Scandalous news has emerged about Nintendo. Contractors who worked at the company have revealed that the family-friendly, wholesome vibe that a lot of people associate with Nintendo did not apply to their workplace experiences. Instead, they allege that they endured sexual harassment.
Below, we go into the full details of what Nintendo has been accused of. You can visit a Nintendo forum to chat with other players about the accusations and to share your feelings about the situation.
What the Nintendo Contractors Said About Working at the Company
The report about Nintendo originally comes from Kotaku, which spoke with a game tester going under the fake name Hannah for her protection. Hannah described situations where an employee made sexually explicit comments that made her uncomfortable. When she reported it, she was chastised for speaking up.
Hannah mentioned that she was underpaid compared to male co-workers as well. While a junior male contractor in the same department pulled in $19 an hour, she earned only $16 an hour despite her nine years of experience.
Hannah also revealed that Nintendo had a double standard with respect to firings. When she lodged a complaint about harassment from a contractor, Nintendo fired that person. But when she complained about a full-time employee, they simply sent him back to sexual harassment training. This is an example of the type of advantage that full-time workers have over their contractor colleagues.
The report also quotes a former tester who said, “[Product testing] really felt like a frat house sometimes.”
The situation was bad enough for Hannah that eventually she decided to quit. She said, “Nintendo was almost like a nightmare. It’s sad because I love Nintendo; I grew up with Nintendo. I was so excited to join Nintendo when I first got there, and I thought I was going somewhere.”
To make matters worse, some contractors reported that it was hard for female contractors to move into full-time employment positions with Nintendo. So, while being a full-time employee carried more privileges, obtaining those privileges itself was a privilege. When female contractors would ask how they could advance, the company would offer no guidance.
Multiple sources also told Kotaku that product testing manager Melvin Forrest regularly hit on female employees, placing them in an uncomfortable position if they wanted to retain their contracts. Former contract tester Chris Ollis also mentioned that supervisor Eric Bush once tried to get him to ask a female contractor an inappropriate question about her underwear.
Another contractor told about how she was stalked for months by a senior tester—a report that multiple other sources backed up. She had good reason to believe that other staff members were colluding with him, and that she would lose her job if she dared speak up. Her work was plagued by ongoing fear.
Those are just some of the examples of the accusations that contractors made in the report against Nintendo. It seems likely that there are also many workers who have experienced harassment and chosen not to report it.
These are serious allegations, and will be heartbreaking to many as Nintendo is among the top platforms for console gaming. What is most troubling about these reports is that they are not scattered reports of individual, disconnected discretions. Instead, they paint a picture of a workplace with an overarching climate of sexism and exploitation.
The reason each of the individuals accused of harassment in this report were able to get away with their action was because they are propped up by a corporate system that supports them and dis-empowers those they are harassing. Hopefully, Nintendo will realize the seriousness of these reports and take swift action to remedy the conditions to which female contractors have suffered.
