan, it still depends who does the animation direction and storyboards.

(And coloring. I feel like it's easy to spot American attempts in particular because all the colors are too contrasty and oversaturated, and then they put glowy neon effects on top.)

Note, fake anime in other Asian countries is getting really good these days, and in fact is starting to take over Japan because other countries don't use the Japanese industry strategy of "never change anything and never try to make any money". Was just there and all the ads were for Blue Archive/Azur Lane/Honkai, which are Korean and Chinese.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1d12h

Ehh, the superman show (on Adult Swim) isn't that bad from an animation standpoint. It wouldn't stand out as an anime but you could have picked any other AS snow outside of Bookdocks (which I believe is also animated by an Asian studio) and Metalocalyose to drive that point. Western shows suffice or even try to prefer a cruder, cheaper art style. In small part because American animators are compensated better (but still paid peanuts for its economy).

asylteltine
15 replies
1d16h

I just learned recently there’s a lot of drama of “localizers” blatantly mistranslating or inserting their own words to push their ideologies.

astrange
14 replies
1d15h

You learned nonsense right-wing propaganda.

charcircuit
11 replies
1d15h

Even so, it is true and does happen. Though I suspect it is less about pushing an ideology and more for trying to appeal to an audience of the localizer's peers. Either way the end result is that it repulsed a demographic of the distribution platform's target audience. Beyond that official translations often don't come with honorific, don't bother explaining puns, are not literal translations, try to replace a Japanese concept with a western one, and other annoying things.

I would rather there not be an official translation or localization process, but since non Japanese streaming platforms want to constantly expand their business no matter what, the desires of hardcore anime fans will not be respected as normal people outnumber us, so bad subs will continue to be produced.

astrange
6 replies
1d14h

more for trying to appeal to an audience of the localizer's peers

Or for people who aren't already familiar with the culture. For instance if you're translating a romance novel or otome game (romance game for women) you'd want to localize the body language it describes men using, because what Japanese women like, American women think is offputting and rapey, and a romance story doesn't work as a romance if it turns the reader off.

Beyond that official translations often don't come with honorific

This is a giveaway you don't speak Japanese. Honorifics are not actually important or meaning-bearing.

(Last week in public in Japan I heard a woman call a boy "Haru-chan", something that supposedly never happens.)

Actually, if audiences expect this it means translators have to start translating some honorifics you don't know into the ones you do. You probably know さん but not 氏 or ちゃま.

charcircuit
2 replies
1d13h

This is a giveaway you don't speak Japanese.

I can, but believe what you want. I don't have a need to prove it to others.

Honorifics are not actually important or meaning-bearing.

This is plain wrong as there are scenes where honorifics are significant. Who uses (or doesn't use) which honorific with which people is important. Characters change the honorific they use with each other. Characters talk about what honorifics people are using.

something that supposedly never happens.

Says who?

if audiences expect this it means translators have to start translating some honorifics

Personally, I don't think they need to translate them. The actual meaning of it is usually not important and if it is it could be left up to the viewer or put in a TL note. An exception to this is certain usages of 殿, but this is usually handled by changing the phrasing of the rest of the sentence.

You probably know さん but not 氏 or ちゃま

I do know them.

astrange
1 replies
1d13h

Who uses (or doesn't use) which honorific with which people is important.

That's just a question of character voice. You can also say a translation is inaccurate because in the original the characters were speaking Japanese and now they're speaking English.

But as they say, it can't be helped. You just need to be sure readers can still distinguish who's speaking in the result by making people sound different.

Says who?

Most language learning material and anime fan common knowledge? Even Wikipedia, though it has some caveats.

And of course there's real life situations where people call girls -kun as well.

charcircuit
0 replies
1d13h

That's just a question of character voice.

Fair, but I do feel that removing it is removing a social dynamic that can not simply be mapped just to the voice of a character.

Most language learning material.

It happens in anime too, so that material is wrong and off topic from what was being discussed.

Dalewyn
1 replies
1d10h

This is a giveaway you don't speak Japanese. Honorifics are not actually important or meaning-bearing.

