In light of recent reports issued by Kotaku and others about worker complaints at Nintendo of America, former president and gaming icon Reggie Fils-Aimé was asked how the company treats its employees. “I know I made it happen [a healthy culture]and certainly what is being described does not appear to be a healthy culture.” Washington Post In an interview on Tuesday.
Fils-Aimé is currently on a mini press tour to promote his new commercial memoir, Game Disruption: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo. Many writers document his time overseeing the company’s largest business unit outside of Japan from its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. However, it arrives as several current and former Nintendo of America employees speak out about exploitative working conditions at the beloved game company, following news of a previously reported labor complaint. Axios.
At the heart of this arrangement is a contractor system that employs hundreds of testers, customer service representatives, and other “partners” in a permanent state where they receive low salaries, poor benefits, and no guarantee of job security even if they do the same work as people in full-time jobs. As I mentioned for the first time before KotakuCurrent and former employees say this creates a two-tier system where our regular colleagues feel like second-rate employees, both in terms of compensation and disrespect for senior officers.
“While reading the stories and reading the reports, it shocked me that this wasn’t the Nintendo I had left,” said Phil Amy. Washington Post. He noted that during his tenure from 2006 to 2019, he held regular lunch meetings with employees, and their colleagues were free to register and attend. A former aide said: Kotaku They were aware of the lunches but had never heard of contract workers being allowed to attend. They and others didn’t even have an entry badge into the main building they were being held in.
Tuesday, IGN issued its own report Documenting complaints about the contractor system and public employee dissatisfaction with some of the ways Nintendo of America operates. “It has always been a positive part of the culture to hire the best contract employees in the company,” said Phils Amy. IGNNintendo podcast In a separate interview. “That split between contract and full-time employees – all I can say is that this isn’t the culture I left at all when I retired from Nintendo.”
Tell dozens of current and former employees whether or not Fils-Aimé and others in leadership knew about it Kotaku Frustration about the contractor system has been well known among employees for years. While morale and specific issues fluctuate over time, complaints about poor pay, and a lack of opportunities for hard-working colleagues to advance within the company, are not new to the past few years, they say.
Fils-Aimé, through his publicist, declined an interview request by Kotaku. He also declined to go into more detail about his recent comments about working conditions at the company. “Reggie has already conveyed his position on this question in other interviews, and since it’s not something he discusses in the book, he doesn’t have anything else to comment on at this time,” the publisher wrote in an email.
“Typical beer trailblazer. Hipster-friendly web buff. Certified alcohol fanatic. Internetaholic. Infuriatingly humble zombie lover.”