Former Playtester To Receive Settlement Payment From Nintendo Hiring Agency

Yeah, union busting isn’t good. Don’t do that Nintendo

So the actual employer paid out, and part of the pay out was that Nintendo do the bare minimum. As in: pay lip service to the fact that you "can" unionize.

Sounds about right. Business as usual, and will continue as such.

Heh, imagine being North American lmao, couldn't be me
(This is a joke please don't take it serious or be offended.)

@steely_pete I’m personally offended as you clearly are being 100% serious

Nintendo is my favorite video game company, but I will always side with labor when the labor didn't do anything wrong. I think the former playtester wasn't compensated enough.

@Browny Hopefully this gives American employees in the business more courage and motivation to unionize and take steps toward a healthier working environment and conditions.

It's not much, but they have to start somewhere.

@OnlyItsMeReid this was a contracted worker, not an employee part of any union.

In my experience, Unions are another middle man shaking you down for cash paycheck to paycheck and delivering indeterminate results while destributing funds to (in sone cases) dubious political affiliates. Again, not my opinion, actual experience. Another experience: the good and legal union-busting of having random large sums and free elevensies dropped on you biweekly is safe.

Just off to get my chair and popcorn.

I don't how it works in the US, but in my country, contract workers can't unionize, since they aren't really part of the company or public agency. But still, union workers here are extremely entitled and part of the reason government agencies are severely underperforming.

This ended with a whimper - just as anyone would have guessed.

There is no email telling the contractor to find something in the testers record to fire them. (To be honest, the contractor provided the grounds publicly on Twitter.)

@burninmylight
Your optimism is lovely, though likely misplaced when it comes to this. I expect little to change.

Unions make everything worse. Good on Nintendo for not allowing any of that.

@PoorGeno Even if you had only problems with unions yourself.
It doesn't change anything, since you should still have the right to be part in one.

@Jiggies
That is not for Nintendo to decide.

@Jiggies Pretty weird place to use as your sound board for that idea.

The grass is not always greener on the other side, but in all honesty I rather prefer the work laws of my country plus the EU ones, above the mess of working in the US.

So the contractor breached confidentiality rules, complained he was fired for another reason and got a low pay-out. Case closed.

Yeah I can see Aston Carter losing the Nintendo contract over this. (Which has the potential for being impactful to the other contractors that had nothing to do with this) But it still seems like the original firing was valid.

@Ryu_Niiyama , agree. And since the contractor actions led to this being so public it will not be easy for this individual to get hired by anyone else. Anyone with a google search now knows of the confidentially breach.

@Tober true but some folks are so obsessed with “sticking it to the man”/getting a quick payday that they don’t think of the future. Being fired for an NDA breach means that you are a risk to every potential employer no matter the field.

@Tober not going to stop people from grandstanding about how "evil" Nintendo is over this.

Workers have the right to unionize, and I appreciate the court putting Nintendo on notice for trying to hide that fact from their workers.

It's not full worker rights justice, but it's a start.

Just as there are garbage companies, there are garbage unions. Certain unions make sense in hazardous occupations for example. In other situations they are a detriment to everyone. Simply talking about it shouldn't get you fired, nor should being vague about what you're working on. I get breaching an NDA if you mention specifics like build number, game title, names of employees, etc. However, simply mentioning that something was funny because the color change in some background is hardly an NDA offense.

They do have the right to form a union.

I still think Nintendo Co (Kyoto) needs to clean house over at Nintendo of America and discontinue using this temp agency. Nintendo is considered one of the best employers in Japan with very favorable worker treatment. NoA couldn't be further from that reputation.

Unions are evil.

Ask the uk miners

@Jiggies Why choose not to have any nuance there? Do unions sometimes have too big of asks that hurt the profit margin of companies? Yeah probably (not in the case of this) but they led to social security, the 40 hour work week... Hating them outright is like you just think anyone that doesn't own their own company should toil away for the rest of their lives. Weird flex

@MegaMari0 It's not a good corporate edicate and a fireable offence even without an NDA. You are basically publically calling out a fellow worker for being incompetent which would qualify as harassment (would be filed under bullying in most HR handbooks). Think if you screwed up at work and some guy went on Twitter pointing it out for the world to see? Especially if let's say the worker in question was Japanese where face and reputation is a major reason for depression and even suicide in extreme cases. You should always think through the consequences of your actions before posting online even if you think it is funny... it might not be to the person you are making public ridicule of.

