Percentage Of Female Managers At Nintendo Hasn't Improved, Despite Pledges

Never understood this kind of push people always demand from companies. Sure, make it so that female employees have the same opportunities as male ones, but enforcing quotas and arbitrarily raising wages despite the fact that an equivalent male employee would make the same seems contraproductive and if anything could even sow discord between male and female employees. If Nintendo has measures in place to guarantee the equal treatment of female employees then that's good enough, in my opinion of course.

Competence first, always.

"We have investigated ourselves, and found that we're doing a great job at diversifying, actually. Let's give ourselves a raise!" -male managers at Nintendo (probably)

If you're working for a company and they hire a woman because she's a woman and not because she's good at her job and then give her the same wages as the person that's been there 10 years, it would upset a few people. People should be hired for their work skill, not they're sex.
If I went for a job at a company with 90% female employees and they told me they're hiring me because I'm a guy, I'd feel insulted. Same thing with race. People are too hung up on including everyone instead of just getting the right people for the right job.

@PlasmaticSnake As a woman, I can assure you the assumption we don't have a tendency towards leadership is an ice cold take.

It's a little odd to just hire females to hit a quota. Probably the question should be, why are no females skilled for the roles? Is it culture? It's it training opportunity? Are there many females that want to work at Nintendo ?

Sack Miyamoto, Koizumi and Anouma; bring in Nadine Dorries, Liz Truss and Suella Braverman - it is the only way Nintendo can ever be great again!

@Zverik Just because they have a different take than you doesn't automatically make them Republican/Conservative. I'm in the camp that the best person for the job should be hired regardless of sex, ethnicity, etc. But I am a staunch Independent who thinks there's plenty of lunacy on both sides. I'm also in my 20's.

@steely_pete
Those words sound great on paper, and it's the kind of general statement that most people (including me) are apt to just sort of nod along to. But hey, we're both dudes, I get it - we have no idea what it's like to be not dudes, and we're also pretty good at ignoring decades of anti-female hiring trends, especially in Japan.

Your subheading reads "Annual report also reveals gender pay gap in Japan".
Then during your article it's clearly stated that the salaries are according to experience and time working for the company.
You wanted the outrage clicks, didn't you?

@rallydefault I think it's also important to acknowledge women have no idea what it's like to be a man, either. Each sex has its own set of issues we have to deal with. For example, the ratio of men who commit suicide annually significantly outweighs women. People act like men have such privilege and status in society, but then why are they killing themselves en masse? Not saying men have it worse. But life is hard for everybody, and we need to try and put ourselves in each other's shoes and just practice compassion and mutual understanding.

I don't know why NL even bothered to leave the comments open. We all know they're gonna shut it down by the time Europeans go to bed, lol. But in the meanwhile, I'll be here to chime in.

@Not_Soos
Absolutely, and you have another feel-good message in "everybody needs to understand one another," but I'm commenting about this article's content in particular.

@Abes3 It's a skill issue. Women need to git gud.

(This is 100% a joke, please don't ban me.)

@rallydefault Yeah, I understand. Not dunking on you at all. It's just a qualm I have with society in general that men can't really speak up about their struggles without being labeled a misogynist. You're right that I have no idea about the sociopolitical climate of Japan, though. I like to think men and women receive pretty equal treatment in American workplaces (which I know is up for debate), but I shouldn't assume the Japanese landscape is the same. Which I frankly did until I saw your comment.

@PlasmaticSnake "Maybe, on average, men naturally have more of a tendancy towards leadership than women."

Welcome to 1950.

Umm, it's political agendas and diversity quotas like this that is destroying the movie and games industry.
What has gender got to do with making quality games/movies?
Shouldn't they instead focus on people who are most qualified and passionate about making games rather than ticking the diversity boxes?

@Not_Soos
No worries, all good.

@gcunit I hear they are going to get Dianne Abbot in to see if she can improve the figures.

@k8sMum I'm not sure I understand how it's backwards to acknowledge that sexes have unique differences. Like how society nowadays says it's wrong to "not see color," but we aren't supposed to see sex? It seems like a double standard to me. The OP said "maybe," which is an acknowledgement that they don't know for sure but are just bringing an idea to the table, and "average," acknowledging that there would still be outliers who do have a natural leaning towards leadership. I dunno. I wish we could have open conversation without making judgments of racism or, in this case, sexism. It jusy shuts the whole conversation down and no progress is made.

