> In Japan, mobility is fundamentally expensive, and relocating to a different region is much harder than outsiders realize.

Unless said mobility is paid for by the company.

As part of the job rotation mentioned in the article, larger Japanese companies are also notorious for reassigning job locations, often at short notice and with zero care for family dynamics. Hence the tanshin-fu'nin phenomenon, where the husband is sent off to work at some factory or regional branch in the sticks for years while the wife brings up the kids elsewhere.

How does the "concentration" of gamedev jobs look like ? In US and I think in most of EU countries that have noticeable gamedev it is usually concentrated in very few cities, so changing job does not necessarily consist a move. But other industries similarly usually have a niche and sometimes whole towns that rose around it.

I think main difference is that there is very little tradition of company thinking they own something to the workers, and (I think) far more of companies just buying out their competition and then gutting any tradition and institutional knowledge within

> (Moving in Japan involves massive upfront rental fees like shikikin (deposit) and reikin (key money), making the physical act of relocating extremely prohibitive.)

I don't think that part is all that different? While we don't have "key money" it's still a big deal to take your life and move it somewhere else