Hello, I am a Junior vfx artist and I have question
Is Japan better than China in terms of working as a vfx artist? Because I love China and Japan very much, but I am confused about the choice! I have no problem learning Japanese or Chinese.
I can give context for Japan.
Japan’s working conditions aren’t great, and as a junior your pay will be super low. (barring getting lucky with a nice proper company, but those companies tend to only hire top talent)
Labor laws are pretty good but it’s not uncommon to see companies skirting those laws.
You will likely be expected to do overtime and work on weekends, often without extra pay.
I generally discourage people from working in Japan unless you really really want it for some external reason (living with family here etc.)
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1.China is one of the largest gaming markets globally, boasting a massive user base and rapid industry growth.
2.Chinese gaming companies often emphasize efficiency and execution, with a fast-paced work environment and a prevalent culture of overtime. Team collaboration and project orientation are strong.
3.The career development path is relatively flexible, with numerous promotion opportunities, but the competition is also intense. Job-hopping is frequent, and industry mobility is high.
4.In China, artistic innovation in game design is abundant, especially in visuals and aesthetics. Yet, gameplay mechanics suffer from severe homogenization and fierce competition.
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Honestly, I have no problem working overtime or on my days off. I live in Egypt and most of my work is from freelance sites as a VFX artist. For this reason, I want to live in a country where there is a lot of work available in my specialty, and there are only three: America, China, and Japan. Apart from the low salary and extra hours, what do you prefer, China or Japan? I will start as a junior and grow with time.
Good but are there many jobs available for game visual artists in China? Because I searched a lot and found only a few.
I guess it would depend on the company. Personally I prefer working at companies with cool people, but everyone’s motivation will be different
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While I understand that going the extra mile when trying to establish yourself can feel like a necessary tradeoff to build a career, I wanted to share a few thoughts on crunch and unpaid overtime. First off, I want to acknowledge that I don’t know your specific situation or circumstances—this is meant as a general statement.
I think some people associate working extra long hours with being “good” or a “hard worker” or as someone who gets the job done. While working hard voluntarily can be rewarding, particularly if you have a personal stake in a project or the company’s success, it becomes exploitation when unpaid overtime is expected as part of the company culture.
If a company expects unpaid overtime as a standard rather than an unfortunate exception, it’s usually because they’re either doing a poor job managing their projects (overscoping) or someone at the top wants to pocket more money while giving less to everyone else. In that latter case, your weekends are essentially making some boss or investor richer so they can buy themselves another luxury car. And sure, maybe working overtime every weekend might help you climb the ranks. But it’s just as likely that they’ll replace you with the next junior hire once you burn out.
Sometimes, of course, we don’t have much choice in these situations. But I’m sharing this to encourage a perspective shift: from “I work hard and will be rewarded for this” to “this is exploitation, and it shouldn’t be normalized as acceptable working conditions.” These days, more and more people are aware that crunch (and exploitation) leads to worse products, so not all companies expect that as it used to be.
Again, I don’t know your mindset or the reasons behind it, and I’m not here to judge. I simply want to advocate for healthier work environments, as this benefits everyone in the long run. After all, artistic inspiration—and great work—often come from living a good life, not from being overworked or exploited.
My suggestion is pretty similar to Niels on Japan:
Unless you are coming to Japan as a foreign student first, it is an incredibly bad idea to attempt to settle in Japan first then look for an offer. You MUST get the offer from any Japanese company before relocating into Japan. Once you get the offer, the hiring company will do most of the paperwork for you for obtaining the working permit in Japan.
Again for junior artists, wage in Japan is not great at all, combined with taxes, health insurance and a weak yen. Also for most junior foreign workers in Japan, they are unlikely to be employed as a “full-time employee” (ćŁç¤ľĺ“ˇ) but contracted worker (契約社員) which is more vulnerable to layoff along with other disadvantages. That said, full-time employee in Japan is not bulletproof.
Another obvious barrier is language. Japanese is not an easy language for most non-East-Asians (similar to Chinese), and most Japanese game studios have pretty high requirement for Japanese proficiency with only a handful exceptions. Junior or senior, the reality is that most Japanese game developers cannot speak work-level English. This is more obvious that most Japanese game devs always switch the UI language of their work-related apps (OS, modelling, graphic software or game engine, etc.) from English to Japanese.