I suppose more than a decade of creating Professor Layton games has fried the brain of Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino, because this bit of news is genuinely insane. According to a recent interview conducted with Famitsu, Hino claims that employees of the developer are given pay raises based on correctly answering quizzes about the company’s games. The exact figure or percentage isn’t included in the interview, but was stated to be large enough to “greatly impact staff morale.”
The statement came up during a question about Level-5 expanding its workforce. Hino noted that the company isn’t looking to expand too quickly, and is actually quite happy with its around 320 employees. Already known to be heavily embracing AI, Hino says, “As many tasks are replaced by AI, ultimately it comes down to what you believe in—whether you love games, and how much you love Level-5’s works.” Naturally (?), this has led to Hino not putting on emphasis on technical skills, but on philosophy.
How do you test one’s philosophy on games? With a “knowledge test,” of course!
“That’s right. We conduct a content knowledge test,” Hino explains, “and employees who score highly will receive a salary increase of around XXXXX yen, regardless of their career level.” This is where Famitsu reporters express astonishment to Hino, though they don’t print the exact number he told them. “We now consider knowledge of and love for the company’s works to be a ‘skill,’” Hino says, possibly cackling like a James Bond villain while saying it.
Hino attempts to explain his own philosophy behind this decision, but I’m not sure how else to read this other than as lunacy. Passion for work is something that should be taken into stronger consideration, sure, but having technical skill will always outweigh pure knowledge or drive. No matter how passionate I am about Level-5’s catalog, that doesn’t mean I can somehow build a game. Tying pay to an arbitrary quiz is also a great way to stop people from even trying to do better as their skill isn’t being valued as much.
Then again, considering how gung ho Hino has been about AI, I’m nearly convinced he asked ChatGPT for this idea.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