As a Japanese man, you are dead wrong.

Using the wrong honorific or inappropriately not using one at all can be tantamount to shouting "fuck you" to someone here in the Anglosphere, an insult and offence of among the highest order.

I heard a woman call a boy "Haru-chan", something that supposedly never happens.

That is mundane to a fault.

astrange
0 replies
1d10h

Using the wrong honorific or inappropriately not using one at all can be tantamount to shouting "fuck you" to someone here in the Anglosphere, an insult and offence of among the highest order.

I didn't mean it like that! I meant when they're being used normally and not meant to stand out. They're normal pleasantries and a bit of character voice, and both those things can be represented in English.

America isn't a honorific-heavy society, but there are certainly people who get offended if you don't call them Dr., etc, but this is rarely a plot point in a TV show and I don't think it's used that often in manga/anime either.

Though I don't find it that bad. My English copy of Count of Monte Cristo does have French honorifics (it uses M/Mme instead of Mr/Mrs) and that doesn't look weird. Japanese stories set in Britain also seem to like using British titles like "Milord" although, um, they don't really do it right.

Meanwhile I've seen subtitles for clips of Japanese vtubers where they don't put /enough/ swearing in. First one I ever saw had Pekora saying something was 気狂い, which they definitely didn't translate right. (Means "crazy" but it's a really bad word, kind of like "retarded".)

numpad0
0 replies
1d6h

IMO, this is becoming quickly into minor points thanks to VTuber explosion. I can't describe my shock when I first witnessed "the brat needs correction" cliche, used correctly, collecting upvotes on Reddit. Just few years ago it was at best off context ara-aras.

xboxnolifes
1 replies
1d14h

I would rather there not be an official translation or localization process

Localization isn't just bad subs though. Localization is sometimes unavoidable due to differences in language and the cultural usage of the language. Not everything can be directly translated, as that's not how languages work. Sometimes the only way to avoid localization is to not translate, and then it's no longer a translation.

astrange
0 replies
1d14h

Other reasons to do it are:

* translating a joke "literally" makes it no longer a joke and so no longer an authentic translation

* the original creators want their work to sell to people who weren't already prepared to like it

nemothekid
1 replies
1d13h

but since non Japanese streaming platforms want to constantly expand their business no matter what

This exact same conversation was happening on anime forum boards 20-30 years ago before Japanese streaming platforms knew they were people interested in watching their content overseas. There are gigabytes of forum posts of_fan produced content_ arguing over whether honorifics should be included, if puns should be explained with a "TL note", references to japanese history, etc.

Fansubs ultimately ended up on coalescing on what official subs do today (before official subs even existed), so I don't believe they are doing it because of corporate greed. People prefer somewhat localized content. Fan subs killed most honorifics and translation notes before anyone made a dime doing so.

astrange
0 replies
1d11h

There's a TV show translation group called TV-Nihon that actually does try to preserve everything as hard as possible. Everyone makes fun of them because their subtitles have random Japanese words scattered all over. And since Kamen Rider is written for small children it's not like the story is actually hard to understand.

asylteltine
1 replies
1d3h

Which part is propaganda? Are you saying it’s not true? Because it is, there’s literal evidence of it. Just because their actions align with you politically doesn’t mean it’s fake news

astrange
0 replies
19h58m

It often isn't true, they're showing screenshots of a fan translation or claiming it's official, or showing edits mandated by the Japanese side (for legal reasons etc) and claiming they aren't approved, or they just think anything using an English idiom is an incorrect translation because they have bad writing test or are literally ESL speakers and don't know English.

nextworddev
12 replies
1d16h

Then who’s making money?

andirk
4 replies
1d16h

Probably the Japanimation upper brass. I don't watch it but most of the characters look identical with the good guys being Japanese but looking like white Americans: large eyes, fair skin, tall, voluptuous. Maybe it's easy to find those animators since their skillset is the same across the board.

