The global pandemic has been going on for a year in the West, but even longer in many parts of Asia, where the virus was first discovered. Like many countries, Japan - home to a number of high-profile games studios and publishers - asked workers to stay home, or at least to limit the number of people in the office.
However, reports have emerged that Resident Evil and Monster Hunter developer Capcom, headquartered in Osaka, has been allegedly forcing its employees to work on-site, and refusing to give time off if they catch the virus. These reports come from a whistleblower speaking to Japan's Business Journal, and were reported by Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft.
In the Business Journal piece, published on the 10th March, the anonymous whistleblower details the pressure placed on the employees to "support the Japanese economy". The executives sent an email blaming their decision on last year's cyber attack and data leak, because allowing its employees to work remotely would apparently mean further security risk.
According to the report, anyone who refuses to work in the office will be placed on standby at home (where, if they catch COVID, they have been told it is "your own responsibility" and "at your own risk") or threatened with restrictions on their jobs.
Capcom's PR office responded to the Business Journal, saying that they are "committed to health and safety" and that they had offered staggered hours, telecommuting, and masks to everyone involved, with mandatory temperature checks upon entry and enforced social distancing.
However, the Business Journal could not confirm all of these measures, noting that Capcom does not have or allow workers' unions, and that flexible hours are dependent on your rank within the company.
All of these allegations about Capcom's business practices are not technically against Japan's Labour Standards Act, the Business Journal notes, but states that such practices are exploitative and unfair nonetheless.
[source biz-journal.jp, via kotaku.com]
Comments 86
I do love a good whistleblower. Too Short knew where it was at.
Honestly wouldn't be suprised if this were the case with Konami too
Uh oh. That isn't good.
I hope Capcom reconsiders this because I love their games so far
I like the ace attorney image at the top it feels fitting haha
For a second I thought we were getting Ace Attorney news.
This is terrible, and if I had to bet, I'd say it's probably true.
Capcom, must be pretty bad off if they were unable to set up their studio for remote work properly, when most others have been able to.
Terrible behaviour. Surely illegal.
(If true).
I really wanted to get Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Stories 2, but now I'm not too sure. Especially hearing how the workers are being treated. The games look great, but I don't want to promote more of this treatment to the workers.
@Screen same! I got really excited for a second.
I’m not believing a word of this for now. Don’t trust whistleblowers who won’t reveal their identity. They tend to exaggerate everything.
If true, then Capcom are scumbags.
@Fighter_Hayabusa A studio doesn't necessarily have to be going through some economic hardships to pull stuff like that.
@PBandSmelly I don't think Konami is currently working on anything that would motivate them to push their employees to their limits.
@Yorumi
I sincerely apologize that I am afraid to go places after several family members and friends of mine have passed from covid, I'm sure it's harmless and just fear mongering.
Reading into it more though, if there's a whistleblower that this news is coming from, and not an official source.. then it's probably just a rumor.
@GC-161 This is kinda random, but I just want to say every time I see your profile picture, it makes me think there's a bug crawling on my screen, and I run to grab something to get it off. It's always so startling.
Also that's pretty disappointing of Capcom, so I hope they're forced to due better moving forward now that it's all out in the open now.
Don't believe it.
Too convenient.
Internet's cried wolf too many times now.
Yikes... man I really hope that ain’t true.
This is a perfect example of why companies should be owned, structured and democratically operated by their workers instead of being owned, structured and operated by an unaccountable monied minority. At the very least these capitalists at Capcom should suffer years long house arrest and forfeiture of any money made to the workers.
I’ve worked in Japan for years and I’m not surprised in the slighted. Many Japanese companies are incredibly resistant to change. When asked, my boss said we are “forbidden to work from home.” This is despite the fact that I did WFH during my first year with the company...
If true I'm not surprised , Japanese company's seem too care little for there employee 's
While I don't think this is automatically the disaster it sounds like it could be (as someone who has worked in a warehouse with good protocols with zero cases happening the entire time (admittedly a different-ish experience)), I've never trusted Capcom as a company after Ono's hospitalization ages ago, and I certainly am not trusting them here.
Also this didn't work since tons of Capcom things were leaked a little while ago anyway!
There is nothing surprising here... Japan's labour/workplace 'laws' do not have a good reputation.
Hmm, you know Capcom, games are for fun and entertainment mostly. Can't believe you would ignore safety protocols with possibly people's lives, for a mere game. Sad.
Anonymity is a guaranteed eyeroll (if not facepalm) catalyst in this industry's media coverage by now, although this stuff does warrant investigating and addressing if true. But what you could bet money on from the start is this fan-filled comment section unanimously bashing Capcom with occasional debates on the disease itself... and not a squeak about the connection to the previous data theft - alleged in itself like oh so many "leaks", sure, but it's not like this fandom hasn't swallowed and happily discussed it regardless. Cry boycotts on Capcom games all you want, but we are ones to talk after little effort to boycott the supposed mess at the root of Capcom's [equally supposed] misconduct. If the data theft happened and you consumed the resulting info in full belief it did happen... need I even comment? Even though that wouldn't necessarily cancel out the concern raised in the article either.
