Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

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jdnation
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Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by jdnation »

Disturbing stuff... :( Holy shit!

The article is in Japanese, so here's the link to a Gaf thread collecting tweets commenting on the situation.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1089102

Some collected tweets:
http://togetter.com/li/855984

Kotaku article
http://kotaku.com/report-konami-is-trea ... 1721700073

Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/ ... practices/

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Kenji
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by Kenji »

If it's true, it would certainly explain a lot...
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by unreadphilosophy »

It's no wonder poor Hideo fled the company when he did. I can only imagine what he witnessed first-hand.
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Kenji
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by Kenji »

I also wanna throw out there that a salaryman's existence being utterly miserable is a very common trope.

Now, something you get from pop entertainment should be taken with more than a few grains of salt, but the reputation surrounding places like Ginza, where a whole industry seems to have been built with the purpose of letting salarymen drink themselves into a stupor before the next day of work, speaks in these hyperbolic descriptions' favor. Industries like that don't speak to happy work environments.

This is the norm, and even when treated in pop entertainment, it gets lampooned in a way that only normal things get made fun of. I've yet to see anywhere that describes this as something particularly unjust, though I think most of us Westerners would call it exactly that.

Now, imagine the situation being described at Konami, which was broken by Nikkei. Imagine how much worse it has to be, compared to this miserable norm I've described, to be considered newsworthy material. :?
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by alone in the town »

So, Konami is the videogame equivalent of every shitty employer anyone's ever worked for.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by unreadphilosophy »

It seems like Konami is hell-bent on getting everyone to collectively hate their guts. Though, I think that's already happened at this point.

AlphaOmegaSin has summed it up nicely.

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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by Its Gone Now »

Kenji wrote:I also wanna throw out there that a salaryman's existence being utterly miserable is a very common trope.
You say that but surely it depends on the Salary? a salary as low as $20,000 (which isn't that much) is still more than working full time on minimum wage, so I think the "working" Man in general has it bad these days whether on a salary or not. But we are Human and we all think what we do is harder than what their neighbors are doing.

Programmers earn an average (for decent size studios) of $95,000, same as Audio professionals. Artists, Animators and Game Designers take home about $75,000. All pretty decent salaries.

Minimum wage in America is £7.25 per hour. Making the average annual income about $15,000!!! So people complain about their salaries all the time but they should think themselves lucky to not be breaking your back in a menial task for a pittance, being treated like a sub-human in the process. I've done both, minimum wage sucks waaaaaay more than having a salary of even $20,000+.

Screw Konami, if you are working for them you can easily get a job at another studio. Konami are a huge and I don't think you would struggle to find work elsewhere.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by SPRINGS02 »

Eh, not the best working conditions, and some of it's kinda fucked up. but i kinda laughed about the part where it says they had to punch in and out for work and they have security cameras and have to time in and out for lunch, like oh god, that sounds like a regular sweatshop over there lmao.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by Mephisto »

That's pretty common in most asian countries. Workers being treated like shit, I mean. China is the perfect example. But I wouldn't expect it to happen in Japan ("First world country" anyone?)

Well, fuck them. Konami must bite the dust already.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by warfare315 »

More and more it feels like Konami is on its way out.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by Kenji »

Its Gone Now wrote:You say that but surely it depends on the Salary? a salary as low as $20,000 (which isn't that much) is still more than working full time on minimum wage, so I think the "working" Man in general has it bad these days whether on a salary or not. But we are Human and we all think what we do is harder than what their neighbors are doing.
I suppose it's a matter of perspective. I can only base my thoughts on things I get from pop culture and the behavior of, say, my mother. There's a different attitude about work in the Far East that can be pretty alien to Westerners.

When I refer to the average salaryman working conditions as "miserable," I say that because it tends to end in heavy drinking. Just by saying that, I've betrayed some of my own attitude towards alcohol. I feel there's a fine line between greasing the social wheels and running from your problems, and I think many salarymen are past that line... though, I can't say that many of them would agree.

There's a level to which the department or section one works in becomes something of a surrogate family. For example, my mother has expectations of her subordinates that go well outside of the office. Now, I'm still just a scrub, myself, so I haven't personally immersed myself in American office culture, but I never got the feeling that a manager could just call up one of his subordinates and ask them to water the plants while he was away on a trip. This, I think, is a rather normal thing in East Asia.

So, for one, reports of Konami shifting employees to different branches and even departments—from whitecollar worker to janitor, based on anywhere from whim to grudge—seems double-damning when I think of it from the perspective of work units being secondary families. No wonder Nikkei would report on that.

Or the matter of security cameras. Sure, it's common practice for management to abuse security cameras to watch their employees, but it's rare for them to install cameras only for watching employees, that are positioned in such a way that they're utterly useless for workplace safety. I can't think of a company that could get away with that, on either side of the Pacific.

I guess you could say it's the little things, the ones that seem to be personal in nature, be it measures used against specific employees or ripe (if not outright designed) for abuse by vindictive managers, that strike me as the main point of the scandal.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by unreadphilosophy »

One thing people have to remember is that the culture in Asia, specifically Japan itself, has always differed itself from the west in terms of how they view the relationship between employer and employee. Most of us know that the people in Japan put a high-degree of emphasis on honor and the idea of showcasing a high amount of respect and obedience toward individuals who are positioned highly from a hierarchical perspective. From what I understand, when the boss of a company over there tells his employees to do something, they do, regardless as the how stupid the choice might be. To question that choice generally means being viewed down upon by those who are higher than you. Thus, I understand why the individuals who work for employees are acting so complacent even as these things occur.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by amphreded »

As progressive as Japan is in many ways, there's also a whole slew of unexpected backwardness in the country. I never lived there (though visited 3 times), but have enough friends and family members who have, and can partially back up my claims here. Japanese work environment, especially the corporate one, is well known for its after-work drinking culture, seniority, and sexism. Many salary men can be seen in public space passing out, throwing up in the subway, sleeping in bars because they've missed the last train. If your boss asks you to drink more beyond limit, it's likely that you have to – it's a combination of subservience and the fragile state of always trying to save everyone's faces.

Regarding sexism, it's quite known that many companies rarely promote women to management level. Women are also not allowed to participate in important meetings and after-work drinking (though the latter can be to their merits). This is mostly for corporations like finance, logistics, trading, and such. Smaller-sized or creative firms usually do not have restrictions on women, though the work load can be as demanding comparing to "stricter" companies. My friend who worked in a design firm had mentioned she had to sleep at the office, pulling all-nighters, on several occasions, without getting OT. On days that she arrives home before 11pm, her boyfriend would be surprised and stated that she's home early. This of course doesn't depict the whole Japanese working environment, but it is a testament to the diligence, industriousness and absolute obligation of the Japanese people. They might suffer internally, but they must suppress it for the sake of their greater parts. If the Nikkei's report on Konami is truthful, it might be surprising for many how anyone would not resign and leave the company within few first months. But looking at the quality and moral compass of an average Japanese person, it's not impossible to think that their obligation keeps them working in such environment.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

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LOL. This sounds like heaven compared to what I endured at FedEx's Indianapolis hub.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by SPRINGS02 »

wonder's boy wrote:LOL. This sounds like heaven compared to what I endured at FedEx's Indianapolis hub.
lmao that's part of what i'm saying, i feel like i've definitely dealt with much worse.
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Re: Nikkei on the situation at Konami...

Post by jdnation »

Konami's draconian workplace raises no eyebrows in Japan
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... s-in-japan


Nikkei english article
http://asia.nikkei.com/magazine/2015081 ... ers?page=1
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