I want to leave the US (I’m enby). I would also like a job. Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Here are my options so far, but before I go into it, some context:
A. I know Japanese conversationally- never tested but most likely could clear JLPT N4 with a few weeks of prep.
B. I have a Computer Science: Game Design degree from UC Santa Cruz (highest honors in the major!!), and 2 published Steam games under my belt as producer/composer and sole developer, respectively. A bunch more extracurricular projects besides, on my website (which I will send you if you ask.) I graduated in August of last year.
C. I’m broke. For oversharing sake don’t wanna say the number but 5 figures is far from possible right now. I work as a tutor and am not getting enough hours from my company, even though the pay and work is good.
D. Job market in the US is omega fried, especially in Northern California, ESPECIALLY for games. Can’t get my foot in anywhere.
Seems like my extended family is thinking similar thoughts, trying to get permanent residency somewhere in EU. I’ll link up with my aunt tomorrow on the phone.
Working holiday visa sounds cool, a few options are Australia and New Zealand, but I know quite literally no one there. They have cheaper costs for this visa. Ireland would be my main option, but I don’t know if I can afford it, they need proof of a return flight and health insurance while there, and from cursory viewing looks like I can’t really convert to permanent residency in the 12 months I’d be there, so SOL. Singapore is the cheapest, lol. Also I only qualify for these, for like 4 more months, so that would accelerate the timeline.
THE MAIN THINGY. Teaching English in Japan. I love teaching. I like Japan, and I feel like being there would be the best way for me to end up working at a games studio, given that I have damn near Highly Skilled Professional status (I think?) I think it would just generally be a good idea. Again, I speak Japanese, but can’t currently afford language school, so I guess I need to know where to apply.
Was going to do Italy and jure sanguinis through my Italian great-grandmother, but they changed the rules for it 3 weeks ago, now I don’t qualify.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at. Might have some contract level design work coming up but can’t sustain myself off of it by any measure.
Am I thinking about this right? Any thoughts? Thanks again.
I don’t know the reliability or truthfulness of this information, but I have become aware of a resource detailing all of the possible ways someone might leave to a safer country called Trans World Express.
As for emigrating to Japan through the JET program, I know the YouTuber Dogen has shared a lot of their own experiences and opinions about that, including:
And I know that you’re primarily thinking about leaving the country, but if by chance you think you can make it work in another state there’s a free loan program from Keshet available to help make that happen.
The Dogen links are really good btw, I talked with @halfcourtyeet today so they’re going in with eyes open to a lot of the problems, but definitely I recommend those videos since they’re very good context in general. I don’t think you’re falling into that problem per se from what we talked about
Thanks!! Also yeah, I’m pretty wiped tonight, just got back from dinner, but will update this thread with the notes I took from talking to you, tomorrow.
Just wanted to share specifically about Ireland since i lived there for some time: the housing market is super cooked. It was already super cooked even before the pandemic and world events since then haven’t helped. You could probably rent for fairly cheap somewhere, but that somewhere will be a small town where prospects for a game developer are close to nil.
Yea, actually had that in my notes for Ireland. Housing crisis is a big mess. Probably just gonna scratch it off the list at this point. Thanks for reminding me.
So I’ve been living in Japan for 2017. Currently I do game dev and contract work under my own cooperative, but was previously working as a full time employee in Japanese startups.
I can give you an idea of some avenues you might take to get to Japan. In my case, I had a work visa - at the time I had 7 years experience and N2 level Japanese.
Enroll in a language school/school program that will sponsor your visa. Some schools require that you have proof of a certain amount of money in your bank account, so make sure to check.
JET, GABA, Berlitz or “eikaiwa” - English Schools, for a variety of use cases. These are good to get your foot in the door, and because you have prior experience with games, you can probably escape the “trap” that English schools often have - if you don’t have any other skills it’ll be hard to move into other industries and you’ll be stuck and disillusioned in an environment that doesn’t value you long term.
Work visa. I was very lucky and scouted for a job, but also I’ve heard that someone who is already in Japan has a better chance of getting hired than someone who doesn’t. Some companies will be ok with N4 Japanese; in this case, the more skills you have in the industry the less Japanese will matter.
Self-sponsorship. If you can prove you’re making…I think it’s 200,000 yen a month from a client registered in Japan it is possible to self sponsor. I’ve heard this is quite a painful process though.
Thoughts on HSFP; as someone who got a Highly Skilled Foreign Professional Visa, be aware that this visa is tied to your job. Unlike the work visa, where you can quit, find a new job and work under the same visa, you lose the HSFP if you lose your job. It is, however, a great fast track to permanent residency which is what I used it for.