You don't do that. If someone screwed up you go to your manager and report the issue. They then work with the worker to resolve the issue. You NEVER go to Twitter and publically ridicule the person in question even if you're being vague about it.

Forgive me for going against the naive tide here, but in my experience (I formerly practiced labor law) it is tough to find more incredibly corrupt organizations than unions. Yes, they are intended to serve an altruistic purpose, but let's not forget that the Department of Labor was created for a reason. If unions served their true purpose - collective bargaining - then perhaps the infection of human nature would be blunted. But, unions exert just as much effort, if not more, in political lobbying and enhancing the cult-like thuggery following that many unions feature. And let's also not forget the brazen, bold-faced corruption and fear tactics of the union bosses.

But, what would really make my blue-collar ancestors' blood boil is all these white-collar "workers" having the audacity to even seek to unionize. Unions are for laborers, not those of us who sit in a chair at a keyboard, meeting room table, etc. It's offensive, I'm sorry...

Another Nintendo scheme. I find it odd people belive working there is like visiting Super Mario World in person.

I see mass layoffs in the future masked by "the recession" followed by even more outsourcing. Wasn't too long ago they closed off their California offices for totally not worker related reasons.

But don't worry, they'll pander to a special interest group (you know the ones) so the news cycle doesn't even notice and Nintendo's stock price & ESG score stay up. Just like Activision does.

@Wexter
As I understand it, the order of events were:
1. Mackenzie Clifton posted the tweet: "in today’s build someone somewhere must have deleted every other texture in the game bc everything is now red. Just like, pure red. it’s very silly."
2. Nintendo fired Clifton in February 2022, providing the following explanation: "terminated for the disclosure of confidential information"
3. In response to this, Clifton filed complaints against Nintendo of America and Aston Carter
4. Clifton further clarified the real reason they were fired, citing an incident where they asked Doug Bowser "What does NoA think about the unionization trend in QA in the games industry as of late?" - which was met with no response. Further, Aston Carter told Clifton to direct "downer questions" elsewhere.

This isn't about Clifton "calling out" another worker because the game they were play testing clearly wasn't in a finished state (which should be assumed for anyone quality testing a game before it is released), it's about large corporations like Nintendo firing people for asking legitimately good questions. This question was not asked to create sedition or internal strife, he wanted to know Nintendo's plan to tackle a very real issue most companies are just choosing to ignore.

This kind of reaction from a company tells the other employees they're not allowed to think and speak freely without suffering consequences.

@Astral-Grain I'm not sure if you've worked in a cooperate environment, but if you do read your HR handbook. I was pointing out that in most corporate handbooks even removing the NDA aspect badmouthing others online is counted as bullying and harassment. Even if the person was only posting online in jest of "look how silly this looks" a lot of workers (especially Japanese workers) would feel humiliated and called out. If a complaint is filed you can lose your job over this.

Back in the mid-2000s, Clif Blezinski of Epic Games used a program to collect Tweets related to Gears of War to find criticisms of his games. This was in the mid-2000s in a far less connected world. It would be rather reasonable that someone on the other side of the globe with different cultural norms can find tweets of their coworkers calling them out. This is why I'm reminding people to be careful with what they post online. It very well can always go back to your employer very easily.

@Atticus-XI Unions protect all workers. It's not just for if you're in a mine or something.
This is great news generally. The NLRB found fault and hopefully Nintendo learned their lesson.

Unions aren't the holy saint some people seem to assume.

@SaikazuSTG Sir, I'm not hating or flexing. All I'm saying is unionized workers have no incentive to be good at their jobs and from a consumer's perspective that's less than ideal.

@SteamEngenius As someone who has done contract work alongside unioned workers... it can be a nightmare when dealing with someone incompetent. You have no real action to reprimand them and the union protects them provided they do the bare minimum.

Not saying unions are bad (a lot of the tech industry needs to unionize), but there are major problems unions cover-up.

@Wexter I need to clarify, do you really think the below Tweet is considered bullying and harassing a coworker?

