I had heard, anecdotally, that salaries for video game developers in Japan were pretty darn pathetic compared to their Western counterparts. But Japanese game dev blog Japanmanship has made a pretty good attempt at comparing salaries between the UK, U.S. and Japan, using available stats, and it's very interesting.

Taking U.S. salaries from our own Game Developer magazine's Salary Survey, and adding in lots of anecdotal and previously surveyed information, it appears that many Japanese game developer salaries are literally half of those in North America - though a commenter rightly points out: "California really borks the average American salary. The cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area and parts of Los Angeles (where most of the game development in CA occurs) is Tokyo-level." Though not sure 'borks' is the correct phrase, since it's not really a negative effect, just a geographical/cost of living one - affects?

Regarding the game biz in general, though this is again probably more pronounced in Japan, it's noted: "Salaries in similar careers are higher, sometimes much higher. IT workers for example could earn twice as much as a games programmer. If you have exceptional skills and great Japanese abilities you are probably wasting your talents in the game business. Certainly if you’re out to make money games is probably the worst choice. So a desire to work in the Japanese games industry is a must, but it does open you up to exploitation." So... do Japanese games cost half as much to make because of this?

[ADDENDUM: More than one person has asked about specifics about Game Developer's U.S. salary survey, so I want to point out that our education site Game Career Guide has published a portion of our 2006 U.S. salary survey for game professionals. It's lacking some audio and producer/business stats that are in the full magazine survey, because it's student-focused, but it'll give you a good idea.]