On May 1, Monolith Soft, developer of the Xenoblade franchise, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and a part of the development team behind the upcoming Tears of the Kingdom, released an announcement stating that they will be raising the basic salary by 22% effective as of April 2023. This basic salary raise will mean that starting salaries for new graduates will be about 250,000 yen. 

In the direct words of the announcement:

From April 2023, our company has implemented not only regular salary increases but also a significant increase in basic salaries due to price increases.

As a result, the starting salary for new graduates will increase by about 22% to 250,000 yen.

At the same time, we have updated the application guidelines for new graduates and mid-career hires.

As they say, it seems that since prices are increasing, basic salaries are following suit in the company. With the success of the recent games they have been a part of, this is something that anyone would be happy to hear. According to Gossiplife, over the course of one month, they will have released the Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed, a highly anticipated and well-reviewed DLC expansion for the third Xenoblade installment, as well as Tears of the Kingdom. 

It is good to hear of companies raising the basic salary for their employees. SEGA of America employees recently unionized in order to fight for better base pay, balanced workloads and improved stable benefits. SEGA employees are only continuing the train started by many other employees such as QA testers from Raven Software, Bioware, Blizzard, and Bethesda.

This base salary pay could have been in response to that, but whatever the reason is, many employees will benefit from the salary increase, which is ultimately a good thing for all employees, to gain this kind of support from their employers.