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Nintendo is a "haven for geniuses" but "hell for an average person", former worker says

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
nintendo-logo-1080.jpg


A former Nintendo of Japan employee has publically spoken about his time working at the company, calling it a "haven for superhumans and geniuses", but "hell for an ordinary person" like himself.

Koichi Miura worked at Nintendo from 2019 to 2023 in game production and is now a freelance CG designer and YouTuber. On Twitter, he wrote about his experience at the company. It's rare to see former employees openly talking in an industry which is known for a culture of keeping quiet.

"Nintendo was a great company but I wouldn't recommend it lightly to others.
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He described it as a "haven of superhumans and genuises" able to create successively amazing games, but felt it was "hell for an average person" such as himself. His time at Nintendo helped him realise it wasn't the right career for him, he said, and helped him find the confidence to take his career down a different path.

"That's my biggest accomplishment from working at Nintendo. I have no regrets in deciding to work there, achieving that, and then leaving."
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Miura reiterated he has no bad feelings towards Nintendo.

"Let me repeat this so there are no misunderstandings," he continued, "I thought it was a really great company and the employees were wonderful people".
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In a statement to Encount, Miura said he hopes people don't see his experience as a negative one, but as a positive message.

Transcript via Eurogamer
 
Roni

Roni

Gold Member
#1 reason why average companies using these top companies as their organizational blueprint is a mistake. No company should use Netflix, Spotify, Nintendo, Google, Facebook, Apple or Amazon as their ideal. You can't pay the people required to make their strategies work.
 
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Hugare

Hugare

Member
But this is the japanese industry in a nutshell, right?

Old men that became legends decades ago hold their position until they die, basically. So if you are starting, you are all kinds of fucked. No career path for you, and what they say goes.

Getting a promotion in the japanese market must be hell.

This is also one of the reasons why Nintendo works by their own clock and sometimes seems decades late to some trends. Also why their games still have their own essence even after all these years, so it's been working for them.
 
Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Hugare said:
But this is the japanese industry in a nutshell, right?

Old men that became legends decades ago hold their position until they die, basically. So if you are starting, you are all kinds of fucked. No career path for you, and what they say goes.

Getting a promotion in the japanese market must be hell.

This is also one of the reasons why Nintendo works by their own clock and sometimes seems decades late to some trends. Also why their games still have their own essence even after all these years, so it's been working for them.
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I honestly think they've done better than most. They move successful directors to producer roles and bring in new directors pretty regularly. And they keep the senior staff in advisory or executive positions off of hands on development, mentoring, because they don't take extremely exorbitant salaries so they have mentors in place from the NES era still teaching the new people. And they can bring in new directors because they mostly make AA games. You have studios like Bethesda or Naughty Dog where there's not a lot of other people directing anything, and they make so few games that their project completion rate and opportunity to do that is also extremely low.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
Slow news day?
It's just a vague statement from ONE random, seemingly low level, former employee of a company with like 7000+ employees.
 
Hardensoul

Hardensoul

Member
Punished Miku said:
I honestly think they've done better than most. They move successful directors to producer roles and bring in new directors pretty regularly. And they keep the senior staff in advisory or executive positions off of hands on development, mentoring, because they don't take extremely exorbitant salaries so they have mentors in place from the NES era still teaching the new people. And they can bring in new directors because they mostly make AA games. You have studios like Bethesda or Naughty Dog where there's not a lot of other people directing anything, and they make so few games that their project completion rate and opportunity to do that is also extremely low.
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Big example of this is Satoru Iwata, he took pay cut during the 3DS/WiiU launch struggles instead of layoffs. Also a programming genius, created new data decompression techniques.

thegamingjournals.com

Satoru Iwata's Pokemon Masterstroke Is Industry Genius

Advertisement Satoru Iwata’s Pokemon Masterstroke Is Industry Genius. Seven years after his death. It’s hard to believe that it has been seven years since Satoru Iwata, the gaming legend was killed. His legacy as the former president and CEO at Nintendo is immense. He worked on Super Smash Bros...
thegamingjournals.com thegamingjournals.com

This also good summary of Nintendo devs.

 
Hugare

Hugare

Member
Punished Miku said:
I honestly think they've done better than most. They move successful directors to producer roles and bring in new directors pretty regularly. And they keep the senior staff in advisory or executive positions off of hands on development, mentoring, because they don't take extremely exorbitant salaries so they have mentors in place from the NES era still teaching the new people. And they can bring in new directors because they mostly make AA games. You have studios like Bethesda or Naughty Dog where there's not a lot of other people directing anything, and they make so few games that their project completion rate and opportunity to do that is also extremely low.
Click to expand...
But my impressions is that even directors have some heavy influence from the big dogs.

I've heard somewhere that despite Miyamoto not being credited as a director in a game for a long time, he oversees a lot at Nintendo.

Fujibayashi directed BOTW and TOTK, but I've never even seen the guy, only Eiji Aonuma everywhere.

I've worked for a japanese company for a year, and my impression was that they respect those old guys opinions a bit too much. And its also a characteristic of their society, so it makes sense.

About ND: Uncharted 3 wasnt directed by Druckman. Neither would be U4, but the Amy Hennig fiasco happened. Then Lost Legacy was directed by 2 other guys, and TLOU Part 2 had 2 other directors alongside Druckman.

But yeah, Bethesda is Todd and thats it lol
 
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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Hugare said:
Fujibayashi directed BOTW and TOTK, but I've never even seen the guy, only Eiji Aonuma everywhere.
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He's given some talks at GDC. I imagine he'll be doing promotional stuff when he graduates to producer eventually. Similar thing happened to Koizumi who now is half the face of the Switch promos.
 