And don't bother with "strawman" rebuttals, someone like me will rarely treat fans like toxic waste in any other mode than Ctrl+A to begin with.
@QueenKittenWrite
It's cute you think you matter enough to make anyone mad, lol.
Those are appalling working practices that could in(directly) put staff at risk.
I absolutely love Capcom games, so this has made me angry. It is the staff who make the games who are being out in this position though.
Will this influence the sales of Monster Hunter Rise?
Nope...
allegedly, um that's enough for me to avoid buying the new Monster Hunter.
.
The Death & Return of Crapcom lol
@ATaco exactly. My neighbor got covid-19 and it wasn't serious enough to go to the hospital just normal symptoms. it was the worst two weeks of their lives just the same, definitely not "just the flu" and nothing I or any level headed person would want to go through
Hang on, is this against the law or not? You say it's against the "rules", but don't say what rule it's against.
If there's no current law forbidding it, of course a company is free to get their staff back into the office. There's almost definitely a big productivity cost in having everyone work from home, that businesses aren't going to want to pay for any longer than they need to.
I can imagine all the employees looking at the internal list of upcoming games for the next several years and just giving a big sigh and shaking their heads...
Did everyone survive? My factory never shut down and we were just fine. Without us there's no plastic molding for manufacturing.
We got a bunch of air filters with UV lights, since UV kills the virus, took lots of vitamin D and C.
Lol, this isn't uncommon I'm Japan.
We're still under a state of emergency here, which sounds like the government cares, but in reality my train to work everyday is packed full of people being shoved in and forced to stand neck to neck.
At my workplace, as soon as customers leave the building everyone just ignored social distancing. Staff and managers alike aren't worried.
Can we get this thread shut down? No one ever budges on the covid thing. Everyone just believe what you believe and let's move on s$!t
It's not like someone is going to say "you know I thought covid was a big deal but now I think its no big deal because dude on internet called ppl a lefty and sheep or something"
Ok some comments have been deleted, some of them to keep consistency and not leave random replies flying around out of context, let's not start that over again.
(Let's please stop tagging people whose comments have been removed.)
@ILikeStake this is so true. Once you start referring to people as left or right, the likelihood of a civil discussion goes out the window.
Its allegedly, so it might not even be true
@Donnerkebab it probably isn't. Don't worry about it too much.
So the same crap that goes on in most work places then.
@Dezzy you bring up a good point which I don't know the answer to. My guess is the part where it's being allegedly forced is what's rubbing people the wrong way. By no means do I work for capcom, but my company has allowed a select few to work from home where it made sense. Others are Back at work though, and I'm out and about everyday doing sales calls...well, because I need the money. I may be completely wrong and I'm sure it's different in each country/state, but in most places I've seen that the companies themselves are deciding how to go about the whole work from home or at the office thing.
seems a little to conveinant
@NintendoByNature
What does "forced" even mean in this context though? If they want people back in the office because the productivity was too low with remote work, obviously they're going to have to "force" it, otherwise too many people will just choose the easy option, and the business will suffer.
So I'm not clear what's actually being claimed here. Is Kotaku just misleading people over the fact that everything they're doing is totally fine and normal for a Japanese company? Or is there some actual law they're breaking here?
@Dezzy it's a good and fair point that I'm unsure of.
All they had to mention was the ban on unions for the workers. I wouldn't be surprised if workers were quietly warned that if they reported Capcom not following the guidelines they would be fired. Without union representation it's your word, vs the business and their army of lawyers. Most people would just lose their job because they can't afford the court cases.
I know unions aren't perfect. And there are plenty of examples of unions that go too far or have too much power coughUSpoliceunioncough but in general workers need a union if they are ever to stand up to employers. Unless we are talking about a small business with a handful of employees, all of whom the owner knows personally, employers do not, will not, and never do care about their employees. You are a number on a piece of paper to them and as replaceable as a tool or piece of equipment.
Japan managed to avoid the mass infections seen in many other nations because it already has a lot of sensible activities in place to reduce or limit spread. Telling people to wear masks in Japan is preaching to the choir. I lived in Japan for 5 years and pre-pandemic about a third of people I saw wore them anyway. And Japan was already in the practice of shutting down facilities when there was a considerable number of people infected with something. For example, in schools, if a certain percent of a class catches influenza, then that whole class is told to stay home for a couple days and the whole classroom is thoroughly sanitized.
This just makes me want to buy Resident Evil Village even more.