@Zverik
Bingo. And as predominantly white guys posting here, that's something that most of us don't get or don't want to admit, let alone take Japanese culture into account. It's easier to just go with the "hire the best person" line or "this is all politics" stuff.

@Zverik If this is true, would a black woman hired to a position of leadership not be more likely to hire more black women regardless of competency? Where does it end?

@Zverik Your comments feels like you are happy to discriminate me as a white male but clearly not happy about in other areas.

Just gonna say in a capitalist society like we have, at the end of the day only the quality of the product matters to the average consumer.

I'm pretty sure the majority of us have figured out that these diversity programs and the like are just lip service from the company the same way they deal with pride month. It's a statement of alleviation.

Under the light for X issue?
Say we're committed to Y to solve X.
World keeps turning. Lather, rinse, repeat.

@rallydefault

I'll fully disclose that I am a white male. That doesn't make my feelings any less valid, though, and you don't know the ethnic makeup of the rest of the people on this site to assume they're all white dudes. That's just an assumption on your part based on no factual evidence.

I may be white, but I'm from Appalachia. My hometown is basically dead because we have no job opportunities around here. With the push for greener energy, all the local coal mining facilities have been shutting down. My dad had worked in coal all his life--everyone here has a coal miner in their family. Literally our entire economy is based on it. We have no other resources, and the US government has done nothing to provide us with alternate means of income.

Our plights often go ignored, though, because my people are perceived as ignorant, backwards, inbred, uneducated, barefoot, toothless hillbillies. I'm not saying these caricatures have caused the same amount of damage as blackface, but the effects are still damaging, nonetheless. I used to have so much shame attached to my dialect and worked to try and speak more "properly." I'm not so confident a white guy from the city would want to hire someone like me with such a heavy southern draw that is associated with unlearnedness.

I just want to take a moment to remind everyone of the talented women who are involved in games. Regardless of our views on the topic at hand, I think we can all agree their contributions are invaluable.

Firstly, Yoko Shimomura is, in my opinion, the greatest games composer of all time. Her music moves me deeply. Let's give her some acknowledgment.

The last Animal Crossing was directed by a woman. Call me when a game of this caliber on Playstation or Xbox will be directed by a woman. If you complain more about Nintendo about this question you're just a hypocrite.

Yikes, that’s not cool at all. Come on guys I’m a massive Nintendo fan and have been since I was like, 6 years old, but that doesn’t mean I can’t admit when they screw up.

@PlasmaticSnake I am lover, not a hater.

You can't expect any business to just hand out managerial positions to fill a quota if the right people aren't there to fill the places anyway or even don't apply for them in the first place. It's two year since that pledge made so surely these things will happen over time rather than instantly.

@Not_Soos
It's an assumption, absolutely, but I would bet my house it's true. (You also know it's true, but it doesn't help your point, so you're not gonna admit it - I get it.)

This is crazy - no word of a lie, your hometown sounds exactly like mine. I live in the northeast in "coal country."

But the fascinating thing here is our different takes on our situations and the reasons for them: You seem to be a bit bitter, and you explicitly mention "greener energy" as the reason why coal is no longer as desired and led to the decline of your area. The reality is, coal was going out of fashion looooooong before "green" energy ever became a buzzword. Oil and even natural gas were just way more practical for most people: way less dirty, easier to collect and easier to transport and get into homes. No more coal bins and coal chutes in basements and stuff like that. It wasn't because oil or natural gas was more "green" - I do hope you realize that, right? People in the 70s. 80s and 90s who moved away from coal for oil obviously weren't doing it to lessen their environmental impact lol We still have coal companies around here, and some have found ways to adapt and remain somewhat relevant, but they'll never be at the volume they used to be, but that's called progress: coal is not safe or clean in so many ways.