rcfox
2 replies
1d14h

Anime characters are cats. https://i.redd.it/i6awe5ngp5cb1.jpg

franciscop
0 replies
1d14h

It's also widely believe that domesticated dogs and cats have been selectively breeded (either on purpose or by accident) to resemble their baby stage, which among mammals it's commonly found as "cute" (big eyes, small nose, etc):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-12582-2

andirk
0 replies
1d9h

You took my half baked opinion and proved that it's false but even better. I got overwhelming nays on this but you sir/madam have taken it to a peer reviewed (1 peer) level and I thank you for that. Even in the study my half baked opinion is mentioned then negated perfectly! That is HN.

astrange
0 replies
1d15h

That's called mukokuseki. They don't look like anime Americans, who are either black or blonde with blue eyes.

And executives getting paid super-well is an American thing. They don't get paid well in Japan either. Nobody does.

danielmarkbruce
2 replies
1d15h

Maybe no one. There is no rule that says someone has to get rich out of every industry. You don't see a lot of agriculture billionaires. Nor airline billionaires. Some industries just kind of suck.

Thaxll
1 replies
1d13h

Food compagny buy from agriculture industry. They're the one getting the biggest cut.

danielmarkbruce
0 replies
21h40m

Historically, a few players made out ok. Even that's going sideways as the large grocery chains (including walmart, costco etc) have attained more power.

foota
1 replies
1d14h

Consumers, who get cheap anime.

numpad0
0 replies
1d6h

Until everything falls apart - which people in this country aren't bad at delaying at all cost.

rnd0
0 replies
1d16h

Lawyers, probably.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1d12h

The anime committee. Someone linked an excellent video about how the committee is formed and how they collude to cap anime budgets. As a result they also get most of the revenue. Which is according to plan; if your biggest "stakeholder" is a merchandising outlet the quality of the anime quality only matters as much as needed to hype merch sales

As a western metaphor, think of anime studios similar to the VFX industry where many bid based on some anime the committee wants to make. Sometimes studios pitch their own anime, but most can't afford to put down their own money for that arrangement.

huytersd
11 replies
1d17h

It’s only going to get worse with AI now in the mix.

echelon
5 replies
1d16h

It’s only going to get worse with AI now in the mix.

s/worse/better

Soon the creators and artists will be able to make full films without studio capital in the mix. This should start happening by the end of the year.

The studio system exists because film and motion media is hard to make. It requires a lot of people, a lot of logistics, and a lot of capital. That's not going to be true for much longer.

Soon the webcomic / fanfiction creator will be able to build their own anime shows and audiences.

livueta
1 replies
1d16h

Agree. There's an example in democratization of music production tech: the market has become broader and deeper in direct proportion to the declining relevance of expensive hardware. In the context of Japanese culture, consider how many production/songwriting/instrumentalist/vocalist careers were launched by Vocaloid. The way it panned out has been the complete opposite of the death of the "real" vocalist industry; just look at Reol's career arc as one example of this dynamic.

redwall_hp
0 replies
1d13h

Vocaloid is amazing for that. It's the final piece of the puzzle democratizing music creation. It's easily my favorite music scene for how fan-driven and collaborative it is. A few other major careers launched from that scene that come to mind:

Kenshi Yonezu started as the vocaloid producer Hachi, and went on to have numerous hits, including a few anime openings and recently the end credit songs for The Boy and the Heron and Final Fantasy XVI.

Yoasobi had one of the most popular music videos, globally, on YouTube last year and is playing Coachella this year. One half of Yoasobi is the (active) vocaloid producer Ayase. (Hatsune Miku is also on the list for Coachella, as well as a new North America tour...)

Ryo/Supercell has been big for awhile, Giga (who used to work with Reol) just did a Pokemon X Hatsune Miku collab and does work for Hololive songs occasionally...

johnnyanmac
1 replies
1d11h

Gamedev is close to this. I can assure you that indies will not get the better end of the deal here. Companies with money will out-advertise you, will out-produce you, and still hold onto valuable copyright despite the narrative here about signaling the end of copyright.