It wouldn't surprise me. Japan simply couldn't adapt to working from home. Their infrastructure is very behind the times.
@Heavyarms55
Unions are no help if a particular practice (e.g remote working) is heavily damaging the company's revenue. That's a practice that's going to be forced to end either way.
@Dezzy Unions are helpful in protecting employees from capitalists owners demanding they endanger themselves needless to maximize profits they don't get to share in. The reckless endangerment of employees is a prime reason why unions emerged in the first place.
Good decision, Capcom! Time to get people back to work and living life again.
@GrandScribe
Of course you don't get a share of the profits. You only get a share in profits if you're also taking a share in the risk and losses, which your average worker isn't. If they want to do that, they can buy stock. Capcom is publicly traded.
Not going to lie, this has me really second guessing if I'll purchase MH. I really don't want to support this behavior.
@Scrubicius
It shouldn't. Not buying the game isn't going to solve anything.
@Darlinfan
"Useless platitude" aka an opinion you don't agree with. Fair enough. Some of us need to work, earn money and eat.
Oh look major corporation runs roughshod over the interests and safety of the workers which generate its wealth.
Its almost like this whole economic system of companies being dictatorships where the bosses make the decisions and the workers either follow them or lose their living, is like broken or something?
@Dezzy One has to look at why the practice is hurting the company. The union is supposed to be a two way street. It fights for the workers by negotiating with the employer. Part of the agreement would likely be making sure people working from home are still being productive. If the employees don't meet their end of the bargain, then the company is in the right punishing them, or even terminating their employment. However no company has the right to demand employees risk their lives, and their family's lives. And I don't consider that point as open for debate. In fact, I despise anyone who disagrees and thinks it's okay to do that.
@Dezzy since when didn't workers share in more of the risk and losses than the bosses? The capitalists don't get laid off, they don't get their compensation cut in times of hardship, they don't have their positions outsourced, they don't face financial ruin if the company goes belly up.
@Nintendo-or-Noth If the USA is so broke then why isn't the military holding bake sales? The working class is struggling but that's because capitalist don't care if workers live or die only about profits and the government gave all the aid to big corporations who could've afforded to create rainy day funds but chose not to.
@Darlinfan
You're rambling. Brevity goes a long way. I praised Capcom - the company. Of course workers would prefer to be paid to sit at home all day. It's not great in the long run though.
@Dezzy Meanwhile Square-Enix is pleased with the work from home results and is moving to work from home or semi from home permanently for the majority (but not all) roles from now on. And it's also Japanese. This story is about Capcom's dysfunction and mismanagement compared to their peers and their willingness to use employees as the fall guys for their failures.
It's not like there's new information there.
@GrandScribe
They borrowed more money in the last year than in the last 100 years. Wait until the hyper inflation hits.
BTW, shame on the "thought cops" who keep deleting my post just because you don't agree. Lame.
@GrandScribe
What on earth are you talking about? Nearly everything you just said is wrong. The owners are the only ones who pay directly for any loss a company makes. Workers can lose a job sure, but that's not money they already have that's been invested. That's future money that they just won't be paid.
For workers to actually lose money from a company doing badly, they'd have to have their wages retroactively taken back off them if the company doesn't profit, which is simply illegal, that doesn't happen.
@Heavyarms55
You risk your life everytime you walk outside. Risk is a relative concept, not a binary. Covid poses almost no risk to health young people, so it's not reasonable to expect a company to respect that for any longer than they need to. If you want to talk about old people or people with pre-existing health conditions, then it would be a different issue. But I assume most of their staff are under 50, and therefore in very low risk. Especially in Japan, where the death rate has been absolutely tiny. Not much different to the yearly flu in Japan.
@NEStalgia now that is some wonderful news about Square-Enix.
@Nintendo-or-Noth I've been hearing about the dangers of hyper inflation because of borrowing for decades and I ain't seen any hint of it happening yet. I defiantly ain't seen Republicans act like its a danger when in charge of the budget.
@GrandScribe
Assuming you not on foodstamps, food prices have had the sharpest price increase in 40 years.
Cheap chinese products has hidden inflation because they absorb the hit, but thats all going to change. Check back in with me in 6 months.
@Dezzy it's a labor minimizing myth that workers have less skin in the game than the capitalists they work for. It wasn't the Capcom capitalists who were put in needless danger it was the Capcom workers.
@Nintendo-or-Noth correlation does not imply causation, other things have occurred in that time like the rise of big agriculture. Big agriculture companies are capitalist so they have every reason to sell for as high a price as possible. Do you think SNAP is a voucher program? It ain't and it doesn't keep up well with food prices so people on SNAP feel inflation before most others.