"in today’s build someone somewhere must have deleted every other texture in the game bc everything is now red. Just like, pure red. it’s very silly."

Even though no names or specific details are provided, that's what you would call "harassment and bullying"?

Comparatively, when an employee is fired for asking a "downer question" in front of other Nintendo employees, that reaction is perfectly reasonable and acceptable then?

I believe that is a double standard.

@Astral-Grain Yes that can classify as bullying and harassment keyword "someone somewhere." It can be classified as bullying and a fireable offence at most companies. And I have ZERO double standards as I pointed out in previous comments that if Nintendo was union-busting that is not okay.

You're looking for an argument and misconstruing my words. And as far as we are aware it was the tweet that got them fired not the question (the question is another matter as a contractor you don't talk to your client's boss about sensitive subjects). That is beside the point.

Do you work in a corporate environment? Based on how you're taking my comment out of the context of my reply to another user you seem to either purposely want to argue with me or don't understand what I'm talking about.

Ha unionize then they had to start paying union fees. Next they'll complain about their pay getting smaller not realizing that union in the USA sucks. Union don't backed the small guys (janitor, associate, production worker, operator), only the big guys (like manager, lead, secretary, supervisor, etc.) while making the small guys pay so they could collect.

@Wexter yeah nah. Don't see it that way. They weren't called out by name. It was a minor thing, a color change, not some game breaking bug. Easily remedied. As for the Japanese work culture, THAT is a can of worms I'm not getting into with you. You seem to be pretty passionate about the bullying/harassing thing. You do you.

@Jiggies Unions only make things worse for the uninformed. Unions create many opportunities and help protect worker rights that may otherwise be lost. The only way to understand the protection they provide though is to experience it yourself.

@MegaMari0 I'm passionate about it because I've managed a team before and I draw rather firm lines. I've seen what a "simple" tweet can do to a person and it was very upsetting (one of the reasons I left the industry).

I only brought in the Japanese work culture as the bulk of Nintendo's development teams are located there and we need to be aware of that. But, I do thank you for the pleasant interaction. I do admit I have a personal bias toward protecting team members from social media.

@Astral-Grain I see it like this. That tweet wasn't just any indirect, it was a very specific scenario that only one or a handful of people would've made. So that guy made the tweet as a way to mock the person(s) while washing his hands because he "didn't call out names". Also, the "it's very silly" can be considered as an insult to many people. Obviously the ones who made that mistake and looked at that tweet would feel embarrased and harrased because Clifton made that public.

@Serpenterror As a former manager, I will tell you that unions are 100% there for the line level. I’ve seen careers saved by the unions that would’ve been unsalvageable in any other company. As someone who has seen both sides from within union and outside I would say union is so much better, and management cannot join unions.

We are whole again, Clifton. We are whole.

Wario & Waluigi are not gonna like giving up some of their precious coins, but good win for the employee up against an intimidating corporate behemoth like Nintendo with crazy resources. Do better Nintie.

... Wun can only hope.

Dude got paid, after bieng fired for being a terrible employee, hired bya terrible contracting company. Now, move along.

@Wexter @Savage_Joe I'm sorry, it's just too one sided to take your views seriously.

If an Employee vaguely complains about their job online without mentioning specifics or names, that employee is committing harassment, bullying, and breaching their NDA.

However, if a Corporation fires an employee for asking a "downer question" and then claims they fired them for other reasons, that is perfectly acceptable behavior.

Strange how corporations are so much better at getting what they want when it comes to legal hiccups. It's almost as if corporations have a whole team of expensive lawyers whereas the average employee does not ...

If I remember right, the guy who got fired wasn't even an official Nintendo employee. He was brought in from a third-party company for the sole purpose to playtest games as a neutral party. It was the third-party company that fired him for making stupid tweets.

@Astral-Grain perhaps your views are also too one sided to take other's seriously?

@Savage_Joe @Astral-Grain

It's a fine line to walk. As we all know, behind all these unions, corporations and employees are people. What one person considers harassment could be grounds for discipline or a pink slip. Others may see it as just being "silly" and "poking fun". These decisions ultimately affect lives, reputations, etc. Personally I saw it as an overreaction by the company. He ended up getting paid for it.

