Capcom Faces Bullying Accusation

[SpaceBat]

I dunno.
Capcom seems like the stupid sidekick who always messes up.
I mean come on, spelling mistakes on game packaging?

- Taken on-disc DLC to a ridiculous extent (nearly half of SFxT was locked out)
-doesn't even bother finishing their games anymore.
- Has other shady business practices, but is too stupid to see why they've been getting so much backlash.
- Apparently treats their female employees like shit.
- Insults the fanbase repeatedly.
- SSF4AE downloadable version has actual DRM.
-Milks their franchises to death, continuously brings out slightly updated versions of previous games, yet still sells these for unreasonably high prices.

I could go on. They're not EA by a long shot, but don't underestimate the shittyness of the modern Capcom. Contrary to EA however, most of the people working on Capcom seem to be mentally deficient.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I dunno.

Capcom seems like the stupid sidekick who always messes up.

"Cor, EA, what are we going to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night, Capcom: Try to take over the world!"

Exactly

Both made questionable business decisions, except EA seem to have an inkling about what they're actually doing.

 

[dyre]

I'm not sure this can be blamed squarely on Capcom. I mean, obviously that's a really shitty supervisor, but other than the incompetence of the Capcom HR department (incompetence from Capcom? Who would've guessed!), I can't really say it's the fault of intentional actions made by the company. There does seem to be a problem with company culture if that sort of shit is accepted though.

holy shit, a bouncing captcha

 

[chimeracreator]

Without more information it's impossible to say if Capcom did anything wrong here. Let's say for example that she wasn't very good at her job. That would mean that the charges that:

The new manager apparently singled out the young woman for criticism in meetings and frequently assigned her impossible tasks with no instructions.

Could be explained by her failing to perform or understand her instructions.

The young employee apparently spent months working on a database to increase the efficiency of internal game development, only to be dropped from the team and told "even if the database is a success, [she was] worthless to the team."

Could be explained by her doing a terrible job while working on the database. Thus she was pulled from the project and replaced by someone who would have to largely rebuild it from scratch.

Following that, two different superiors began trying to get her fired, apparently spreading rumors that "her ideas stink," that she was "problematic," prone to abandoning her work and skipping meetings. She approached Capcom's HR department, which did nothing about the bullying.

What if they starting spreading rumors because they really thought her ideas were bad and that she was problematic and did abandon her work while skipping meetings?

I'm not saying that any of this is the case because we don't know. We only have her word that she was a stellar employee that three different managers decided to start hating completely on their own. Now this does happen, and it is a serious issue when it occurs. However sometimes an employee also is terrible and three different managers end up hating them because they are a waste of space.

 

[Versuvius]

Even -if- she was bad at her job, that is now way to treat co-workers. If someones shite you sack them and leave it at that, not go on a protracted campaign of abuse. Fuck those guys with a 2X4 right up the rear end.

 

[doublenix]

A story with one side isn't a story. A simple fool might believe in the plight of strangers, but I need more info.

A simple fool also makes a ton of assumptions like a "suicide seems a little out of place" or "A stupid jury will soak up that suicide attempt like a sponge". Unless you're some all-knowing god or a brilliant psychoanalyst that can do a full evaluations based on a few paragraphs not even written by the woman herself, you have no basis to make any declarations one way or another. As you said yourself, you're lacking information.

 

[chimeracreator]

Even -if- she was bad at her job, that is now way to treat co-workers. If someones shite you sack them and leave it at that, not go on a protracted campaign of abuse. Fuck those guys with a 2X4 right up the rear end.

True, but again we don't know exactly what the situation was. Hopefully whatever the situation turns out to be justice will be done.

Unless you're some all-knowing god or a brilliant psychoanalyst that can do a full evaluations based on a few paragraphs not even written by the woman herself

Of course he can do such an evaluation. Didn't you know that as soon as anyone logs onto the Internet they become an expert on every subject ever.

 

[RaikuFA]

Ive said it once, I'll say it again, Capcom: The EA and Activision of Japan.

EA and Activision?

I dunno.

Capcom seems like the stupid sidekick who always messes up.

I mean come on, spelling mistakes on game packaging?

and ignoring the pleases of a lady that is getting screwed over to the point where she tries to pill herself to death is sidekick tier?

We don't know both sides yet, so I'm not willing to throw around accusations.

I see your point, but these are the same people that tease us with Megaman Legends 3 and other trolltastic stuff, i would not put this past them either.

Capcom are the biggest trolls in the industry.

No EU Monster Hunter titles in a long time, no Megaman, releasing 'Ultimate' versions of fighting games, less than a year after the release of the original.

They need to change their logo to this.

Don't forget the treatment of AA fans.

OT: Not suprised, they never punished Aris for his actions during Cross Assault.

 

[Rad Party God]

I dunno.

Capcom seems like the stupid sidekick who always messes up.

