Nintendo of America is facing yet another round of severe allegations that unfavorably alter its family-friendly image. Earlier this year, the company received a labor complaint with former contractors detailing horrific working conditions. Now, more are speaking out.
A report by Kotaku spoke with numerous former Quality Assurance (QA) testers from Aerotek, a staffing organization that works with Nintendo of America, alleging rampant sexism at the company. Some of the common toxic workplace occurrences include wage discrepancies between male and female contractors, unwarranted sexual advances, and profoundly inappropriate behavior in official company platforms.
One former contractor, under the alias of Hannah, explained that Nintendo of America employees created a Microsoft Teams server titled “The Laughing Zone” for what was intended to be lighthearted banter. That quickly changed when a newly hired male translator began sharing screenshots from Reddit, claiming Vaporeon was the ideal Pokémon to have sexual relations with. It’s worth noting that the post in question is an infamous “copypasta” — a block of text (usually memes) that are shared across forums and chat rooms. Not that this makes it any less appropriate for a work environment.
It didn’t stop there, either. Once the conversation pivoted to Genshin Impact, that same translator allegedly spoke about how it was acceptable to be sexually attracted to Paimon, a child character from the game. Hannah claimed this sort of this is common at Nintendo of America.
“Nintendo was almost like a nightmare. It’s sad because I love Nintendo; I grew up with Nintendo. I was so excited to join Nintendo when I first got there, and I thought I was going somewhere,” Hannah said via Kotaku. “I had my supervisors telling me I was doing such a good job.”
When Hannah reported the incident mentioned above, it led to a series of events that culminated in her leaving Aerotek, and her QA gig at Nintendo of America behind.
Persistent sexism and gender discrimination make day-to-day operations at Nintendo of America challenging for female employees. Many have to contend with passive suggestions that they’re only doing well because of certain male colleagues they’re friendly with. Others are accused of being unable to handle inappropriate jokes.
“There was a male [full-time employee] that was constantly making really gross jokes and comments, but he was the friend of everybody there. Everybody loved him,” Hannah explained via Kotaku. “Me and other female employees didn’t like that it was being said. But we didn’t say anything because if you [did], you were called overly sensitive.”
One tester from Lotcheck, a department within Nintendo of America that performs checks on game sales and performance, sent a letter to company leadership that contained dozens of testimonials from employees asking for better working conditions.
“[Lotcheck] felt like a deeply uncomfortable place to be as a woman,” one anonymous contributor said in the letter. “I felt like I was treated with a sense of ‘otherness.’ I have had people act in a way that made me uncomfortable, then asked me not to go to HR about it because I’d be ‘misinterpreting,’ making me feel guilty about my own discomfort. I never felt as included in things or as respected.”
Nintendo of America acknowledged multiple requests from Kotaku‘s report but didn’t comment directly.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
