Secretly Miserable: 15 Reasons Working At Nintendo Is The WORST
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These shocking stories about life as a Nintendo employee will make you rethink your feelings on the family-friendly video game company.
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It’s a childhood dream come true. What it must be like to work at Nintendo! Imagine creating new adventures beloved characters, giving the world the raw material from which cherished memories are built. It sounds fantastic, as long as you can block out one crushing truth from your mind: Nintendo is a business. Its only reason for existence is to make as much money as possible. Of course, to draw attention to this fact is to invite accusations of being a cynic — which is understandable. Nobody wants their happy memories of Sunday afternoons with Mario and Link spoiled by anything so vulgar as money. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Nintendo is a business, and people who work there aren’t necessarily living their dreams.
Many current and former Nintendo employees speak highly of the company. This isn’t surprising. As you’ll soon see, those who want to continue working at Nintendo are best off saying nothing- and if you have to say something, it’d better be vague and overflowing with praise. Despite this code of silence, plenty of Nintendo’s secrets have leaked out over the years. In addition to the confessions of Nintendo superstars such as Shigeru Miyamoto, websites like Indeed and Glassdoor allow employees to describe their experience anonymously, and it’s not all good. That kid I mentioned earlier, the one we all knew growing up who had an uncle who worked at Nintendo? That kid’s uncle hated every minute.
15 The Hours Are So Long, Nintendo Has A Nap Room
Japanese working hours are unforgiving. So many workers die from stress that Japanese has word for it, karoshi- literally, “overwork death.” Combine that with the legendary hours of the game industry, and it’s no surprise that workers often forgo going home and choose to sleep at work instead. According to Super Metroid composer Kenji Yamamoto, “It really was hard. Back then, we had a nap room with lots of futons lined up, and staff members took turns sleeping…On Christmas night, we were—of course—working, and when Sakamoto [Metroid’s creator] and I had a late meal, we saw people having a good time on the TV news. We wondered why we couldn’t do that, too!” Nintendo isn’t alone in having office nap rooms or making their employees work on Christmas, but sound like Scrooges all the same.
14 Mario Creator Says Nintendo Wouldn’t Hire Him Today
Remember how we said that Nintendo likes to hire from prestigious universities? That wasn’t always the case. Before Nintendo’s rise to international prominence in the mid-eighties, they couldn’t afford to be so picky. As Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto puts it, “Nintendo has become one of those companies that graduates from colleges and good universities really want to work for. Because of that, the competition’s really become so fierce for positions. And that means that a lot of the recent recruits for Nintendo have tended to have the higher degree from the prestigious colleges and universities and whatnot. I often say to Mr. Iwata: ‘If I was applying for a job here today, I, with my actual college degree, would probably not have been employed by Nintendo!'”
13 Don’t Work For The Japanese Side Of The Company? Cool, Now Shut Up And Follow Orders.
This one shouldn’t be a surprise to Nintendo fans. Close watchers of the company know that the Japanese side of the company calls the shots. As former Nintendo employee Nathaniel Guy put it, “Working for a foreign parent company can be tough. If you’re in America, at least, you’ll be dealing with Nintendo in Japan, and the time difference and language barriers can make things tough. Even with all of the Japanese-English interpreters that Nintendo has, communicating business ideas across cultural boundaries takes a lot of time and careful thought. This can be difficult for people used to dealing only with colleagues who speak their own language.” That’s putting things diplomatically. As one former employee put it on Indeed, “There will be no communication between NOA and NCL (Japan), and nobody in your department will speak Japanese. If YOU speak Japanese, expect to become a translator that isn’t paid like a translator. If you have abilities, expect they will be put to use and not put to paper.”
12 What Happens At Nintendo Stays At Nintendo
Nintendo values their image above all else. It can’t instill a lifelong devotion in children if parents don’t buy Nintendo products, after all. To keep this friendly face pristine, Nintendo employees are discouraged from keeping personal blogs, as one technical recruiter found out in 2007. Jessica Zenner maintained a blog called “Inexcusable Behavior.” Though she never mentioned the company by name, she was fired for discussing her work life. When asked for comment about the firing, then-company spokesperson Perrin Kaplan only said, “We generally don’t encourage [blogs],” and “[Zenner] was expressly discouraged from doing what she did. I’ve seen everything that she’s written and it’s really not work appropriate.”
11 First Rule Of Nintendo: Don’t Talk About Nintendo
OK, the employee in the last entry made references to marijuana on her blog. We can see Nintendo not wanting to be associated with that, but they also fire employees for discussing almost anything about their work life in the public sphere. Enter the case of Chris Pranger, who was fired from his position at the Treehouse Localization Group for discussing why Nintendo elects not to translate some of its games into English on the Part-Time Gamers Podcast. This rather tame discussion was too much for secretive Nintendo, and Pranger was let go. Nintendo’s response to the firing was certainly more tactful than their statement on Zenner’s 2007 firing: “[We have] no comment on this topic other than to wish Chris the best in his future endeavors.”4
10 Nintendo Of America Loves To Hire Contractors- Who Have Fewer Rights And Protections Than Regular Employees
Employees are expensive, and lots of companies cut costs by hiring contractors instead. They’re like full-time employees in that they do whatever job they’re told, but the company doesn’t have to be bothered with things like health insurance, social security payments, and severance pay. Instead, they get a worker they can pay next to nothing and let go without a second thought. This spread of contract positions is bad for middle-class workers, but Nintendo loves a bargain. A quick perusal of Nintendo’s recruitment site reveals contract jobs interpreters, content creators, engineers, product planners, and almost every other game industry job you could name.