Hardensoul

Hardensoul

Member
Hugare said:
But my impressions is that even directors have some heavy influence from the big dogs.

I've heard somewhere that despite Miyamoto not being credited as a director in a game for a long time, he oversees a lot at Nintendo.

Fujibayashi directed BOTW and TOTK, but I've never even seen the guy, only Eiji Aonuma everywhere.

I've worked for a japanese company for a year, and my impression was that they respect those old guys opinions a bit too much. And its also a characteristic of their society, so it makes sense.

About ND: Uncharted 3 wasnt directed by Druckman. Neither would be U4, but the Amy Hennig fiasco happened. Then Lost Legacy was directed by 2 other guys, and TLOU Part 2 had 2 other directors alongside Druckman.

But yeah, Bethesda is Todd and thats it lol
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Nintendo sure knows how to pick them and they seem to like working there. The Employee retention and longevity of working at Nintendo is well known. Also, we have not heard much about disgruntled employees but we’ve heard the opposite and many people have confirm the pay at Nintendo is above industry standard(even in this article). It’s not like Koichi Miura is an unknown, he’s been in the industry for a very long time.

Not saying Nintendo developers are the greatest but it’s more proof of high quality of developers working at Nintendo.
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
GHG said:
Average people are not capable of making excellent products.

If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen.
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Probably depends on the field, plenty Nintendo (first party, not outsourced or whatever) games have for example 3D assets that taken individually I don't think any talented professional artist/modeler would have trouble creating with the right guidance (from concept art, blueprints to specs etc.).
 
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Miyazaki’s Slave

Miyazaki’s Slave

Gold Member
diffusionx said:
pls explain. lots has come out about the environment there and lots of seething for people who couldnt cut it.
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This is my opinion only of course but I would not place Valve the developer in the same class as NOJ the developer. As a platform, I will give Valve massive credit for Steam (which isn't without it's issues of course) but in terms of game output I think they fall very short of reaching Nintendo's level of expertise.

I do agree with you in terms of the chaff that has fallen out of Valve.
 
kiphalfton

kiphalfton

Member
ManaByte said:
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What she says is true though...

Who fucking cares if she's crying, it IS a big fucking deal. When you think about having only like 4 hours to yourself, that's not a great feeling.

And I don't know how the whole "9-5" schedule keeps getting perpetuated, as that shit doesn't exist anywhere I've ever seen. It's always 8-5, with a mandatory lunch break. But I can see why people like to say 9-5, as it better fits their narrative; as well as ignoring commute time, traffic, etc. that also lends to more time wasted.
 
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Kenpachii

Kenpachii

Member
kiphalfton said:
What she says is true though...

Who fucking cares if she's crying, it IS a big fucking deal. When you think about having only like 4 hours to yourself, that's not a great feeling.
Click to expand...

That's why most girls hook up and start kids, so they can work more on themselves and your family, or u get a part time job then.

Honestly i have yet to find any woman that i encounter in work environments that aren't part time working.
 
kiphalfton

kiphalfton

Member
Kenpachii said:
That's why most girls hook up and start kids, so they can work more on themselves and your family, or u get a part time job then.

Honestly i have yet to find any woman that i encounter in work environments that aren't part time working.
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No doubt.

I don't blame them.

At the very least they can get 10 weeks of paid maternity leave off. And then return to work.

At the most, they have a kid and don't have to work. Then every time their kid gets old to free up some of their time, to allow them to return to work, have another kid and reset the clock (to be able to continue staying home).
 
Alexios

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
kiphalfton said:
What she says is true though...

Who fucking cares if she's crying, it IS a big fucking deal. When you think about having only like 4 hours to yourself, that's not a great feeling.

And I don't know how the whole "9-5" schedule keeps getting perpetuated, as that shit doesn't exist anywhere I've ever seen. It's always 8-5, with a mandatory lunch break. But I can see why people like to say 9-5, as it better fits their narrative; as well as ignoring commute time, traffic, etc. that also lends to more time wasted.
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Dudes ridiculing people pointing out the obvious probably would have ridiculed the men and women fighting and dying at the hands of corporate defending police and/or thugs to establish the 8 hour "standard" that nowadays keeps getting stretched further and further, whether by force or by making you "choose" to do it or have a second job because otherwise with the economy and wages you can't really enjoy a modern life. Or the good ol, I suffered (naw I just loved my job so much that I didn't have time for anything else, I was good at it, I'm proud) and so should everyone else.

Same for hating on that gal talking about marketing jobs and her degree, as if we still live in the 60s where any random saw an opportunity, half assed it and somehow made it big time so professionals in the field studying/working hard starting now have the same chances if they're "good" or just because at the end she said something about the high paying jobs she's not getting and so they tried to twist it as if she demanded to have that, like there's nothing inbetween making more money flipping burgers than a starting position in her chosen field and being a millionaire CEO overnight.
 
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Badlucktroll

Badlucktroll

Member
jp.linkedin.com

Nintendo: 求人 | LinkedIn

Nintendo | LinkedInのフォロワー数689,691人。Superstars wanted: Join us in putting smiles on the faces of millions around the world! | Nintendo's mission is to put smiles on the faces of everyone we touch. We do so by creating new surprises for people across the world to enjoy together. We've forged our...
jp.linkedin.com jp.linkedin.com

here are real nintendo job listings
 
A

ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
Still he was there for 4 years? Maybe he just doesn't think highly of himself, or that he wasn't promoted.

Nintendo's retention rate is like 98%+, I doubt everyone is superhuman.
 
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