And that's all before discussing how this will affect monetization. Indies already feel soft capped at $20/work and almost hard capped at $30. Will the same consumers pay those prices for what they feel is "lesser art" now? Indie gamedev can barely break even on $10-20 as is.

echelon
0 replies
1d10h

Gamedev is nothing like media. It's much easier to become a YouTuber or non-game indie creator.

Gamedev takes too damned long. You can't experiment and rapidly try new things.

_sys49152
0 replies
1d16h

thus the creation of a ai anime market curation to sort the wheat from the chaff, marketing and merchandising and all that.

autoexec
2 replies
1d15h

AI is absolutely going to be the end of many inbetweeners, and on one hand that's a good thing because of how exploited they are, but that's kind of a problem too because you need people to have a way to get started in the industry who can develop their skills, learn how production works, then get promoted to doing key animation or move into other roles that get paid better. If we let AI take all the work from the people at the bottom we'll lose a lot of talent that never had a chance to get off the ground or find a place within the industry

chii
1 replies
1d14h

If we let AI take all the work from the people at the bottom

would you also make the same augument about industrial automation taking away the work of apprentices?

autoexec
0 replies
1d14h

Not as long as there is still work for apprentices to do. If there was no work left for apprentices, or 99% of all apprenticeships went away entirely due to automation it'd be the same problem.

Paid apprenticeships may even be something the animation industry could consider, but even that would cause a massive reduction in the size of the talent pool they draw from today. What we have now is basically a meat grinder/lottery system where most animators burn out or suffer in poverty and obscurity while a small number get selected to advance, but at least people have an opportunity to develop their skills, show off their work, and develop industry connections

z7
1 replies
1d15h
huytersd
0 replies
1d15h

My god those are beautiful.

dsugarman
10 replies
1d17h

People have free will; market rate is driven by supply, demand and economics of production and revenue. It's similar to people in the US willing to forfeit their financial future to see taylor swift live and the reseller market understanding and exploiting the market dynamics. Are the resellers the problem? or is it inevitable when people value the financial security of the rest of their lives less than seeing taylor for one night?

chasing
9 replies
1d17h

They do have free will, but large groups of people are at an extreme negotiating disadvantage versus individuals or small groups that can more easily plan and coordinate -- and who happen to control the resources. This is why we need things like unions and government regulations: Not to unbalance things in favor of workers but to help achieve some amount of balance between owners and employees.

kelnos
4 replies
1d17h

Agree that these animators should work to unionize if they want to improve their situation.

But I think for professions like these, the "they have free will" argument is pretty compelling. If they were being exploited in a low-skill, low-status job, where there are few to no alternatives, sure, definitely an industry that needs worker protections. But no one needs to be an animator at a big anime studio to survive. They're there because they want to be, and many/most/(all?) could find gainful employment in an adjacent industry or field where they'd have better pay.

To me it's similar to game development. Game devs famously get paid poorly (compared to other devs) and work under stressful conditions. They don't have to do that. They can get a job as a web developer, or an embedded developer, or... some other kind of developer, and get paid more, and experience less stress. But they want to build games, so that's what they do.

I'd definitely support all these folks if they wanted to unionize. But I'm not sure I'm convinced legislation is warranted. (Well, except for strengthening and actually enforcing sanctions against union-busting efforts.)

chasing
1 replies
1d15h

NBA players work at extremely desirable jobs and make a minimum of, like, $1m per year. And yet they're unionized and have the right to advocate for themselves collectively.

There's no "but their job is cool and they could do something else" caveat that makes someone less worthy of professional advocacy.

dimgl
0 replies
1d14h

This is a false equivalence because there are a limited set of NBA players. Sure lots of people play basketball, but NBA players have gotten to that upper echelon for a variety of reasons such as training, genetics, perseverance, etc. It's simply not the same.

There is a surplus of game developers and animators and a league like the NBA for game dev doesn't exist (unless you count working for Valve or other prestigious organizations "the NBA of game development").

pcwalton
0 replies
1d16h

They're there because they want to be, and many/most/(all?) could find gainful employment in an adjacent industry or field where they'd have better pay.

