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The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

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Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#11
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

It's not about being "showered with benefits", it's about the basic workplace culture leaving employees so uncomfortable and paranoid that (as noted in the article) they literally reenact cartoon plots to auto-press a keyboard so they can go the bathroom without being hassled.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#13
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

The larger concern around contractors, which the article touches on a bit but doesn't really crack open, is that all incentives are structured around the contracted company firing a trouble employee instead of working with them. And by "trouble employee" here, I mean "an employee who has suffered abuse, up to and including actual sexual harassment, from the main company and its staff and could therefore cause legal trouble for the main company."

Protections at the interface of two companies, where the employee is not technically an employee of the main company, are thin on the ground and legally complicated. And whether intentional or not, this has the consequence of making a fertile ground for all manner of quasi-legal employee abuse.

I worked at a company where a contracted employee was sexually harassed by a full-time engineer, and the "support" she got from her boss was clear adavice to keep silent because if the main company felt the situation was too problematic she could cost everyone their job when the main company decided to contract out to another provider. Because that'd be easier for them than even confronting the full-timer responsible.

(... the videogame industry brings its own flavor of sickness to the table above and beyond these general concerns. While my friend was humiliated and depressed as hell about the situation, the reason the threat from her boss even held weight is because they would be there months down the road. A lot of game studios cut their contractors loose when the game is out the door; there's no job security to be had).

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#14
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

The startup I currently work for has (IMO) a reasonable number of benefits

- weekly lunch

- get drunk on the company a handful of times a year

- dogfooding our product for free

- certs + professional development

A company offering substantially less than that I’d consider stingy or too up tight. Not appreciative of the workers. Look at low margin industries like the warehouse.

A company offering more, Id feel good about.

A company offering bean bags, video games, excessive alcohol, I’d definitely feel suspicious about. Who are you trying to buy with these trinkets?

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#15
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

The startup I currently work for has (IMO) a reasonable number of benefits - weekly lunch - get drunk on the company a handful of times a year - dogfooding our product for free - certs + professional development A company offering substantially less than that I’d consider stingy or too up tight. Not appreciative of the workers. Look at low margin industries like the warehouse. A company offering more, Id feel good ab…

It's all relative

Some people are so disconnected they think our company is stingy because our world class chef only oversees lunch service and dinner meals are only comped after 6....

Tech in general has a crazy entitlement problem when it comes to perks.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#16
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

The startup I currently work for has (IMO) a reasonable number of benefits - weekly lunch - get drunk on the company a handful of times a year - dogfooding our product for free - certs + professional development A company offering substantially less than that I’d consider stingy or too up tight. Not appreciative of the workers. Look at low margin industries like the warehouse. A company offering more, Id feel good ab…

I have a hard time taking any company seriously that facilitates the consumption of alcohol during work hours, with the exception of parties/celebrations.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#17
I suppose this is run-of-the-mill for the video game industry, but man, it's sounds so hellish; people deserve not be humiliated like this at work.

Isn't the solution unions, akin to the heavily unionized movie / TV business? Short of that, Nintendo deserves some bad PR for this at least; as long as people keep leaking their crappy workplace conditions to the press, the execs will have to keep reading these articles, and maybe be they'll be incentivized to make things slightly better.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#18
post #9

The past 20 years for Nintendo have been pretty interesting, to say the least. They started with the Gamecube, a console that sold weak numbers and faced stuff competition despite it's library of modern classics. They followed that up with the iPhone of game consoles, the Wii, and moved hundreds of millions of units like it was no big deal. Seeking to capitalize on that same success, they made the Wii U, which seemin…

Nintendo has a lot of cash and is more of a toy company than a console company. I tend to think they will be fine.

Their weakest link is almost certainly their marketing team. The Wii U was really cool. Nintendo Land was insanely fun. The asymmetric local multiplayer was cool as shit. But nobody understood this. Most people didn’t know the Wii U was a different console.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#19
post #7

> Contractors increasingly see themselves as second-class citizens This made me laugh My dude, you’re not a citizen at all.

Yeah, weird...'contractor' as an employment category by definition means that a company doesn't deal with you as a regular employee. What exactly did these people think they signed up for?

Employers make it a point, often, to blur the lines. Contractors, by government definition, get to choose their own hours, their own tools, they must be compensated dynamically for their expenses. When I was a contractor I felt that I was an FTE with shittier benefits; I was told where to be and when to be there, my tools were dictated to me, and if I ever asked about purchasing something to do my job better I was assuredly told, "no". I think, "I feel like a second class citizen" adds up to, "I was duped into FTE with none of the benefits."

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#20
post #4

I never understand articles like this. Am I supposed to feel bad for playtesters because they don't have access to a soccer field and D-pad shaped couches? Most people have jobs without those perks. Does the fact that you do work for a company "in tech" make it worse that you're not showered with benefits? The margins aren't high and the work they are doing can be done by almost anyone.

Every single thing that a company does to contractors is something they eventually want to do to full time employees. If they could, they would convert everyone to contractor status, force awful methods of monitoring employee activity and more.

The mistake I see my fellow engineers make is assuming they're not disposable because they're full time, or that the axe won't eventually turn on them.

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