9 Nintendo Of Japan’s Screening Process Is Insane
If you want to get hired at Nintendo, it’s easier to start at the bottom. The Japanese branch of the gaming giant likes to mold young graduates into lifelong employees. Unlike their American counterparts, Nintendo of Japan promotes from within. Want to work at NOJ? You’d better be a college student, preferably a Japanese one attending a prestigious university.
You’ll need to hand-write your “entry sheet,” which serves as your resume during the application process. This two-page document details your schooling, hobbies, education, and desired position. It also includes your reason for applying to Nintendo, relevant projects you may have done, and half a page detailing what effect three significant experiences have had on your life.
After you send the entry sheet to Nintendo via snail mail, you move on to a trio of crushingly difficult English, math, and Japanese tests. If you manage to pass these, you move from online to on-site tests, the content of which varies depending on what position you’re applying for.
8 Nintendo Of Japan’s Interview Gauntlet Spares No One
The next step is an HR screening interview. That’s right, all this effort just to get to a screening. Most companies do this after the HR manager looks at your resume for six seconds and decides not to throw it in the trash. If you pass this screening, you’ll move onto a meeting with the head of HR. If he or she deems you worthy it’s time to sit down for your final interview. There aren’t many accounts of this interview online, but according to stories we’ve heard first-hand, it consists of three Nintendo bigwigs and forty-five minutes of awkward silence, punctuated by the occasional question. This final interview is no formality for those who’ve already jumped through Nintendo’s hoops. For the record, our source was denied a job after his interview.
7 Nintendo Truck Drivers Used To Have To Worry About The Yakuza
No company was hotter than Nintendo in 1990. The NES and Famicom were still flying off store shelves, more American children recognized Mario than Mickey Mouse, and the SNES/Super Famicom was on its way. According to David Sheff’s 1993 best-seller Game Over, on the eve of the console’s Japanese launch, there was just one final obstacle: organized crime. The Japanese mafia, known colloquially as Yakuza, wanted to sell the SNES themselves. Seeking to avoid hijackings, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi ordered that the Super Famicom be shipped to retailers in the dead of night. The plan worked, and as far as we know, no shipments were hijacked- though we’re sure a few SF units fell off the truck along the way.
6 You Get One Chance Per Year To Apply To Nintendo Of Japan
Japan likes order and routine. There is a season for everything. The season for starting a new job is April. Imagine you’re looking for a job in Japan. Lost your last one in June? Tough luck. Most major corporations hire once a year, and each cohort of employees starts in April. You might snag a job if you’ve got significant experience in your field, but entry-level applicants get one shot. You can re-apply if you fail, but you still have to wait until the next year. While more common than it used to be, job-hopping is still frowned upon in Japan, and if you fail to get into Nintendo and decide to wait the year before re-applying, you can’t work somewhere else in the meantime.
5 Contractors Receive Low Pay
Check out the preceding Indeed review. Nintendo was apparently paying a skilled worker, who trained employees around the globe, $8 per hour in 2015. Nintendo has offices in Redmond and Bellvue, Washington. A living wage in the area is $13.30 per hour for a single adult living alone. That amount rises to $27.01 for those with one child, and $32.09 for those with two.
Thankfully, minimum wage has gone up since the time of this Indeed review, so we can rest assured that Nintendo contractors are making at least the princely sum of $9.47 per hour. Just imagine, you get to work for Nintendo, and your pay is over $4 higher than needed to keep you above the poverty line! Living the dream.
4 Say Goodbye To Your Nights And Weekends. You Have To Work.
Work-life balance is not part of Nintendo’s lexicon. Employees on Indeed and Glassdoor continuously complain about long hours without so much as a “thank you” from management. “I would rate work/life balance lower if I could. This company is ALL about them!!!! …You are expected to work after hours, on your day off and during vacation time. They will tell you “all hours must be accounted for.” Then they will give you so much to do it will not be humanly possible! When you say you didn’t have time… You are scum and told ‘everyone else got it done.’ You will slowly figure out it is because they work off the clock.”
3 Moving Up Is Next To Impossible
We mentioned Nintendo of Japan likes to hire young and then groom their employees for internal promotion. Apparently, America and Europe didn’t get the memo. Time and time again we found employee reviews lambasting Nintendo for a lack of internal opportunities. This has the nasty effect of forcing otherwise happy employees to search elsewhere if they want to advance their careers. Says one review, “I worked hard, and will always work hard for wherever I may be, but it isn’t really good enough for Nintendo, as they don’t give raises to associates and there is no real promotions[sic]. You can get hired directly by them, but you might as well wait for the end of the world to come. There’s just no room to move up.”
2 Management Communicates Rarely, And May Not Speak Your Language
We talked a bit about the how the Japanese side of Nintendo rules over the other branches, but we glossed over the small fact that those bosses in Japan might not even speak English, and no one is responsible for interpreting or translating. This means that those employees that can speak Japanese end up translating for the rest of their team according to this Indeed review. “HQ in Japan has the final say of almost everything,” says one review. Alternatively, management might just decide to communicate only from on-high through endless emails. “They were almost non-human in their interaction with colleagues,” claims another.
1 There’s More To Nintendo Than Just Video Games
You might have noticed how few of the job titles mentioned so far in this list relate to making video games. We’ve seen accounts from retail, business, marketing, and HR people. None of those departments make video games. Nintendo is a huge company, and while development is where beloved games come together, it takes a dedicated team of people around the world to get those video games into your Switch and 3DS. Most Nintendo employees don’t make video games, but neither do most people working in the video game industry at large. There’s a lot of ways to participate in this field without making art, coding or, designing.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/miserabl-reasons-working-at-nintendo-is-the-worst/