This isn't actually true. Occasionally animators can pivot to UI or graphic design, for example, but often times not. Animation is fairly specialized.

astrange
0 replies
1d15h

But no one needs to be an animator at a big anime studio to survive.

The problem is mostly in the small studio space, where a lot of them are freelancers. There are a few studios like KyoAni/PA Works/ufotable that use mostly their own employees and pay better.

ekianjo
3 replies
1d15h

Free will as an individual means that you should be able to make better choices for yourself without having to rely on a hypothetical mafia-style union

kmeisthax
2 replies
1d15h

Unfortunately, the other side of the negotiating table either already has a mafia-style cartel pushing your wages down[0], or is a monopsony already. Consolidation in one industry means everyone who does business with them either consolidates or has their margins go negative. Unions are just the working-class equivalent.

As for "mafia-style"... I mean, are we calling Hayao Miyazaki a mob boss now?

[0] Remember back in 2010 when Steve Jobs and Larry Page formed a wage fixing cartel?

ekianjo
1 replies
1d15h

wage fixing to limit the number of figures in existing 6 figures salaries in Silicon Valley? Please, don't make me cry.

Arainach
0 replies
1d13h

This is a problem in all industries.

There's media companies literally trying to starve out striking workers: https://www.lendingtree.com/personal/medical-debt-statistics...

There's the biggest kind of theft, wage theft: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-u...

On and on, this applies to everyone in every industry.

egypturnash
7 replies
1d17h

searches for "union"

hahaha yep, this word exists in this article but entirely in the context of how Japanese animators have absolutely no union.

I ain't saying the US animation union is perfect but at least there is one; if I hear that some big production like Spiderverse2 is at a non-union shop then it's off my list to bother seeing, even via piracy. I trained to be in this industry and burnt right the fuck out from working at a non-union shop run by a truly evil person, but I still feel solidarity with folks who stuck it out.

debacle
3 replies
1d17h

Does Japan have a labor movement? I would expect not a strong one.

diggan
0 replies
1d17h

In 2005, 43,096 labour unions in Japan, with a combined membership of 7,395,666 workers, belonged either directly, or indirectly through labour union councils, to the three main labour union federations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_Japan

cybrox
0 replies
1d17h

How would they have time for that with those overtime schedules..?

Jokes aside, though, yes they do. Though as far as I am aware, mostly in the traditional sense for the primary industry sector to keep companys from working employees to death physically but not really modernized in the tertiary sector.

Memberships are declining and I think a great many issues that make life difficult for people in these now more prominent sectors of industry are not openly recognized and tackled.

bugglebeetle
0 replies
1d17h

Japan had a very strong labor movement that was systematically dismantled in the 80s, as it was in the U.S. Miyazaki Hayao was a union leader at Toei early in his career and quite famously criticized Tezuka for establishing the exploitation and underpayment of animators as industry practice with his studio, Mushi Production.

dotnet00
1 replies
1d16h

On the other hand, US animation is mostly in a pretty sad state compared to the diversity of content and target audiences in Japanese animation, as well as compared to how US animation used to be.

supertimor
0 replies
19h36m

I mean, large parts of the entertainment industry in the US are under some sort of union or guild, and has been for a quite some time, so I’d hardly blame the animation union for the state of US animation.

Larrikin
0 replies
1d15h

Is there some place to find this information for all movies?

HALtheWise
5 replies
1d13h

Anime is a $25B industry in terms of revenue, but that doesn't actually imply anything in particular about whether there's any profit in it. I see people make this sort of mistake all the time, and it bugs me. In this particular case, I think the appropriate reaction is very different if the anime industry is wildly profitable vs losing money as a whole, but the article is happy to throw revenue numbers around in the headline without engaging with that distinction.

< /rant>

dylan604
3 replies
1d12h

If your industry is making $25B and there's no profit, your industry is not very efficient. I've been part of working with licensed content, so not actually in the production side from actually animating. However, just from the interaction with them in that manner, you can tell they are not working in anything that would make you think they are doing things efficiently at all. It only seems that would percolate through out that side of things

lchen_hn
0 replies
1d10h

That’s just not true. There are many industry that runs efficient but generate little profit. In general, the more competition, the less profit. Warren Buffett sold the airline business for this reason. Many businesses are simply too hard.

