Between special traditions for Dragon Quest and the popularity of Monster Hunter, Japanese developers have a storied history of bunking off work to play video games.
Many ordinary people book days off work to play new video games the moment they come out, but that’s also true of the people that make games too – especially in Japan.
Square Enix had such a problem with kids skipping school in order to play Dragon Quest that they purposefully never release new games on a weekday, but it’s not the only franchise that stops Japanese society in its tracks.
The latest title to spark the phenomenon is Monster Hunter Wilds, part of a franchise which has been hugely popular in Japan ever since its inception in 2004. The latest instalment is arguably the best yet and many have skipped work to play it at launch on February 28.
Palworld developers have day off for Monster Hunter Wilds
If you’re an employee at Palworld studio Pocketpair, you don’t even have to book time off yourself. In a post on X, the studio shared a memo which has been sent to staff, informing them that Friday, February 28 will be a company wide holiday.
While the memo doesn’t name Monster Hunter Wilds specifically as the reason, the message jokes that the company has received a series of ‘mysterious’ notices from its employees, who claim they will ‘probably be feeling unwell tomorrow’ (as translated by Automaton) when the game comes out.
‘Please note that updates to Palworld and Craftopia are progressing smoothly and are expected to be implemented as scheduled,’ the memo concludes, in a nod to the public audience.
Monster Hunter Rise sparks day off at VR company
The Monster Hunter franchise is extremely popular in Japan, so you might not be surprised to hear a similar scenario happened with Wilds’ predecessor, Monster Hunter Rise.
In 2021, Masaki Hiyama, owner of VR development company Mark-on, officially declared March 26 ‘MonHun Day’ in a notice to his employees.
As reported by Huffington Post Japan, Hiyama sent a letter, stating: ‘March 26 will be the release date of Monster Hunter Rise, and since it is expected that we will not be able to concentrate on our work, I will be making that day a ‘MonHun vacation’.’
Speaking to the outlet, Hiyama added: ‘There were several employees who said they wanted to take the day off on the 26th because they wanted to play MonHun immediately, so we took the plunge and did this. We received words of thanks and appreciation from employees for giving them this day off.’
Taking time off for Elden Ring
This isn’t the first time Pocketpair has announced a holiday in the name of games. Back in 2022, the studio declared February 25 an ‘Elden Holiday’ to mark the release of Elden Ring.
Incredibly, in a post on X, the studio said employees didn’t have to come into the office the following Monday either, although this wasn’t technically a day off.
Palworld has been criticised for copying Pokémon and other games without ever adding any new ideas of their own, but they’re not doing so entirely cynically and clearly do love video games.
The law against Dragon Quest
Although it’s little known in the West, Dragon Quest is another franchise which is hugely popular in Japan – to the point where it sparked an urban myth around the country’s laws.
Dragon Quest’s popularity in the 90s became so extreme it led to kids skipping school and adults calling in sick from work. It’s important to note that in Japan, there’s no such thing as mandated sick pay, so people were basically losing money to play a game on launch day.
According to the myth, this caused the Japanese government to pass a law which forced Square Enix and Nintendo to release Dragon Quest games on Saturdays, instead of the usual Thursdays, in order to curb widespread truancy.
In actual fact there is no such law, but there is an element of truth to the myth. After the first few Dragon Quest games became a huge hit, Square Enix arranged a special deal with Nintendo so that all future games in the series would be released on Saturdays – something which has been upheld to this day.
Speaking to IGN, Dragon Quest series executive producer, Yuu Miyake, said: ‘Basically, it was the general accepted practice in the industry to have games shipped out on a Thursday, but there were kids who would skip school to go and buy the games. So we arranged with Nintendo to have Dragon Quest released on a Saturday as a special exception to that.’
Cyberpunk 2077 led to a day off at a Chinese developer
This phenomena isn’t limited to just Japan. A game developer based in China, called PeroPeroGames, sent its staff a message to announce a day off on December 10, 2020, in the name of Cyberpunk 2077.
The comical post, shared on Twitter, read: ‘To all employees, with the release of Cyberpunk 2077, we’re expecting many employees to have sudden incidents such as suddenly feeling sick or having an emergency. As such, the studio will be temporarily closed on December 10.
‘Also, for our staff playing games at work: I already pre-downloaded Cyberpunk 2077, so feel free to play it from now on.’
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