Inside the Growing Discontent Behind Nintendo’s Fun Facade
In 2010, Nintendo of America opened its brand-new headquarters in Redmond, Washington on a 10-acre plot owned by the company since the early 1980s. The late Satoru Iwata cut the ribbon on the state-of-the-art facility alongside then-Washington State governor Chris Gregoire on a “gleaming 300,000 square foot facility” with “cushioned benches shaped like d-pads” and a “Mario Kart-themed parking garage.” It was everything a Nintendo fan could imagine, right down to the main boardroom being known as “The Master Sword.”
Across the way, past a soccer pitch of the sort one often sees on West Coast tech campuses, is a much older building that isn’t nearly as well-known. A former warehouse that houses a hodge-podge of departments ranging from data science to Product Testing and Development (PDT), it in some ways hearkens back to the days when NOA was simply an arcade distributor operating out of New Jersey. The warehouse doors are still visible, and the freight elevator near the greeting desk will sometimes get stuck open and make loud grinding noises. While Nintendo has spruced up the decoration with some Mario-themed diagrams, it’s otherwise a nondescript work area with an atmosphere akin to a library.
In contrast to the ultra-modern facilities nearby, many of the workers are toiling away on outdated equipment and software, with software that looks like it’s running on Windows XP and a database that dates back to the 90s. Until just a few years ago, it was still possible to find bins of old VHS tapes filled with bug recordings in the PTD area. Secrecy, constant software crashes, and the ever-present need for translation of messages from the Japanese headquarters frequently slows work to a crawl.
A large percentage of the workers inhabiting this building are contractors, many of whom increasingly see themselves as second-class citizens with no hope of earning one of the coveted red badges that can grant them unfettered access to the building just across the way (or even just the soccer pitch, which is also off-limits). That building doesn’t just represent more comfort; it stands for job security, career progression, and even a basic professional respect that many contractors don’t feel in their day-to day life at the company.
The contrast between the two buildings reflects the difference in how Nintendo likes to present itself – a technological imaginarium that puts “smiles on people’s faces” – and the less glamorous reality. Outside of carefully controlled marketing moments, NOA has rarely afforded a glimpse of what it’s actually like to work for one of the most famous video game companies in the real world. But recent reports have former employees and especially contractors finally opening up, and their stories reveal a Nintendo that can be very different from its cheery marketing.
Red Badgers and Blue Badgers
On the face of it, Nintendo of America isn’t so different from other Seattle area tech concerns like Microsoft, which surrounds it on all sides. For full-time employees, at least, NOA offers plenty of amenities, participating in various community events while touting its headquarters as being environmentally friendly. Founded in 1980 by Minoru Arakawa, son-in-law of Hiroshi Yamauchi, NOA is at heart a very large marketing department. Probably its greatest achievement is the Nintendo Power magazine, which convinced hundreds of thousands of kids to buy what amounted to advertisements for Nintendo games.
Nintendo of America started as something of a shoestring operation. It was exemplified by employees like Howard Phillips, who joined NOA at 24 and was soon responsible for “the largest shipping volume in the Port of Seattle.” He went on to serve as a tester, market research analyst, and magazine editor, in the process developing into something like a mascot for Nintendo thanks to his familiar bowtie.
At least some of that DNA still remains in NOA’s culture. When full-time employees praise Nintendo, they usually talk about how much they like their coworkers, and how it offers enviable job security compared with the typically volatile games industry. But Nintendo is also a very old and traditional company, and that can make it seem restrictive, old-fashioned, and demanding. Adding to that is Nintendo Co. Ltd’s (NCL) influence over the company, which has been described in conversations over the years with sources familiar with Nintendo’s inner workings as frequently distant and heavy-handed.
Talking about what it was like to work at NOA, one former contractor describes the culture in their department as “stilted” and oddly formal, with employees apologizing profusely if they left even 15 minutes early.
“At first I attributed it to being a Japanese company and the expectations that came with it, but it was very much reinforced by the full-time staffers… It seemed like you had to be connected all the time,” they…
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