Question about video game/3-d animation jobs in Japan

[xavven]

I'm currently learning 3-d animation/modelling/ETC. And I'd like to work making video games, or films such as toy story, monsters inc., ETC.

Other than speaking Japanese, how capable do you think I would be at getting a job in Japan working at some small development house?

Is it entirely based on Portfolio like it SHOULD be? or is there the "oh he's foreign so we'll hire this J-man who has a sh*ttier portfolio"

(I'm guessing only the cream of the crop works for places like SquareENIX and SEGA, so i wont even try)

Chances are I'd just give up my dream of working making Japanese video games and work for microsoft or Nintendo
(in North America)

[inthebubble]

You should see the post above recently about working in Japan in music, It applies really close to what you are asking. Even though it has veered off a bit towards the end.

[drpepper]

Basically... you have no chance in hell in getting a job in game creation here. It is slave labor that pays very little and they literally have 1,000's of young otaku waiting in line to be a slave. They put out illustrators and game creators here like india puts out programmers. Forget about it. The only real possible in for a gaijin in the game industry is in transferring titles into English for the non-Japanese markets and that really is more programming and translation related than anything else.

[Charles]

(I'm guessing only the cream of the crop works for places like SquareENIX and SEGA, so i wont even try)

No, they don't just hire the cream of the crop, they also hire hordes of outsourced animation drones in Korea and India. That's who you have to compete with. There is always room at the top for an expert animator, but getting there is nearly impossible when there is no clear career path from entry level to intermediate and beyond.

It is always hard to tell where the CG industry is going. Variety just reported that CG budgets are out of control and eating the Hollywood studios. There's a lot of money being spent on CG, hundreds of millions of bucks. It's an arms race between companies trying to outdo each other by outspending their rivals on hardware and software. The one thing left out of the equation seems to always be the human beings that run all the machines. There are notorious cases like EA games which got sued for forcing production workers to do 60 and 80 hour weeks with no overtime. It's all a mixed bag. And audiences are fickle, they could get sick of all the overhyped FX tomorrow, for all we know.

So stop worrying about trying to get a job in Japan because it's not going to happen for you immediately, the entry level jobs are not for you. You might be able to jump on it later on once you've got some experience and a demo reel. But you are putting the cart ahead of the horse. You've got to get busy and learn the trade, and get some job experience. It's a long career ahead, you have to learn to walk before you can run. There is an old saying by a famous artist, "chance favors the prepared mind." Your chance is a longshot but if you study hard you will be prepared when a chance comes your way.

[drpepper]

There is an old saying by a famous artist, "chance favors the prepared mind."

Funny I never thought of Louis Pasteur as an artist but rather a scientist...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

[Charles]

There is an old saying by a famous artist, "chance favors the prepared mind."

Funny I never thought of Louis Pasteur as an artist but rather a scientist...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

The quote is attributed to Jean (Hans) Arp. Wikipedia is often incorrect and those errors propagate widely across the web.

[drpepper]

http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2195
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/27259.html
http://www.quotationsbook.com/authors/5584/Louis_Pasteur
http://www.worldofquotes.com/author/Louis-Pasteur/1/


yes, yes, I know they are all wrong and you are right.. it was the early 20th century dadaist who said it though I don't see any mention of it on any of his biography pages... and of course that would be 20 years after Pasteur but hey, you can't be wrong could you?

[Charles]

yes, yes, I know they are all wrong and you are right.. it was the early 20th century dadaist who said it though I don't see any mention of it on any of his biography pages... and of course that would be 20 years after Pasteur but hey, you can't be wrong could you?

Who do I trust, my art history professor who knew Arp, or a bunch of anonymous websites that copied all their data from Wikipedia?

It doesn't really matter who said it first, unless you are a pedantic asshole who stalks people online and is determined to hijack any thread they participate in. I'm trying to give this guy some encouragement, and you're determined to carry out your little petty grudge. So let me save you the temptation:

<*PLONK*>

Now you don't have to bother responding to anything I ever say again, because I'll never read it. Anything you write in response to me will just be you showing off again. And that would be really pathetic.

[FG Lurker]

yes, yes, I know they are all wrong and you are right.. it was the early 20th century dadaist who said it though I don't see any mention of it on any of his biography pages... and of course that would be 20 years after Pasteur but hey, you can't be wrong could you?

Who do I trust, my art history professor who knew Arp, or a bunch of anonymous websites that copied all their data from Wikipedia?

Why should we trust you over other web sites chuck? You are no more a reliable source on here than they are.

It doesn't really matter who said it first, unless you are a pedantic asshole who stalks people online and is determined to hijack any thread they participate in.

A pedantic asshole.......Gee Chuck, that sounds like you!

Now you don't have to bother responding to anything I ever say again, because I'll never read it. Anything you write in response to me will just be you showing off again. And that would be really pathetic.

A pedantic asshole with a schoolyard mentality. Yeap, that's Chuck alright! What a prince.

[Socratesabroad]

[FG Lurker]

yes, yes, I know they are all wrong and you are right.. it was the early 20th century dadaist who said it though I don't see any mention of it on any of his biography pages... and of course that would be 20 years after Pasteur but hey, you can't be wrong could you?

Who do I trust, my art history professor who knew Arp, or a bunch of anonymous websites that copied all their data from Wikipedia?

Why should we trust you over other web sites chuck? You are no more a reliable source on here than they are.

And you, sir, are wrong.
We should trust Charles because, unlike wiki and its myriad authors, he is present, identifiable, and accountable]
I would agree with this, except this is an annoymous web forum. Charles could be who he says he is, or he could be someone else. He might have knowledge, or he might not. These things apply equally to the web page authors as they do to any web user not personally known to their readers.

Pedantic asshole, no. Critical thinker, yes.

Whether or not he is right or wrong in this case, he is still a pedantic asshole. How can you disagree with that?

[drpepper]

The only reason I quoted websites is because they are what is at hand and can be shown to others here. I always thought that quote was Pastuer but I thought showing some tangible evidence better than simply saying you're wrong... Not a lot of hardcover books in my place that show quotes from 19th scientists so that is what google is for. I also looked up the guy chucky boy mentioned to see if I could find evidence of that and there was none that I could see. I too am a real person and can be challenged so any 'fact' I throw out there is as valid as his, I merely tried to back it up with"something." You can challenge those sources if you want but until you can show something to the contrary .....

Final fact is, he was wrong, period. He walks around calls me names and says I don't know anything well...



yet again...