Ferret7446
0 replies
1d7h

An industry does not need to make profit at all. The only people who care about profit are the investors in that industry (the shareholders). Everyone working in the industry, from the bottom rungs to the top execs get paid compensation which is deducted as a cost.

Aerroon
0 replies
1d9h

From the perspective of society the purpose of an industry is to produce something valuable (anime). Whether that industry makes a lot of profit for the investors doesn't really matter, and generally that profit tends to become lower the more competition there is.

KennyBlanken
0 replies
1d13h

Actual facts instead of unsourced opinion: plenty of profit is being made - by the distributors.

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/t5illb/comment/hz57d...

Also, you seem to be terribly confused by "the company is not making much profit on paper" and "the people in management and running the company are paid plenty." You think management is paid as lowly as the animators?

This is no different from hollywood where studio management make plenty of money and the army of people actually doing the lion's share of the work, especially GFX/SFX, are poorly paid, and accountants make it look like the film barely breaks even.

sergiotapia
4 replies
1d16h

Just like videogames and movies/tv. There's an infinite, ever refreshing revolving door of fresh meat for the grinder. And people want to be part of it regardless.

With such conditions there will never be an increase to pay. It's just the way things will be in these segments - forever!

autoexec
3 replies
1d15h

Just like with movies/tv you can make a lot more progress with unions.

dimgl
2 replies
1d14h

I don't think that necessarily applies. Over time movie stars tend to become their own products and movies sell because of their involvement. I just don't see the same thing happening with animators aside from the most prestigious.

ff2400t
0 replies
1d13h

I think that was reasonable thing to bet over a decade ago. But these days there are very few Big time movie star who can carry a movie on their back. The Last big movie star would be Tom Cruise and he also isn't a surefire way to success by how the latest Mission impossible Performed. The more reasonable thing to bet on these days is Recognizable IP which is what the Big studios have been milking for years. And that also gives more power to the Studio since people don't go to theater for Robert Pattison, they go there for Batman.

autoexec
0 replies
1d14h

TV writers, or even the folks doing lighting and holding microphones don't gain prestige like movie stars do either, but they're in unions which allows them them get better wages.

Gigachad
4 replies
1d17h

Meanwhile furry art is a fairly small industry that pays artists fortunes.

nextworddev
1 replies
1d16h

First time hearing. Any examples I can take a look at?

Gigachad
0 replies
1d16h

It’s a little bit tricky to get the stats because it’s all self employed artists and they don’t tend to post their finances publicly, but you can see some data from patreon. This artist (NSFW https://www.patreon.com/braeburned) has over 4000 monthly paying subscribers. We can’t see what tier they are paying, but even if they all picked the cheapest one, they are earning as much as I earn as a programmer on patreon members alone. And then they have a whole load of merch like printed books, posters, etc that would be earning a decent amount.

Since there are basically no corporations in the furry space, the only cut being taken is the payment provider cut. No management, no marketing, no shareholders. It’s not the highest paying career ever, but I’d say it’s above median.

fluxem
1 replies
1d15h

That’s because no one wants to draw degeneracy. You read stories about what artists had draw because “rent was due” and just shake your head

astrange
0 replies
1d15h

It's because furries are very wealthy because they're all gay IT workers.

pcwalton
3 replies
1d16h

The comments here are talking about how that's the entertainment industry for you, and that's true, but it's also Japan, where salaries are much lower in general than in the US or Europe. Per a quick Google search, at current exchange rates, it's not uncommon to see programmers with 2-3 years of experience earning $30K/year USD there, sometimes lower than that. Japan's economy has been stagnating for decades and that's reflected across the board, not just in entertainment.

neaden
0 replies
1d15h

Labor conditions in Japan in general, in terms of pay and hours, seem so much worse then nations with similar per capita GDP I don't really get why.

franciscop
0 replies
1d14h

(It's another reason why, as a Westerner, you almost certainly do not want to try to live in Japan.)

