Recently, well-known game producer Hideki Kamiya shared a precious historical document on social media: his first payslip when he joined Capcom in May 1994, triggering extensive discussions in the gaming community about the Japanese gaming industry and workplace life in the 1990s.
This yellowed payslip shows that Hideki Kamiya, who was a new employee at the time, had a total income of 210,020 yen in May 1994. After deducting various taxes, fees and insurance, the actual amount he received was 168,770 yen.
Regarding this income, Hideki Kamiya lamented during the interaction that when he joined the company, he had the pure enthusiasm of "money is not important, just let me do what I like!" He recalled that even though the work was extremely intense, he often had to stay at the company, and he did not even have Christmas and New Year holidays, he felt very fulfilled inside. "I feel very happy to be able to pursue the career I want to do." He wrote, "It was really not about money at that time... (although I did want money)." He also revealed that he was hired by Capcom and Namco at the same time, but in the final selection, there was no comparison of the salaries or benefits of the two companies. The only consideration was "what can you do and what projects can you participate in."
The paycheck quickly sparked an enthusiastic response from fans. Many Japanese netizens from the same era shared their entry-level salaries, ranging from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yen, confirming that Hideki Kamiya’s monthly salary of about 210,000 yen was a common level at the time. Some commentators pointed out that this reflected the scale of the company when Capcom was still in the development stage.
In addition, fans also discussed the cost of living at the time. Kamiya mentioned that he lived in an apartment rented by the company in the first year of his employment, and in the second year he moved into Capcom’s social dormitory (employee dormitory) with a monthly rent of only 10,000 yen, which saved him a lot of money. It was not until later that I needed to rent my own house that I felt the pressure of rising rents.
Kamiya Hideki said that these files were accidentally discovered while sorting through old items from the Capcom era. In addition to the pay stubs, he also found some graffiti from that year.
This humble payslip is not only a personal memory, but also a "precious material" that records the workplace ecology of a booming period in the Japanese game industry, allowing future generations to have a glimpse of those golden years of fighting for dreams and love.