@GrandScribe
Capcom is publicly traded. Its owners are thousands of different people, many of which are likely middle class, and possibly even work at Capcom. Many of them were likely in the exact same amount of danger (which given that the death rate for covid in Japan has been tiny, is not much danger at all)
@GrandScribe @GrandScribe
Snap is a voucher program, 100%. Literally. Yes people on foodstamps dont feel it as much because they spend more on food vs a average same sized family, because its free.
"correlation does not imply causation", huh? Prices are up and thats inflation. Money used to further, thats a fact.
@Dezzy that's sorta saying because the United States had some small land owners in the beginning (when voting rights were largely tied to land ownership) that the rich weren't in charge. The big difference is that in the early USA you didn't get more votes because you had more land you only got the one.
The reason Japan has a low rate of COVID deaths is because the nation unlike Capcom has taken the virus seriously. If enough companies act like Capcom that will change.
@Nintendo-or-Noth I've been on SNAP and you might not be meaning to but you ain't telling the truth. Just because prices have gone up doesn't automatically mean it's because of government borrowing.
this only means one thing: AA7
@VoidofLight The problem with that is the workers are the ones who suffer the most. If people stopped buying from Capcom it's the guys at the bottom who have the most to lose. The guys at the top don't need anymore money. They could lose their jobs tomorrow, and worst case scenario they say sorry in front of a camera after the fact, and they live the rest of their lives in rich obscurity. When you're that rich you just accumulate money with little to no effort. I wish boycotting worked, but the front line workers always take the first blow, that and middle management which is just as expendable.
@ThisThompson That is something I didn't consider. So even if people don't buy it, it doesn't mean that the company will exactly change either way. It sucks that's the case honestly.
Sometimes it feels like it's Japanese tradition to suggest game development is the most dangerous job in Japan, lol.
Obviously, none of us know if it's true or not. I don't think it will affect my purchasing decisions going forward either way. That said, it does seem like Capcom is still flailing a bit despite Resident Evil's recent success and Monster Hunter FINALLY hitting it big in the West. They seem stuck halfway between modernization and collapse.
I don’t see a problem with Capcoms stance. I worked all last year during Covid in person.
@NEStalgia
Yeah, but a lot of developers have said working from home has caused major delays for them. I don't think we can just assume to know that they'll all be just fine with it.
All I know is that with my own working from home experience, it is caused a pretty big hit to productivity, because people don't work as hard, and don't communicate as efficiently.
I really don’t care. Rise will be mine come the 26th.
@Sourcecode perhaps...
Kidding. I'll be playing it as well!
The death rate among their employees must be through the roof. Oh wait, no one died? Shocker.
News flash: YOU ARE BEING LIED TO
@GameOtaku millions did. People just have their head in the sand right now. Sad.
We need to boycott Capcom. Its a real shame because they have been on a roll lately, but news they have mistreated their employees to achieve that is despicable indeed.
@Dezzy The productivity hits we've heard of are mostly due to technical issues with bigger studios and how their network is setup with terabytes of assets on internal servers, and how they're accessing that. That can all be worked around and some companies have clearly done that much better. Ironically the smaller companies have done better because they set up for that from the start.
As for people not working as hard or communicating poorly that's a corporate culture issue again. Lots of us end up working more time since it's convenient and we're not spending 1-3 hours a day on the road commuting, and another hour or two preparing and destressing from said commute, so we're actually a lot more productive and a LOT lower stress. But it depends to a degree on of the employees are dedicated and serious or just "useless paycheck collectors"... Where I am home is the same as the office.... Everyone's doing what they'd be doing at their desk anyway, the location is the only difference. There's definitely people that prefer the office, but they're the social people that enjoy talking... The people the rest of us get stressed by trying to filter their never ending voices out while trying to work.
Realistically the future office should be optional. It always should have been. Everyone is different. Square seems to get that. Indies seem to get that. Good old corporate capcom and many others don't seem to get that. The concept and conversation on adapting that really can and should go beyond the pandemic. Back in the 90s we were all told the commute was dead. The office was dead. The internet ended that and everyone would be working from home offices. Then somehow commercial real estate marketing preserved the status quo and companies didn't want to change horses in main stream. Now forced to, done have adapted to the future of the late 20th century. Some, like Capcom, are still stuck in the late 19th century. I mean even NINTENDO out-adapted them. How backwards do you have to be when Nintendo out modernized you?
This is a REALLY bad look for Capcom.
So many companies did this. Often it was this action or people would lose their jobs.
Wow a Japanese company treats is employees poorly who would of thought? In outher news the sky is blue
And this is how you get two new games done. Literally fifty companies on my road kept trading and would of been doing so in exactly the same circumstances.
I want more proof.
Is there one of the E-Mails to read?
Did somebody interview other Employees?
Has somebody checked the Offices and if there are too many Cars on the Parking Lot?
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