Anyway, my perspective on this, and you're not gonna like it: You and I are still white dudes, bud. You may feel like people judge you, and they may, but it's not to the level of if you were a minority or if you were a woman. Sorry but not sorry. I agree with your underlying view that biases exist everywhere and can even form as a female CEO hiring more females and such, but in our slice of the world, being the combo of white and male has been a leg up for a very long time.

Quotas send the message that women cannot compete on the merits, and I can't think of a more un-feminist position to take than that.

It's important to consider a few things as an outsider. I'm not Japanese, but I have visited and study the culture.

Women are traditionally supposed to be docile and obedient despite the enormous pressures they face to raise children in a competitive culture, and for those living in cities, to maintain an expensive quality of life. Combine that with long work weeks for men and the expectations from companies like Nintendo where employees sleep under their desks sometimes, making a living and trying to raise a family is difficult for almost everyone. That is why the birthrates in Japan and Korea have dropped so drastically.

You can't ignore these issues when you talk about equal opportunities in any society. It benefits both society and companies to have males and females working in entry level, as well as manager and board level positions, not because it's politically correct, but because it helps maintain a balance in a country struggling to keep up with its own demands. America has many of the same gender and pay gap issues, not just between men and women, but between states. Look at minimum wage in California vs. minimum wage in Wisconsin. Seriously WTF is going on?

Anyway just my two rupees 😉

@Not_Soos
There's also Jade Raymond, the famous producer of the original Assassin's Creed.

@Stamina_Wheel It has nothing to do with some imagined "abilities is leadership". It's to do with what one is trying to do. Some types of activities are what some type of people want to do, other what others want. Leading requires some shared vision. People find together and do things. Having demands on some sort of "ideal" percentage of arbitrary divisions of people destroys natural spontaneous fruitful friendships, and makes things into this modern "corporation", the soul less institution.

@Bablommebite Of course, so the whole issue is that studies show that males are favoured over women in cases of equal competence. If this is the case, then there is an argument to be made for favouring women in the recruitment process, to level the playfield. Now, IF the playfield is already level (which it typically isn't), then of course a low ratio of female executives is not a problem.

I find it fascinating how the comments posted on this site shift depending on the company.

The amount of people moaning about lack of representation on this site quickly shut up and make excuses for the lack of diversity when it's Nintendo thats promoting a corporate culture of misogyny.

Data will tell any story if you beat it up enough. That almost throwaway line that this stat doesn't include the entire company is very telling. Anyone can throw around stats and point to a nebulous problem that cannot be addressed. Get some actual instances and people responsible for the discrimination and then there's a definitive problem with a path to resolution. Until then this is meaningless saber rattling.

Two years is a short turn around time to expect a change in quotas. It takes time to cultivate and grow these types of initiatives. Also, Japanese culture is still going through a lot of social changes. By 2025, there could be an increase?

Relevant point 1: applying western cultural ideals and standards to Japan, a country with a different culture is naive and moot.

Relevant point 2: predominantly male industry has a lack of females, making it harder for females to get into said industry. This is not unique to this industry, and similar issues occur in predominanly female industries when males try to get into it.

Relevant point 3: never hire to fill a quota. Hire the best person for the job. Bias will always exist, however.

Merit/quality over superficialities, always.

@Zverik : Nobody here was talking politics until you chimed in. Sounds like you merely sought an opportunity to smear those with (presumably) conservative views, which shows bad faith by demonstrating an unwillingness to seek any kind of common ground with others, which is not conducive to a constructive discussion.

@k8sMum : The truth doesn't cease to be merely because it's [insert current year].

And I know that my take won't be popular in this neck of the woods, but I would suggest that men are better adept to "ruling" (so to speak) from a macro level, while women rule the world on a "micro" level (by nurturing future generations), which seems symbiotic by design (as so many things tend to be between the sexes). If anything, societies in the first world are regressing in this respect by forcing mothers into the workforce (by rendering it virtually impossible for the average household to be sustained with a single income), rather than to fulfill their natural duty as the primary guardian, especially in those formative years of life. I daresay that there are few things more disempowering to a mother than to forfeit responsibility to somebody else (e.g. the childcare system), while the most disempowering thing for a man would be to fail in his responsibility to provide for and protect his family. But I digress.