Ah, one more thing - if you’re interested in pursuing game dev:
Creative Tokyo has some jobs in game dev (Kojima Studios, Grasshopper and others have hired off there)
Indeed Japan and Wantedly are some of the bigger job sites
Best way to find a job is to come to indie events here and talk with people
I think that’s it for the brain dump, haha. I don’t know everything, but probably could at least give you some ideas. Feel free to chat me up if you want more details.
With all this info in mind I have been cooking up a truly mean, TERRIBLE (AKA: awesome) list.
Modest goal is to apply to 1 ALT/Eikaiwa a day, but every other day, do a job off Daijob/Indeed Japan/Wantedly.
Exciting stuff. I’ll see if I can start this evening. I am also still trying to finagle my way into language school on possibly a scholarship, but it doesn’t look likely, at least not at Nagoya International Academy.
Library closes in 10 minutes so I gotta go home, will probably do more of this after I play the Video Games.
Thinking of the same thing here. I’m EU and lived in various countries/places. I’m not too scared of doing it again. My level in Japanese is not as good tho, but I managed to get by when I visited for a couple months. My partner manages to watch drama so she’s not so bad.
My partner and I have a company in NL.
We need to check with JETRO, to see if we can transfer our company from NL to Japan. However, I don’t know how easy that will be (probably very hard), since it’s making little money right now, and not big bucks. Startup and Business Owner Visa seems hell.
I could probably qualify for Highly Skilled Foreign Professional Visa (used to earn okay wages + some scientific papers under my name), a Work Visa, or just learning Japanese at those schools, but all of them would mean giving up my business as I understand it.
Most realistic solution for us would be probably one of us finding a job, and the other coming as spouse or something, but I don’t know it having a company on that kind of VISA is allowed, or possible with taxes.
Most likely, we will end up going to Thailand because it’s easier to open up a business there.
Do check what residency rules apply to running a business in the Netherlands, as well as to personal income tax and social insurance type stuff. I don’t know any particulars, but given what I’ve seen people do, I think it may be possible to run a business while living abroad, and to not pay your social insurance while you live abroad for most of the year, whereas PIT may have to be calculated, paid and filed based on your physical country of residence.
When I was employed directly by a German company while living in Poland, the way they set it up was my contract was supposedly under German labour law, but they paid my social insurance in Poland, and I had to pay any required income tax forward to my local tax office. That was obviously within the EU tho, so your mileage will vary.
Can you tell me about using Wantedly and these Japan-based job sites, how you might go about using them?
Right now I’m literally taking my resume and like, machine translating parts of it to put on my profile (while stating that it’s machine-translated.) DeepL is really good at translating Japanese so I trust it for that.
So far everything on Daijob seems to require N2 or N1 for games-related, which sucks. Definitely something I can pick up once I’m over there, but not until then. Plus, everything on Wantedly is in Japanese, which gives me a hint that I probably need business-level..
I own my companies in the US and I built a business in Japan for a grand total of 3 companies. Tax season is absolute hell for me paying US taxes as well, but I haven’t had any other issues. Unless there’s a special law in the Netherlands, I think you can keep remotely running your businesses from abroad, you just may need help (my parents for one of them, my other two business partners for the other) in case anything physical needs to be done.
Well I can probably keep my company in Netherlands and pay Japan taxes. There’s should not be any problem running it from abroad, if we get some address and a lawyer I guess. (I don’t have anyone locally).
I also don’t know how well it would mix with obtaining VISA >: D.
Tried contacting JETRO yesterday, but the form was broken eheh. They have other forms and I will try getting them.
@halfcourtyeet didnt mean to hijack your thread, but I’m currently trying to do the same thing now that my game is out :')
Jk but yeah let’s keep in touch to see how it works out.
In my own current work, finally got my letters of rec and applied to ALTIA. What a load off my mind- I had been wanting to do that for almost a week, but had mostly spent the last few days/weekend corresponding with people I wanted to write the letter of rec for me.
Now I’m going to be working on Joytalk. Berlitz unfortunately doesn’t seem to have openings at this time for english teachers but I’ll be checking weekly. All the work I did for ALTIA should make me able to get the Joytalk cover letter done in an hour.
Again, unfortunately the school year just started, but I consider myself more or less a competitive candidate- with almost nothing to lose but my time.
Great, they say training is in March 2025… (just fight the hopeless feelings…)
I really didn’t expect to get so much feedback and engagement on this thread by the way. One of the few things comforting my mental health in these utterly monstrous times. Thank you everyone.
