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

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

#41

Post by madrox »

Ecstatify wrote: post #14
madrox wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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.

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

#42

Post by radium3d »

madrox wrote: post #3

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 passionat…

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.

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

#43

Post by badosu »

financypants wrote: post #38
Andrex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

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

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

#45

Post by a_t48 »

kelnos wrote: post #27
oatmeal1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the alternative is starving, they do. The problem isn't children being allowed to work in mines. The problem is the lack of superior alternatives available to them.

Right, and in this case, the superior alternative should be an animator who makes a decent living. Sometimes, unfortunately, we have to legislate the superior alternative into existence. I'm not certain that's a good or necessary move in this particular case (I doubt there are many if any animators where their choice is to be an animator for low wages, or starve and live on the streets), but it's an option. I always…

This is what salary exemption in CA is for, in my understanding. Unless you're making more than twice minimum wage overtime must be paid, even if salaried. The bar may be even higher for certain professions (like software!)

(Caveat that more of the world exists than CA)

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

#46

Post by iosystem »

dsugarman wrote: post #13

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…

[flagged]

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

#47

Post by kelnos »

chasing wrote: post #39
dsugarman wrote: post #13

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…

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.

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.)

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

#48

Post by filoleg »

kelnos wrote: post #27
oatmeal1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the alternative is starving, they do. The problem isn't children being allowed to work in mines. The problem is the lack of superior alternatives available to them.

Right, and in this case, the superior alternative should be an animator who makes a decent living. Sometimes, unfortunately, we have to legislate the superior alternative into existence. I'm not certain that's a good or necessary move in this particular case (I doubt there are many if any animators where their choice is to be an animator for low wages, or starve and live on the streets), but it's an option. I always…

> Right, and in this case, the superior alternative should be an animator who makes a decent living.

I mean, i am not entirely sure about animation, but there is a “superior” alternative to gamedev, and people still willingly choose it over being a software dev elsewhere.

Despite gamedev having way worse WLB and worse pay. Most of gamedevs can easily just become SWEs at a tech company, get paid much more, work much less, and on any numerical metric do better. And many of them intentionally choose not to. And it isn’t for the lack of skill at all.

If it was just due to the lack of superior alternatives, then we wouldn’t see this situation occurring in the gamedev/swe world.

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

#49

Post by dotnet00 »

egypturnash wrote: post #8

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 fro…

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.

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

#50

Post by echelon »

huytersd wrote: post #29

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

> 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.

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