@Atticus-XI I work in a company that has a union. It's thanks to them I have been making more money year over year thanks to the collective bargaining agreement. Not all unions are the same.

So the guy, who was fired for tweeting about a game he was working on, got paid a ton of money. Sounds like the guy just wanted a bit of a payday and figured people would feel bad for him without looking at both sides.

Unions had a very important and necessary function in North America—unfortunately, it’s not the late 1800s/early 1900s anymore

@MegaMari0 I think you said it best from the beginning: "Just as there are garbage companies, there are garbage unions."

I'm not necessarily pro-union or anti-corporation, as you mentioned, both can be awful or great. It all just depends.

Still, it's hard to look at this case where someone who will likely never work in the industry again was awarded only $25,910.00 (before taxes) for corporate wrongdoing against them, and still somehow consider this to be a "win" for Clifton.

The posting and emailing requirements are explicitly specific to the Product Testing Department, and employees therein, only.

It's a singular location and it's not intended for Nintendo of America employees or "offices", as a whole.

@Astral-Grain money awarded by courts are never taxed, since they are labeled as compensation, and not income

@Wexter Nintendo's side? I didn't mean to indicate that exactly.

I only meant to convey you favor the taste of corporate boot polish in general, not just Nintendo's.

When a person wins a small settlement for wrongdoing against them and then people like yourself claim he is a criminal for speaking out against said corporate wrongdoing, it's hard to conclude otherwise.

@Savage_Joe All I can say is that you're confidently wrong here, this is a US case and settlements are absolutely taxable more often than not.

https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/tax-implications-of-settlements-and-judgments

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2019/07/01/five-key-irs-rules-how-lawsuit-settlements-are-taxed/?sh=2e9bfce84db0

I'm still confused to why they were let go - I honestly cannot believe it was over asking a question. If it was, that is incredibly stupid on behalf of the management, and the consequences are now in the open.

As for unions, me, I like having sick pay, holiday pay, not dieing at work, etc.

Here's the thing people forget about Union they gave you a 8 hours work day/40 hours/week, Pension, Sick/Holiday pay, etc. Before this you work for them and they owe you nothing. Most grew up nowdays without thinking how hard those before worked for them to get the benefits now. I callout those whom rag on Union go work the hours they tell you and come back and say your happy to do it dayin/dayout over and over and not complaining or whinning your overworked. It's just like they get S.S. but yet fail to realize before this you retired and there was NO Safety net that is why Unions came about. But people talk contractors you have no protection and yet people rag on Union. People are riding on the coat-tails of those Union benefits but fail to see where it came from. Also Union gave you a wage be not a living wage but a stable paycheck. Union gave you lots of benefits but they fail time and time again to realize without a Union you still benefited from the Union negotiations.

Man I wish I get fired for doing something wrong complain about it and be awarded some big money. What a world we live in

@liljmoore You would willingly be fired publicly and blacklisted from the industry you work in for only $25,910?

You hate your job that much, huh?

Admitted guilt then if they paid lol

@Astral-Grain Nah I don't hate my job. In fact I actually love my job cause it's so relaxing something that's hard to find in the work industry.

@liljmoore I'm glad to hear it, that's a good quality to have, especially these days.

I'm willing to bet you also make more than $25,910 a year.

Imagine being fired from your job, suing for wrongful termination, and being rewarded $25,910 to be "made whole", only to be ridiculed by others for speaking out in the first place. Now imagine someone working at a cushy job state they would willingly trade places with you and forfeit their cushy job they love just because you were awarded a settlement amount that is rightfully owed to you.

Wouldn't that be frustrating to experience?

Love how people think being part of a union stops you from being fired for being an awful employee.

It's very cute to think Nintendo "has been taught a lesson". This is all through the staffing agency, still. This person was not an employee, still. This is go away money from the staffing agency, and not much of it. There's going to be zero impact in Nintendo proper from all this. The whole reason companies use staffing agencies is so they don't have get their hands dirty, and this is an excellent example of why.

@RubyCarbuncle The eevee has a point. If you break the rules even with a union you're still going to get canned. However, unions do make that a lot harder (being both a good thing and a bad thing). It has to be a rather serious screw-up with my experiences with them.