If women are considered the best candidate for managerial/leadership positions, then all the power to them, but I think a lot of people also misconceive leadership as one that entails exercising control, rather than that of assuming responsibility and duty over the prosperity and welfare of others, which is what any leader worth their salt should be cultivating.

It's not good to discriminate based on race or gender, but It's NEVER good to hire people for the sake of a quota, you end up with a lot of useless people who bring nothing to the table other than their "identity". Disney has been doing that and look at where it got them.

Nintendo must remain as they are. and give equality of opportunity, NOT of outcome.

@Zverik Young people can have common sense too.

Even if they're proactively aiming to increase the number of female managers it'd be years if not decades before any significant change can be made.

They can't just go around arbitrarily firing or demoting half of their current managers just to make room for new ones. They have to wait for them to move on or retire.

Meh. If affirmative action for race is gone now it may as well be for sex too. Ever stop to think that maybe the potential female candidates just aren't as good as the people who get the job?

Ppl are not seeing that these quotas imply that they think there is an unconscious bias towards employing Japanese males amongst the recruiters both past and present. They're not allowed to say that though.

Nintendo is a software company so of course there won’t be many female managers.

But I think the primary issue in Japan is that it is harder to balance work and life and primarily women for the foreseeable future are going to be raising children in all countries. It isn’t like Europe where in many places people can take lots of vacations, never work overtime and only work 35 hours a week. Plus people stay at companies for much longer than say the US so it’s a huge investment to make someone a manager. If you mess up you could have to deal with the consequences for 20+ years

Until it’s easier for women to take on managerial positions not many are going to want to do it.

I'm so tired of hearing we need X people in X job! We need more women mangers! Why is it always the great jobs we need women but not others? Why isn't there a call to make women garbage workers (which is like 99% men)? What about cell phone tower builders and maintenance? Everyone should be equal not putting one ahead because of sex, etc. Diversity is not a strength in any country. And it's hilarious that they have to fill all of these diversity quotas! In America it's always we need more X people in congress or X job. But you don't see people going to Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico and saying we need more whites, blacks, etc in government. You can't even win Oscar's or awards without having a set number or groups. I mean what does who you have sex with mean for winning awards for movie greatness?! It's all out of hand sadly.

As with all things in this field, ‘this is bad, and they should work harder to improve’ applies. It’s not that complicated.

@Not_Soos I feel like you're talking about individual injustices for lack of a better term. Whereas tackling the pay gap or racism is dealing with institutionalized/systemic injustice. I think it's very hard for the majority group to see the injustice because they don't have to live with it every day. You sound like you mean well but you're way off base about this.

@Zverik You're asserting the existence of "invisible privilege" that elevates unqualified men and thwarts otherwise qualified women. Where is the evidence? And a disparity alone (whether sexual or racial or whatever) is not per se evidence of prejudice or discrimination.

@NinjaNicky That's pretty much it, but some people are too blind to see it or decide to stay in denial.

Man, Not sure if I should laugh or cry when I read articles and comments like these.

I'm not going to pretend I understand the sensitivity of the topic, all I want is Nintendo to keep making good games. Their track record has been pretty excellent so far so I'm of the camp that they should just continue doing what they're doing.

Not to bring social or political issues into video games but I guess I’ll give my two cents at the expense of being hated lol. A lot of these are assumptions so don’t take any of this too seriously, just kinda a thought.

Nintendo is a software/videogame company. More men tend to play video games than women. So I’m sure they have more men applying than women, causing them to have more men employees. You need certain skill sets for certain positions, so if there are a lot more men applicants than women, you’ll tend to find a good amount of your talent from the larger pool (this being men).

Same goes for management. There are probably more men working there, so when an opportunity for a management position arises, they look at who is the most qualified. Sometimes it’s a girl, sometimes it’s a guy. But when you have more men in the applicant pool, statistics say it’ll be a guy the majority of the time.

Gaming and software are slowly becoming mediums with more women joining in, so I think we’ll see a rise in women employees and managers in these fields as time goes on. But yeah, it’ll take time. This has nothing to do with lower drive or intelligence, that’s not a thing imo. It’s just an industry where men are more interested and applying to these positions. And as stated, the gap is slowly changing over time which is neat.

Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone lol.

People tend to forget that men and women are different on a biological level. Even recent studies with primates has shown males and females to have very different tastes, all without coaxing or being taught. The craziest thing is that even among the primates used during the experiment, the males were attracted to traditionally boy oriented objects, while the females were attracted to female oriented objects.

The conclusion was that we were wrong about preference among Men and Women being nurture-only, and that a there is a biological aspect driving the differences between men and women. Even more interesting are studies showing clear differences in the brains of men and women and how they operate.

This is why I believe not in total equality, at least not to the point where we push everyone to do the same thing and act shocked when one sex doesn’t want to do it. We are equal in dignity, but complimentary in functionality.

I want a company where every high leadership position is covered by someone from every country in the world. And it’s a 50/50 split between men and women then I will be happy xx I’m not sure of percentage in the world of people who identify as neither but they will have to be there as well xxx what product do these people make? I’m not sure but at least they ticking all boxes xxxxx

@Altaria_97 "More men tend to play video games than women."
This is just barely correct, by a remarkably small percent.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/326420/console-gamers-gender/

@Sisilly_G
That all sounds very "keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while I go out with my sword and slay the dragons."

One of societies biggest changes came during WWII when women found they could actually do more than that. I graduated from high school 100 years ago. Well, 1968. Girls, even smart, talented ones were not encouraged to take the higher math and science courses: they're just going to get married/pregnant (in whichever order) so why bother. Plus, men had families to support whilst women worked for a bit extra pocket money.

Opportunity is the key, imho. The lack of it makes a huge difference. You see the sexes roles as you do because it's what society has said is the norm. Change is hard. Imho, a lot of the anger straight white males feel stems from the fear of losing however much or little power they feel they have left. There's bound to be resentment.

Not all women would be good company executives. Neither would all men. But the opportunity needs to be open to all that may be.

It's hilarious that people think companies hire "the best person for the job." It's almost as if none of you have ever had a job before.

@RupeeClock "it included playing games on 'any kind of device', and gives no insight into genre, length of play time, spending habits, etc."

It doesn't have to.
Video games are video games.
Playing video games is playing video games. It's that easy.

@Altaria_97 It's also worth considering that at the same time things can get needlessly entrenched by history. The profession of Chef is male dominated even though cooking isn't a male-focused activity.

Similarly for gaming the 80s, young boys were the main target demographic for games, which were made by men about things men would like. However when games came out that appealed to girls or gender neutral came out it expanded the game market massively.

Iwata once noted that the demographics for the Gameboy at launch was close to 50-50 due to Tetris. But obviously as it got more games from NES-era franchises that were targeted towards boys and men the demographics pulled back towards males.

They also need to be aware not to make a self-fulfilling prophecy where by their old demographic focus their company become slanted towards men, which leads to software and decisions to favour men. Thus a company slanted even more towards men. When their biggest area for growth and becoming a more successful company was in appealing to women.

You only need to look at the colossal growth of Animal Crossing since New Leaf under it's current female director to see there's definitely value in female management.

I've been a hiring manager for 20 years, and I can tell you that when you ignore race and gender completely, and truly focus on hiring the most qualified person for a position, the individual who represents the best fit for the type of work culture you are crafting, people with the right attitude, work ethic and values, you automatically end up with a diverse work force with representation from across the board. It happens by default, because there is talent and passion and commitment across the spectrum of gender and ethnicity. I've built teams that were comprised of 50% women in historically, male dominated fields, and seen many of them developed up into district and area managers or company executives right alongside their male counterparts, but I never accomplished that by entering the hiring process looking for a specific gender or race to tick a box or fill a quota.

There is a sentiment that we need to do that to fight back against discrimination, but the very act of doing that is discrimination in itself. There is also a notion that there is some prevalent bias toward offering positions to men over women, but the truth is, if you are an executive or manager responsible for hiring, and you like your job and respect the company you work for, your ultimate goal is to help it thrive and continue to achieve success. You don't accomplish this by passing over competent individuals within protected groups in favor of hiring less competent individuals, men or otherwise. "Best person for the job" is the mantra we should live by, and we need to be blind to all other factors including race and gender. We should not be striving to hire more of any type of person, nor should we refrain from hiring any one type of person.

