If you haven’t heard about it yet, Konami hasn’t exactly been the gaming world’s favorite recently after a report came out alleging that the company treats its employees like prisoners, monitoring their lunch breaks, shaming those who stay on their breaks for too long, having them monitored by cameras constantly, and reassigning those game developers who aren’t considered useful to security guard or cleaning staff positions (and this tactic involves not only junior but also senior staff). Yet, depressingly enough, it appears that the company’s “charming" tactics are working since according to a recent financial report, Konami’s revenue rose by 5.3 percent, jumping from $390 million to $411 million. This is an interesting result because it comes at a time when many in the gaming world accused Konami of lacking a coherent business strategy.
What’s even more interesting is the main source of that profit. Konami stated a few months ago that mobile gaming was where the future of gaming lies (only to quickly backpedal), and with the report stating that Konami’s profit was mostly the result of mobile games like PES Club Manager, Star Wars: Force Collection, and Live Powerful Pro Baseball, it seems that the company was right to shift its focus to mobile games. Many reacted quite negatively to Konami’s view that mobile gaming is, at least financially, the best path for gaming companies, but it looks like the company was right to go that way. Apparently, all is rosy in Konami’s world, well, unless you happen to work for the company.
Why would the employees work for them? If they all banned together and quit all at once let's see how long lo amid management stays in their positions. You should never treat employees badly. Ever.
The work place in Japan is super corporate compared to America. So there's less room for asking for accommodations. Or so I've heard.
We (Americans) work more (officially) than anyone else (I'm assuming there isn't comparable and reliable data coming from those countries with sweat shops/slave labor). Google it if you don't believe me. Konami, like so many others, has found that decreasing the salaries (or removing them altogether by making the workplace inhospitable/shameful) of their employees and focusing on smaller, cheaper, but more widely spread ventures is more profitable than making good and meaningful products via happy workers and good customer service. Welcome to race-to-the-bottom economics, Walnami! Glad you could make it! P.S. - You can only retain workers in such @$$ conditions when the workers have no alternative to working there. A mass strike seems like a beautiful notion but in theory but too many have their and their family's livelihood on the line to actually pull it off and too many others are not aware of the macro-economics or pointed in the wrong direction entirely. It might be interesting to hear what Touch Arcade's foreign correspondent(s?) have to say...
I worked for Microsoft back in 1998 to 2000. When we went to Redmond campus for our 6 month consultations when myself and my boss Matt walked into the room everyone stopped talking. The reason was all of the NDA's we had. We looked at eachother as I said well one of us is already fired but we don't know it yet lol. And yea Matt was given 30 days notice. I resigned as well to make a point that it wasn't right. I'd rather do the right thing and have a hard time for a while than do the wrong thing and have a hard time living with myself. If people stand up for eachother things like Konami wouldn't happen. And I can talk about this because my last NDA was up in 2010. Yea I had 10 year agreements AFTER I left in effect.
"Officially" is a key word there. Japanese are under tremendous pressure to put in significant amounts of "off-the-books" overtime.
As for why they don't just band together and quit, it's pretty rare to see that kind of thing happen in Japan. It would be particularly risky in Japan's current economic state.
(Source: Economics minor) In addition, in Japan, firms treat their employees like family. Not in the sense of fairness of course, but in the sense of keeping them for life. Finding a job in Japan is hard, as companies are reluctant to hire, knowing that this will almost always be until retirement (likely why they don't fire their programmers, only demote them to maintenance.) Works both ways though, quitting a job (or a family) is harder there than it is in America.
The "job for life" thing is starting to fade out here, though. Not that companies don't still make the effort, but it's a lot harder to guarantee jobs for life now than it was during the salad days. But yes, people still want it to be that way, and it affects behavior accordingly.
Why dont people lead an app store protest? Leave app store one-stars and complain about their business practices until they change?
If that was effective we'd have given companies a clear idea that we don't want anymore freemium. But unfortunately, for the majority, they just don't really care and it's business as usual.
this could have the opposite effect. To review games, you must download or purchase them so we would actually be giving them revenue or a more prominent place in the app store to give them low reviews. It might pay off, but it's equally risky...
see? it works! can't argue with results! break out the whips!
That means that George Orwell not only wrote an awesome literature masterpiece but wrote a really effective guide for generating more profit off the worker's expense, and also, F' Konami
The beatings will continue until mobile..err...morale improves.
This is one of the most sad reports coming out of bad company ethics I've heard of in recent memory. It's sad and true, but companies cutting costs, using attrition in their business models, and treating employees like $#!+, all so they can make marginal gains, is becoming more and more prevalent. It's even more sad that the market these employees work in is so cut-throat that they're basically forced to deal with it, lest they find themselves on a street corner peddling for enough money to afford a meal a day. Companies that follow these practices only do it because there's no laws governing practices against it. The unfortunate part is, Konami took a calculated risk and they were rewarded for it :( I don't think the onus should be on the employees to retaliate, as it directly and detrimentally effects them. The onus is on the aware gamer, who would knowingly support Konami just because the game they want is more important than allowing dirty business practices like this to prevail. It's also a good gamer's responsibility to spread awareness like this. Konami is mow a black sheep in the industry, and they need to know how much of a bunch of d-bags they are for doing this. Well Konami, kiss my @$$ and expect not one penny of support from me. When issues like this occur, WE have to make the stand!
"...at least financially, the best path for gaming companies..."
"all is rosy in Konami's world"...unless you enjoyed any of their classic franchises, which are all basically dead now :(
"...shaming those who stay on their breaks for too long..."
If they played out the "Shame" routine from Game of Thrones, it might be worth it a little to get a job there.
This means they can afford to keep the MGSV servers on for more than a year or 2 after launch...
If those dumbasses would just make another Mystical Ninja game then they'd be swimming in yen.
I've heard a lot about this, I live in Vegas, and there is a Konami here, any word out of that camp?
I hope my boss never reads this article. Don't wanna give him any ideas.
I've been reading Japanese websites & the FUKomani mentality is pretty strong there. Buying their mobile games after this yearlong shitstorm is like continuing to be a patron of iPods after the Foxcon scandal.