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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

#101

Post by UberFly »

elefanten wrote: post #97
someguy5344523 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is Mario Odyssey a failure? From wikipedia: In the United States and Europe, it became Nintendo's fastest-selling Super Mario game ever, with 1.1 million copies sold in the US within five days.[120][121] According to the NPD Group, the game was the best-selling video game of October 2017,[122] and was listed by Amazon as the online retailer's highest-selling game of the year.[123] https://en.wikipedia.org/…

Yeah, Odyssey was a great success. Great sales. Great consumer and critic reviews. I suspect it just got overshadowed by Zelda Breath of the Wild, which really stole the show for the Switch launch year. Edit: Trying to think which Mario game was NOT considered a success? Maybe Mario Sunshine? That goes back to the Gamecube, and looking at it now... that ALSO had good reviews. I don't think there's been a dud in the m…

Yup. Zelda BOTW couldn't be better and along with Odyssey was a perfect way to launch the Switch. Nintendo's success isn't a mystery. Great properties and great games.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#102

Post by blintz »

chaostheory wrote: post #61
blintz wrote: post #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,…

It's gotten slightly better for developers, but the video game industry is horrible for most of the people in it. It's tends to be toxic with lower pay & benefits with much longer hours. I guess that's the price for doing something that you love. imo The only time it works "well" is with successful indie companies.

This is why I think the parallel to the movie industry is so useful: there, you also have actors/production staff/etc willing to work for essentially nothing, and an industry that, without the unions, would be more than happy to exploit them. It's not perfect, but the unions in Hollywood definitely prevent the studios from completely abusing the "doing something that you love" impulse.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#103

Post by blintz »

cwp wrote: post #74
blintz wrote: post #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,…

The solution is go find another job. Everbody, but everybody, is hiring.

You're right in some sense, I mean, software engineering is a skill that lots of companies outside of the video game industry will pay quite well for.

Still, it seems like there is a large oversupply of people who really want to work specifically on video games, and I think they deserve better working conditions than this, right? In an ideal world, there wouldn't be this Faustian bargain of "You can work on what you love, or you can be treated well at work."

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#104

Post by hammyhavoc »

smoldesu wrote: 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…

Strong console sales, weak software sales, especially for third-parties. Lots of Wii consoles sold, but a good number only ever played the bundled Wii Sports disc, and never bought any other title. 3DS and Wii U had the same issue for third-party titles.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#105

Post by hammyhavoc »

EarlKing wrote: post #99
teg4n_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not actually $40 an hour in my experience. It’s closer to $25 and even then the amount of stress and responsibility you have is absurd for being a lowly contractor.

Then don't work there, or do as I directed and leverage time there to get better work elsewhere. A company that is determined to treat people as "human resources" will not be deterred just because you complain. It will be deterred only by failure. So let them fail and in the meantime use their failure as a means to get a leg up yourself.

"Then don't work there". Christ, what privilege.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#106

Post by kderbyma »

UberFly wrote: post #101
elefanten wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Odyssey was a great success. Great sales. Great consumer and critic reviews. I suspect it just got overshadowed by Zelda Breath of the Wild, which really stole the show for the Switch launch year. Edit: Trying to think which Mario game was NOT considered a success? Maybe Mario Sunshine? That goes back to the Gamecube, and looking at it now... that ALSO had good reviews. I don't think there's been a dud in the m…

Yup. Zelda BOTW couldn't be better and along with Odyssey was a perfect way to launch the Switch. Nintendo's success isn't a mystery. Great properties and great games.

I feel there was a lot that BOTW could have improved. mostly the puzzles were boring and repetive, the world started to feel empty, they could have made more creatures, and could have had more story elements

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#107

Post by jabroni_salad »

heavyset_go wrote: post #81
teg4n_ wrote: post #40

Some of the attitude expressed in this comment section show just how out of touch a lot of you are. These contractors are not contractors by choice. They are not even contractors in the sense you probably think like sending an invoice to Nintendo and having it paid. They work for shitty companies like Aerotek that provide very little benefits AND they can only work 10 out of the 12 months of the year due to laws tryi…

It's this. Think Cognizant, Accenture, CyberCoders, etc. They aren't making $200+ an hour as contractors, they're being paid like $40 an hour without any benefits and are treated like garbage.

These workers are part of retail and callcenter, they are surely under $20.

My callcenter experience can be summed up as "better than fastfood or retail I guess"

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#108

Post by AmericanChopper »

pjerem wrote: post #55
AmericanChopper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A contractor is supposed to be a person operating a business that provides services on a contract basis, a contractors business is no different from any other business that provides professional services. A contractor engages in this work knowing that they are exchanging all of their employment rights for better remuneration. This is how I personally manage to get paid anywhere between $200-$500/hour, and the only pe…

You, as an experienced adult contractor, can say this. Now imagine being a naive post-teenager being offered to work in "the greatest video game company of all time" but under the sole little condition that you are hired as a contractor. It works with any big name that you would be personally proud to work for. And what is even more saddening is that the more the brand is loved (Nintendo is part of the childhood of b…

This applies to any type of employment for a “prestigious” brand, or any other type of “dream job” situation. Any company that has that status can get away with inferior working conditions, because their passionate job applicants find the work rewarding for reasons other than money. This is why the entire video games industry has a reputation for poor working conditions.

Absolutely nothing you’ve said has anything at all to do with contracting.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#109

Post by JeremysIron »

We were a Nintendo family when I was a kid (back when that was a meaningful distinction and cross-platform games were very rare) and I continued buying Nintendo systems and games up until the Gamecube era. But at some point I came to a realization and haven't bought anything of theirs since.

Nintendo doesn't take good care of their customers.

There's the confusing half-step hardware upgrades which can potentially leave you with hardware that doesn't technically play the latest games, or has compatibility problems. There's the bizarre hoops you have to jump through to play games with friends online.

But the biggest thing that stops me from buying any new Nintendo platform is that it's going to expire in a way that no modern system should anymore. I have Steam and Microsoft accounts that have records of my purchases from 10 or 15 years ago, and all I have to do is log in and I can download and play them on any new system I get. I don't know how it works on Sony's systems, but I imagine that it's similar. My account is credited with the game, and I can play it when I want to.

When I hear about how people have to keep continually buying classic Nintendo games on their own built-in download service, or lose access to all of their games when they buy a different console unit of the exact same console, or give up on playing with their friends because they can't just tell the service "Account X is my friend," I'm just gobsmacked.

This article makes the case that this attitude of contempt extends to their own employees as well. I think they'd do quite well to eat some humble pie, but I'm not expecting much.

Re: The growing discontent behind Nintendo’s fun facade

#110

Post by wjamesg »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #105
EarlKing wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't work there, or do as I directed and leverage time there to get better work elsewhere. A company that is determined to treat people as "human resources" will not be deterred just because you complain. It will be deterred only by failure. So let them fail and in the meantime use their failure as a means to get a leg up yourself.

"Then don't work there". Christ, what privilege.

A lot of that going on around here, as per usual
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