Nintendo of America Doesn’t Have Unions Partly Because of High Employee Satisfaction, President Says
Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser has claimed his company doesn’t have any workers’ unions in part because of high employee satisfaction, despite contrarian reports in 2022.
In an interview with Inverse, Bowser was asked what role he sees unions, which are currently growing slowly but surely within the video game industry, playing at Nintendo in the future.
“We don’t currently have unions at Nintendo of America, and part of that is driven by the employee feedback we see, which is a high degree of job satisfaction and engagement overall,” Bowser said.
“You only have to look at our retention numbers, which are very, very high within the industry, and our obviously low turnover rate as a result. Our focus has always been on creating a culture that’s inclusive, has a work-life balance, and is focused on our singular mission of bringing smiles to faces.”
An IGN report in May 2022, in which we spoke to a dozen current and former full-time employees and contractors at Nintendo of America across several departments, a picture emerged of “a company that has steadily become more heavy-handed and restrictive despite the ongoing success of the Switch”.
Close to 18 months have passed since then, of course, meaning the frustrations mentioned in the reports could be addressed by now, but Bowser made no mention of them.
“I think we’re on the right path in terms of ensuring we’ve got a work environment and culture that allows people to be productive, to have balance in their lives, and to grow within the company,” he said. “Everyone has the right to form a union, and certainly in the future, wherever it takes us, we’ll respect that. But we’re very much focused right now on how to create the best work culture and environment we possibly can.
“We’re always listening to our workers and we want to make sure we have both formal and informal ways of getting worker feedback and understanding the needs of our employees and where we can improve. And we always act on that feedback. And, as I said earlier, there is always a right to form unions and we respect that.”
Quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software became the first in the industry to unionise in January 2022, a move that was followed by Blizzard Albany, Zenimax Media, and more.
Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red is the latest major studio to see a union, with some of its employees forming the Polish Gamedev Workers Union earlier in October following waves of lay-offs.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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