This is a really bad take, I've lived in Tokyo for 6 years. As a western developer (in IT as we say here in Japan), you will most certain improve your quality of life by moving to e.g. Tokyo vs most USA cities. While what you said it's true, there's also other truths:

- As others comment, as a foreigner working in Tokyo with some experience, you can opt to much higher salaries than the local graduates (for so many reasons). It'd be easy to make 6-8M JPY in Japanese companies, and depending on other factors 8-10M JPY is not rare. Since we are in HN, I'm sure many here can even opt for 10M+ JPY.

- If you can, just work remotely for US/EU while living here, or for a branch of a EU/US company, since salaries will be much higher. That is true. That way you can make 10-30M JPY easily, and with that you can live _very_ comfortable. Only issue you might have is how you manage to get a Visa.

For reference, you can live well as a single guy in Tokyo with 4-5M JPY. Lifestyle is different though, so it depends on what you value, e.g. houses ARE smaller, but neighborhoods are walkable and beautiful (highly depends where you come from). If you do want to have your cake and eat to, meaning living in a "very big" house for Japanese standards while having everything else nice from Japan, yeah you'll need to be making 8M+ JPY for sure.

ekianjo
0 replies
1d15h

at current exchange rates

Looking at exchange rates is the wrong way of looking at things since they vary widely in the space of 5 years or so. You need to look at purchasing power in their local currency. Like eating out in japan is WAY cheaper than in Europe for anything comparable.

And looking at the bubble that is programmers salaries is ridiculous as a benchmark, because then it mostly depends on whether there are large actors to drive such salaries up in said countries.

labster
1 replies
1d15h

I don’t understand why this author completely writes off the possibility of not releasing weekly. Honestly in the era of streaming, who cares about releasing every week? Often I wait until a season is wrapped before watching any of it. As a fan I can’t imagine getting upset at a longer cadence, and at the most slightly annoyed.

johnnyanmac
0 replies
1d11h

It doesn't really matter that much in terms of logistics. Animators will usually be working on episode 8-9 of an anime by the time episode 1 airs. If not outright done with the 12 episode cour.

Weekly schedule is usually done for the sake of broadcast channels, which is still a bit more relevant in Japan than over in rhe West.

jongjong
1 replies
1d14h

I bet a lot of people are thinking "Why don't they do their own animes" but this neglects the reality that all distribution pipelines for any kind of media have been totally monopolized. The anime creator has zero bargaining power over the media monopolist.

throw123123123
0 replies
1d11h

There's the internet.

grumpy_coder
1 replies
1d11h

All hit-driven industries, TV, movies, toys, games, anime, etc... need to be forced to pay the people who make them royalties. Money is always tight most of the time, but when someone makes a hit they need legal protection to a fair share of the huge profits.

Aerroon
0 replies
1d9h

Won't investment in the industry reduce in that case? Ie less anime, movies, tv shows etc will be produced, because potential profits are going to be lower.

Nothing is technically stopping an animator to go and do their own thing. It's just a hugely difficult and expensive undertaking that requires a decent amount of investment. Especially nowadays you could put it on YouTube, but it probably wouldn't be worth their while.

chocolatkey
1 replies
1d16h

Before making conclusions about animator wages being due to lack of this or that, please watch this informative video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iExwO1v_V-s It covers a point that I am not seeing the discussion here, about the role that anime production committees play in the wages of animators and gatekeeping in the industry in general. This channel has other informative videos on the subject as well.

chii
0 replies
1d15h

Why is that video an unlisted video?

zeroCalories
0 replies
1d13h

Damn bro, that sucks. You should quit and get a McJob.

vondur
0 replies
1d17h

This seems to be the case with the entertainment industry in general.

tanime
0 replies
1d14h

and yet they are the first to preach others

sadpolishdev
0 replies
1d8h

so is gamedev so is gastro so is public services so is almost anything that isnt some high-level IT stuff, breaking news

qwll
0 replies
1d15h

The same author also made a video on the subject that has some additional context as well. An example being this part [1] with a QC flow chart.

