Video games have real magic in them: a powerful motivator to work shitty dead end jobs for too many hours and inadequate pay. Hopefully more aspiring developers will develop independently, I would rather do hardscaping than work in a studio where my labor didn't belong to me.
A good chunk of anime translators come from the fan translation scene, and the problem with that scene is that it's brainwashed people into think they should work for recognition instead of money. This results in some really fucked-up dynamics, such as:
1. Bootleg streaming sites that charge you for fansubs. This has been a particular thorn in the side of the licensed translation business because the old unspoken rule of "don't translate licensed works" has long since been forgotten. They rely entirely on unpaid labor throughout the chain, and are absolutely parasites on everyone. (If there was one compelling argument for "stop-having-fun-guys" levels of copyright maximalism, it would be these sites.)
2. Crunchyroll's absolutely terrible translator wages. This particular site actually used to be one of those old bootleg streaming services, so when they did "go legit", they kept the underlying mentality of paying people peanuts. They're basically parasites dressed up in a fancy suit.
3. People in the legit side of the business (save for Crunchy) having extremely negative aspersions on anyone who had a history of working in the fan translation scene. Occasionally this is for proper CYA reasons, but more often it's a weird form of elitism.
Quite honestly, I think we should start looking at any industry with fan passion surrounding it as a huge exploitation smell. For every person risking millions of dollars in copyright liability by making a cool fan project, there's probably 9 or 10 more people who became trained professionals the "proper" way and wound up getting jobs at these big companies where they were chewed up and spat out. Any business that has the potential to live off the backs of fan labor is probably doing so, even by accident.
I agree 100% something is wrong. What's curious to me is why it's not fixed.
It's possible it's impossible to make anime and pay a good wage I suppose but ... assuming it is possible you'd expect some animators to quit and start their own company and attract all the talent by paying well and not over-working their employees. So what's preventing that from happening?
Same with games.
One idea (which I don't like), the odds of making a game or anime that make it's money back is extremely small. Either you make Minecraft (game) or One Piece (anime) or you more likely make "Tower Miners" or "Comic Party" (I just googled failed games and failed anime).
Just like saying "I'm going to be a music Rock Star/NYT best selling author/Movie star", the odds that you will be the next hit star are extremely low. It's no different for games. And if it's not a hit you lose money which means you don't make a living wage.
Is that the reason those industries pay so low? Because the odds of them making their money back are like 1000 to 1 against and so they have to keep budgets as small as possible just to survive until they hit the 1 out of the 1000?
Is there some other way to get a $$$$$$$ budget to pay 10-15 people a living wage while the odds of making back that money on sales are 1000 to 1?
PS: I know the story in anime is that prices that broadcasters / publishers pay are low because of history but that seems irrelevant in 2020 when you can reach fans via the internet.
EA is notorious for long hours and mediocre pay. But they pretty much know any game they make will be profitable. I think this is true of many large game companies.
