Another day, another workplace culture scandal in the games industry. Rumblings around Nintendo of America hit fever pitch a few weeks ago with the filing of a labor complaint against the company. Now, in an article published yesterday, IGN’s interviews with current and former contractors at the company paint a sad picture of allegedly overworked, underpaid and exploited staff.
The core of the story — that contractors are overused by tech giants — is hardly news to anyone with knowledge of how work gets done in a big company. These are customer service reps, forum moderators, store helpers. No matter which country you’re in, they are unlikely to be treated with as much respect as designers, marketing executives, or other senior staff. That’s a sad, realistic truth which we should probably do more about in general.
