In an interview yesterday, Nintendo of America ex-chief Reggie Fils-Aime was asked about his views on unions, which currently barely exist in the video game industry. Fils-Aime’s response was not a sound endorsement from the unions, with the former director saying they are neither good nor bad, just a situation that needs to be addressed. But he did add that companies should embrace unionization if their employees want it.
Unionization is on the air, as yesterday employees of Raven Software, a studio that works at Call of Duty Warzone, made history when their quality control staff voted in favor of unionization, becoming is the first union of a large-scale AAA video game company. This was followed by months of breakdown of the parent company Activision Blizzard’s unions. As a result, some high-ranking members of the video game industry have been asked their opinion on unions. This includes Fils-Aime, who has been on a press tour for his recently published memoirs. Yesterday, he interviewed The Washington Post, in which he was asked about the Raven union vote and the industry’s growing push to organize.
. @ Reggie tells @MikeHumePost: “I’ve worked in industries that have had high levels of unionization. This is not a good or bad thing, it’s a situation that as a leader, as an executive, you have to manage like any other challenge. , problem or opportunity you are facing “. pic.twitter.com/UyLbrMWGeb
– Washington Post Live (@PostLive) May 23, 2022
In response, Fils-Aime noted that we are currently seeing a huge push for unionization across the country and a wide spectrum of industries, so it is not uncommon for this to happen in the gaming world as well. Fils-Aime blames covid and too many companies for ignoring “systemic problems” as the reason for this big union push, adding that “unionization is a good thing.”
“As a leader, you have to look good,” Fils-Aime said, “And if that’s what your employees want, you have to approach it and accept it and move forward.”
Then, strangely enough, he seemed to change his mind at half-heartedness, saying that unionization is not “a good thing or a bad thing.”
“I have worked in industries that have had a high level of unionization,” says Fils-Aimé. “This is neither good nor bad. It is a situation that as a leader, as an executive, you have to manage like any other challenge, problem or opportunity you encounter.”
A Fils-Aime spokesman Kotaku reached out to had nothing more to add.
Calls for the syndication of the video game industry have only increased as more and more stories about poor working conditions, low wages and abuse appear in major video game studios and publishers.
Just last month, Kotaku reported how many hired Nintendo workers felt like second-class workers and were suffering a bad salary. One employee even claims that they were fired after talking about the unions at a meeting, prompting a formal complaint to be filed with the National Labor Relations Board. IGN reported similar complaints and stories from Nintendo hired workers.
In response to these reports, Fils-Aime told The Washington Post that “it wasn’t Nintendo I left behind” and that he had always been able to foster a healthy work culture during his 13-year tenure at the company. , noting that he held regular lunch meetings with employees that hired workers could freely sign up and attend. However, according to Kotaku sources, these lunches were held in a building to which hired workers did not have access, and one worker explained that although they had heard of these meetings, they never knew that any contractor be allowed to join.
In other news from Reggie Fils-Aime, he would like to sell his Animal Crossing island through the blockchain and disliked the Game Boy Micro. 2022 is a strange year, everyone.