{"id":51640,"date":"2025-09-04T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=51640"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:52:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:52:50","slug":"nintendo-employs-surprisingly-high-ratio-of-masters-and-phd-graduates-in-japan-independent-research-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/nintendo-employs-surprisingly-high-ratio-of-masters-and-phd-graduates-in-japan-independent-research-suggests\/","title":{"rendered":"Nintendo employs surprisingly high ratio of master’s and PhD graduates in Japan, independent research suggests\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An investigation into the educational backgrounds of employees of Japanese console game developers by industry blogger Papen<\/a> found that Nintendo employs a surprisingly high number of staff with advanced degrees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papen dug through publicly available information on game developers hired between 2000 and 2023, sourcing things like dev blogs, graduation exhibitions, and interviews to verify their educational backgrounds. Out of 60 Nintendo employees they looked at, 21 were master\u2019s or PhD graduates. Although Papen cautions that his sample may be somewhat biased towards employees who have already made contributions to the company, the figure is significant given that Japan\u2019s average graduate school progression rates are low (according to MEXT<\/a>, it was 14.2% for men and 5.6% for women in 2020). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s said that Japan has relatively few graduate degree holders compared to other countries, which hurts our technological competitiveness, but Nintendo seems to be home to a large number of PhD and master’s degree holders, who are rumored to be both few in numbers and have difficulty finding employment.\u201d As Papen points out, there is a tendency for advanced degree holders to be avoided by employers in Japan<\/a> due to factors such as high starting wages and lateness in joining the job market (many companies are still big on seniority). It\u2019s possible that not only does Nintendo not\u00a0filter out candidates in this way, but actively seeks to attract them. For example, the company is very transparent about differences in starting wages deepening on academic background.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Starting Salary:\u00a0
PhD graduate: \u00a5284,000\u00a0
Master’s graduate: \u00a5267,000\u00a0
University graduate: \u00a5256,000\u00a0
College, junior college, or vocational school graduate: \u00a5233,000\u00a0(via Nintendo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Papen details, most of Nintendo\u2019s grad school hires had master\u2019s degrees, but there were also some PhDs. One engineering doctorate he highlights was involved in creating the Switch\u2019s HD Rumble feature. Artists tended to come from art universities like Tama Art University or Tokyo University of the Arts, while programmers mostly came from science and engineering departments. By contrast, game designers had much more varied educational backgrounds, with no obviously favored field.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game industry blogger Papen found that out of 60 Nintendo employees they looked into, 21 had advanced degrees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":47312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,33],"class_list":["post-51640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news","tag-nintendo"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nNintendo employs surprisingly high ratio of master's and PhD graduates in Japan, independent research suggests\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Game industry blogger Papen found that out of 60 Nintendo employees their looked into, 21 had advanced degrees.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/nintendo-employs-surprisingly-high-ratio-of-masters-and-phd-graduates-in-japan-independent-research-suggests\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nintendo employs surprisingly high ratio of master's and PhD graduates in Japan, independent research suggests\u00a0 - 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