[1] https://youtu.be/BDEIPa9b3OU?t=934

quadhome
0 replies
1d10h

We're sorry, due to circumstances beyond our control, the script to the rest of the episode was lost on its way overseas. Luckily, the episode was finished by the Korean animators. We hope you enjoy the new ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-ReoBPl4mM

mark336
0 replies
1d12h

I agree with the guys that said they have to accept the industry to shrink, by paying animators what they deserve. I think that the government is failing here. They should be the ones that defend the worker even if the worker wants to get paid $5/hr. I don't agree that people who want to be animators can't because competition for the fairly paid jobs is high. There should be some kind of non-profit level business for people who want to intern and get paid a few bucks if they really are in love with the industry. But corporations should not be allowed to underpay their staff.

lowbloodsugar
0 replies
1d14h

And soon nothing because AI.

jubulence
0 replies
1d6h

Anime prioritises high production rates over quality. Anime looks largely samey. There's a few notable distinctions, like Attack on Titan, but the animators on that are getting paid better then what's being quoted in this article. This article is quoting the pay scales for the animators working on single season anime that get cancelled halfway through that are based on an obscure manga that has only been read because it was published in a major magazine, but was never particularly popular and actually got cancelled a month before the anime came out. Yeah, there's a lot of great anime, and the stuff we get in the West is the stuff that's popular, with proper studios putting time and effort in. The people getting paid $5 a day aren't working on the major productions. Sure, the people that did Fairy Tale probably can get paid more, but the guys working on Visual Prison, yeah, they're not priority. Why don't they unionise? Because the people who would most benefit are afraid they might lose their jobs in the industry they want to work in. Is this backed by studies? Nope, but you tell that to someone facing down the prospect of losing their chance at their dream. And the 15% average wage increase from unionisation, let's be honest, isn't going to do anything. The issue here is the output. If anime is going to be more humane, it needs to cut how much random noise they produce. Look at Western animation. You get a handful of shows a year. Anime you get 3 years of content every 3 months. Workers are the ones that bear the brunt of that schedule.

jsemrau
0 replies
1d13h

I believe that the movie industry is just before a major disruption.

1. Big movie studios have been overproducing content with reduced returns.

2. Business model change to direct-to-consumer (streaming).

3. Regulatory changes (DEI minority interests - Oscars).

4. Technological changes (generative AI).

5. Customer preferences (watch the review on Youtube).

imgabe
0 replies
1d16h

$25 Billion what? Revenue? Profit? Total Transactions? That is a meaningless number without some context. It's also not a whole lot for an entire industry. Why is that supposed to mean that animators should be paid more? They could be making $25 billion in revenue and have razor thin margins or be losing money already.

google234123
0 replies
1d16h

What percent of the content consumed is pirated?

elektrontamer
0 replies
1d8h

This sounds like a "dream job syndrome".

charcircuit
0 replies
1d16h

This title is hyperbole. The worst pay for animators would be for contractors / freelancers doing douga (drawing in betweens) who are very slow at drawing. The pay is per frame so it's all about efficiency. You would have to take multiple days for a frame to only make pennies per day.

brendoelfrendo
0 replies
1d17h

There's an interview with J.C.Staff founder Tomoyuki Miyata making the rounds right now (Japanese language original: https://animan634.com/interview/231215_int_2_1.html; English language summary: https://www.cbr.com/jc-staff-anime-studio-founder-work-stres...) where he talks about how he developed a severe stomach ulcer from work-related stress, had to have 2/3 of his stomach removed, and was back at work 10 days after surgery.

bemmu
0 replies
1d14h

I briefly hung out with a manga illustrator while studying in Japan, and what astonished me was how incredibly fast he was at drawing. We went out for hamburgers, and while I was sitting there munching on my burger he made the initial sketch for an entire page.

aj7
0 replies
1d15h

Yakuza.

a_gnostic
0 replies
1d13h

Get them to unionize so they become less competitive?