The salary is actually not that bad in game companies in japan at least from friends who worked in some. Working hours are tough though (a lot of my friends there used to finish at 9-10pm almost everyday) and overtime is usually unpaid (but that's the case for a lot of small companies in japan even though it's illegal and it's not as bad as, for example, architecture companies...)
I guess you probably have the unpaid overtime issue in gamedev everywhere. You're technically not allowed to make someone work more than 48 hrs/week in the EU but I routinely worked 60-70 for weeks to months. (I guess not forced, but you know, the usual persuasion tactics)
My impression is that there's more of a workaholic ethic in Japan though; the programmers I worked with grudgingly put up with it but went straight back to 40 hours given the chance, whereas the guys in Japan seemed to work all hours regardless. No idea whether that extends to programmers.
In japan, there is a strong pressure to not be the first one to leave the office (especially in small companies). Being a workaholic is considered good and being the one who works the longest carry a certain aura of prestige.... So the manager doesn't even really try to persuade you it's the environment around you, when it's officially time to leave for the day and every one around you continues working, it's hard to go back home and you even end up using an excuse like if it was somehow wrong to respect you working hours.
Another thing, if you finish normally at 6pm, if the company organizes a dinner between coworker at an izakaya (a kind of pub), they usually plan to go around 8pm since everyone will still be working or busy at 6pm anyway...
On the flip side, a lot of smaller companies have rest areas and it's not really looked down (at least for programmers) to go and read the newspaper or a manga during working hours to decompress from a problem.