"Cor, EA, what are we going to do tonight?"
"The same thing we do every night, Capcom: Try to take over the world!"

Now I can't get off that song out of my head >.<'

OT: That's just awful, although we've only heard a single side of the story, I still think it's awful either way.

 

[bificommander]

I would also wait for more proof. If I read this story correctly, the claim is that 4 seperate bosses and any number of employees were all in on this. That's not impossible, but if this many different people all claim that she wasn't performing well my first instinct isn't 'all of them are lying and she's the only one speaking the truth'. Good thing it is being properly investigated now.

 

[Weaver]

I'm surprised some people are blaming the employee. Japanese business culture is insane and the stuff the majority of employees put up with would be seen as harassment in the west. For example, did someone invite you to a corporate event after work? THIS IS MANDATORY. Even if they say it it's optional, it's fucking mandatory. Did your kid have a baseball game? Too bad. Maybe it's your wife's birthday? Deal with it.

What if you don't go? Then you're seen as "not a team player" and after a few more transgressions you'll likely be fired.

Japan is about maintaining the status quo and a strict social hierarchy. Bosses will frequently saddle employees with an insane amount of work, just to enforce this hierarchy. They will boss around employees below them, just to establish dominance. This is a country that has a listing in their annual statistics for Kar&#333;shi; Death from overwork.

Nothing in this article would surprise me if it happened exactly as this employee is describing it.

 

[weirdee]

That seems pretty insane, especially if the HR department did nothing about it. Still, presumably the HR department would have still operated within the legal areas of the law and at least noted her complaints? Should make the case fairly straight forward in court.

I find this a pretty alien concept myself, I personally would never stay at a place of work that was causing me so much distress to the point that I would think of killing myself. I understand that employment rates aren't fantastic over there but even still.

Due to the way reputation works in Japan, if she had done anything before that point using that same justification, there would have been enough blackballing by the employer to draw an inappropriate comparison to an industrial oil disaster. It would have been social sui-wait that's also inappropriate

the fact that so many of you are dredging up loaded memories of what it means to you also clearly demonstrates that it is difficult to illustrate how easy it is to manipulate people with that kind of thing without getting targeted as a hater yourself, so at this point i think we can't discuss this any further without seriously reevaluating your own psyches before proceeding on the matter

 

[gigastar]

Alot of hatred is going to be/has been spilled because alot of people assume Japan is like the rest of the world. Again.

EA seem very sure about what they're doing, for good or bad, while Capcom just seems to pull ideas out of a hat and then proceeds to cock them up in the most hilariously incompetent fashion.

And thats why id rather run with Capcom than with EA or Activision. Capcom at least might change that which gets overwhelming negative feedback.

 

[The Great JT]

Capcom's rep could only improve at this point if it was discovered that they ate kittens, kicked puppies and did the paperwork for adopting orphans only to drive away while the kid was trying to get in the car.

 

[Cranky_Gamer]

My money is on we will never fully know the facts of what did/did not happen as it'll be settled out of court.

 

[doomspore98]

If the lady is telling the truth, this is one of the worst job situations I've heard about in a while. But I'll wait to boycott until I hear capcoms rebuttal.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Eh... is all I can say. Just... bleh. Even reading this makes me feel like I should take a deliberate overdose of crystal-meth while hanging myself over killer-mutant lava-resistant-sharks over a volcano, just for shit like this happening.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Well, not going to get Dragon's Dogma now. May that team burn and get folded.

 

[Nuke_em_05]

Since we only have one side, I can't make a judgement, and really, it's not up to me anyway.

I will say however, that:

Back in January of this year, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released a definition of the term "power harassment." Unacceptable behavior included: "asking junior employees to perform impossible tasks, committing acts of violence and other physical offenses, causing emotional stress, isolating or ignoring individuals, asking personal questions, and giving an employee nothing or very little to do."

Two of these actually appeal to me: "isolating or ignoring individuals" and "giving an employee nothing or very little to do".

Then again, I'm not Japanese. Though harassment, however any culture defines it, shouldn't be tolerated.

Anyway, no way to tell whether it actually happened here, but I hope that they can work something out.

 

[Formica Archonis]

I'm willing to believe it. I never had it that bad, I once had a boss telling me things like I was "taking too much time off" and I was a "liability to the team" etc. etc. because I took three weeks of approved medical leave (and 3 days later for followup) to have abdominal surgery to get a cancerous tumor removed. He also shared my medical info from the company insurance papers with people who should NOT have seen them. Like, I had coworkers talking about my biopsy results.

HR did jack about it until I resigned, then I guess the head HR person realized this was a legal fiasco waiting to happen and told me that "due to a clerical error" I should have had six weeks of medical leave so "just go home for three weeks and rest up" before I resigned. I was randomly switched to another department and my desk contents moved, perhaps so there was no paper proof that prick was my boss.