@PoorGeno Very true.

What a lot of people also don't understand is that Unions are a business unto themselves. Not only do you have to pay for representation most of the time, but the people who do the negotiating are essentially a different business, complete with top-level heads that may FAR beyond what they will get for you in the process.

I don't have personal experience but my father did when he worked for the county. Had to pay dues out of his paycheck if he wanted to be in the union and the union reps made a lot of money compared to those they were representing.

It’s not even a big pay out. The damages are 1000 dollars. The rest is back pay (which is what a few months?) and like 130 in interest. This person doesn’t get rehired by the contracting company and Nintendo only has to post a notice informing employees of their legal right to unionize which is usually in their hiring contract or posted in the workplace (you know those posters the labor board makes companies post informing you of your general rights) or accessible from viewing the labor board website anyway. And they only have to post it for 60 days. And Nintendo still stated, hey don’t break the NDA you signed, thanks. Nothing was won here really but a grand, some internet fame and the unemployment line and an easy to google case showing this person breaks NDAs via social media. They are gonna have issues with getting a job with anyone that does a decent reference/background check.

Seriously first rule of NDA is don’t talk about NDA. If you sign one don’t say anything (AT ALL) about your job, what happened, or how you feel about your job. Because just because you don’t think it’s an NDA violation doesn’t mean your client will feel that way.

I'm glad unionization has been popping up in the public conscious lately. American labor practices are beyond atrocious. Greedy enough to make a 1930's cigar-chomping fatcat tycoon blush.

Whether or not anything will actually change beyond the occasional breadcrumb, however...

Not all jobs need unions, but some really do. It always depends.

I work in both classical music and school bus driving. For classical music, unions make a ton of sense. We're made of a ton of performers who are very creative and passionate about what they do. Our work is not very high in demand compared to the huge supply of talent, and there are many easy ways an organization can take advantage of us... making rehearsals go longer (risking injury), rigging auditions, not paying for travel and cartage expenses etc. Which, alone, we'll suffer through it for fear of not getting hired back. But I love working with union-based orchestras, because there's a culture of workers rights that we all follow. I don't have to worry about missing something important because I'm too scared to leave while our director rehearses us a half hour past schedule; chances are, at least 10 others are going to get up and leave right with me as soon as our contracted time is up, or better yet, we get paid killer overtime fees. Plus, orchestras like this tend to have a really on-top-of-it personnel manager. I have a lot to thank previous musicians for for the current work environment.

On the other hand, I'm not part of a union for my school bus company, and I'm glad for it. We get paid a lot more, and our work environment is virtually the same as other locations. This is because of very low supply of workers versus the demand. Not a lot of people are willing to handle the stress of manging kids on the bus while driving a large vehicle, and many people quit their first week. The result is that management is very kind to us all of the time, and they never exploit us because they can't afford to lose us. If anything, that means that there are a lot of coworkers I have that aren't very good at their job and take advantage of their work, which isn't good... but that's not something I personally have to worry about, and a union isn't going to help that. For my school bus company, I'd say a union wouldn't add anything.

I'm sure there are way more scenarios in which unions do or do not work for you... one thing for sure, not all work is the same. Unions aren't universally good or evil across the board.

@Astral-Grain confidently wrong 😂😂😂 that was good

@OnlyItsMeReid Nintendo didn’t do anything but settle this. This employee was not an employee of nintendos but of the company they hired for game testing.

@PoorGeno In my experience, the company has the lion's share of bargaining power when it comes to salary negotiations and setting unrealistic expectations on working conditions. There are good unions and there are bad, but the end of the day those with unions have better job security and higher pay to their counterparts without.

@Kirgo That's not true. Even talk of unions were not allowed at the location of my last employment, which was a reason I put in for the bid.

@DrLuciferen And in my experience, a team protected by unions is like an RPG party where you can't drop the characters that provide the least use and value.

@tkdboy1889 Finally, someone who gets it. My first reps were strapped and invincible career lobbyists, the kind who could get an at-fault employee paid suspension on pubic funds. Three-car garage and a week in Hawaii type lobbyists.

That guy sounds like a troublemaker. I guess bad behavior can get rewarded.