Topic: Nintendo’s Dream Image vs. Inside Reality?

For us as fans, Nintendo has always been about fun, nostalgia, and creativity. On the outside, it feels almost like a dream company.
But according to an in-depth report by IGN, things look different behind the scenes. Nintendo of America kept a lot of its customer support staff on 11-month contracts, asking them to take breaks before rehiring so they wouldn’t become full employees. Some of these contractors stayed for years, doing essential work, but never got the stability of a direct role. Now many are being let go, and some are even training their replacements in South America before they leave.
As consumers, it makes me wonder. We see a brand that means so much to us, but for the people working inside, the picture might not be as bright. Should that matter when we choose how much importance and support to give Nintendo in our lives? Imho yes we should, and they’ll them loudly.

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-customer-support-concer...

@OmnitronVariant As a customer, a company’s ethics matter a lot to me. If I’m not convinced, I stick to the bare minimum (or theoretically zero if they need to be boycotted for example if they support wars). If I find them fair, I’m willing to support them a bit more. Otherwise, for video games I might look at other platforms in the future, like itch.io (though I still need to check more), if they really treat internal people and developers fairly.

I think most of us would be pretty disappointed if we knew the inner workings of the big companies. Even the "happy" ones on the outside. You just don't get that big without having some ruthlessness.

Small companies? Sure, maybe. But the good ones don't stay small for long. And then the inevitable kicks in.

Most of us support horrible companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Nintendo etc. They all have horrible histories. It seems the more horrible a company is the better they do. Most electronic products in the world are made in countries with poor human rights records and for the very lowest price. If these companies were ethical the products would probably cost twice as much or more and then we would all moan about that. The world economy seems to be balancing on a knife edge with economic collapse not far away. The US is never going to be able to pay back its debts as is the case for many other indebted countries. It's great to be moral about your purchases but there are far greater horrors in the world than people not having proper job contracts. You only have to visit an abattoir to see horrors on another scale.

@BonzoBanana I just thought for a moment, if the world were really ethical, games could be so much more beautiful and creative. I think the games and their stories would feel way better.

@Ultra128 Nintendo has a reputation as being one of the best companies to work for in Japan, but considering Japan also has a reputation for not great corporate work environments, it's all relative.

As for customer support being laid off... it's sad and depressing but that is definitely going to be an area where AI causes a lot of jobs to be lost.

@FishyS The closest thing to a silver lining to this situation is that they're transferring those jobs to actual people (albeit cheaper contracts in Latin America) instead of handing them to AI.