Of course, having said all of this, you are often at the mercy of your candidate pool. There is important data missing in the article above. If we could see what percentage of Nintendo applicants were female, along with a general breakdown of their qualifications, we would be able to paint a more informed picture of what is truly transpiring with the situation.

@RupeeClock That's because playing 30 minutes of Fortnite or Adorable Home, is no less gaming than playing 30 hours of Tears of the Kingdom or Diablo 4.
Games are games, no matter what.

Well it seems like some people on here live in some magical land where misogyny is not an ingrained part of the culture. Sounds great.

@Grail_Quest
Our place does "blind" applications in that all personal details are removed from the forms when you do the sift, which sounds similar to your place. It's great and ensures that the right person is chosen for interview on merit.

However, that does not stop out place having a gender pay gap. You could close this gap bnot by proactively hiring, but creating an environment that is not anti-female or pro-male. This could be in wider society as well as at the individual workplaces.

@Altaria_97 Japanese women do play video games though. If they don't have a console, they play on mobile, PC for not-so-intensive releases or just go to the arcade. You have lots of opportunities to play games there.

Competence first, gender never. If someone's superb at their job, they deserve to keep it or get a raise. Gender shouldn't be a factor. A fun fact, but not a factor.

I think gender should always be a factor in hiring because females are nice to be around during the day. I picture hanging out with all dudes at work every day and it bums me out. I went to an all boys military school - we act like animals when we don't have ladies to balance out our debased nature.

Is that chauvinistic? I don't care.

tldr: Women and men are good for each other because human beings are strange animals.

As usual people asking for equality of opportunity. which is a fantastic idea. But in reality want equality of outcome, which is impossible to get by it's own merits, so then people end up being hired, not because of their ability to do a job, but more because their hiring ticks a diversity box.

@Rambler,

The problem with the gender pay gap idea, is it's never based on actual fair comparisons, there are things bot sexes do to get more or less money.

Hire people for their skills, not to check a diversity box

@Rambler,

It's not people living in a magical land, but there is never any wider context or nuance put forward with these arguments, other than, it's simply this way, because it is, more feelings than actual facts and evidence.

The only reason a woman with less qualifications would get a job over a man with more is because they weren't looking for someone that experienced. Really, that decision should be made before putting someone through an interview process, but that's not always the case especially if an interview quota needs to be met and there is not enough suitable candidates. I had been to an interview for a government job where a quota was in place, they were upfront about how many people they were required to interview in the application though.

I was part of a group selecting new team members recently, we were going through candidates and chucking out the ones with 10+ years experience and asking for over $100/hr. We have a budget to keep and what suited us was hiring three freshly graduated engineers that we can build up over hiring another senior engineer with a fixed mentality for $130/hr. Two of them were women and one man because the company as a whole is looking to hire more women in our very VERY male dominated industry, so we have that quota to ensure women are not overlooked. Because most straight men in this industry will always hire another straight man unless given a rule they have to abide by. The other workers don't know I am gay, so I hear a lot utter nonsense that spew out some of these guys mouths. The sexism, the homophobia, the racism. It would be nice if misogyny didn't exist but it does, and our quota is there to fight it. But don't think for a second that the women we hired were less qualified than the men that we also interviewed. Also, being a foreign company on another nationalities land, we need to meet a quota of hiring citizens of the country. This is out of respect for the country we are operating in. These quotas are here for a reason.

Just to touch on issues that arise in heavily male dominated workplaces:
My sister was the only member of her drafting team to be left out of a site trip due to the lack of space in the car. They decided to take male employees with less experience over her so they could have a boy's trip.
Blizzard's toxic environment leading to an employee death.
Chronic sexual harrassment. This is something that is happening in our company that we are fighting tooth and nail against. It's decreasing over time as we hire more women and given them more of a voice and presence in our company.

Once again, these quotas are here for a reason.

@CharlieGirl Damn, didn’t know that. Looked up a few other sources and they seem to be similar statistics. Like I said, what I said was just a random thought based on who I personally know, it wasn’t supposed to be anything concrete. Glad to see gaming become more popular across the board for everyone!