Nintendo fires employee for breaking NDA on a podcast - Polidicks

[img]http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2015/08/chris_pranger_from_nintendo_treehouse_discusses_harsh_realities_of_video_game_localisation/attachment/0/630x.jpg[/img] [url]http://kotaku.com/nintendo-fires-employee-for-speaking-on-podcast-1723906717[/url] [quote]“Hello friends and family,” Pranger wrote in a heartbreaking public Facebook message this morning. “As many of you have probably seen, I am no longer at Nintendo. I was terminated this week due to a podcast appearance I made last Monday. It was a stupid judgment call on my part and ultimately it cost me far more than I could have imagined.”[/quote] [quote]As it turns out, even a handful of seemingly innocuous comments can lead Nintendo to fire an employee. “I spent the last week in a miserable place once the podcast began getting coverage,” Pranger said on Facebook. “I was instantly scared when a coworker poked me and said, ‘Hey, you’re on GoNintendo.’ Suddenly article after article began appearing in game sites of all languages. Comments sections painted me as an idiot and the like. My Twitter started giving me hourly reminders from people meaning well and otherwise. It seemed unthinkable that I’d be let go for a single moment of poor judgment and my own misunderstandings, but here we are.”[/quote] [quote][B]It’s not clear exactly which parts of the podcast led Nintendo to fire Pranger[/B]—and Pranger declined to comment when I reached out to him this afternoon—but [B]he didn’t talk about any unannounced games[/B] or other information that might be considered a trade secret to an outside observer. Nintendo has not yet responded to requests for comment.[/quote] Let this be a lesson folks. Don't do stupid shit and you might keep your job.

An NDA is an NDA.

[quote]It’s not clear exactly which parts of the podcast led Nintendo to fire Pranger[/quote] [quote]On August 3, the Part-Time Gamers podcast posted their interview with Pranger, who spoke candidly about his work in Nintendo’s secretive Treehouse, where the company translates and localizes software from Japanese to English and other languages.[/quote] seems like this was it

Probably also this; [QUOTE]Yeah, we do want money, which is why we know it’s a colossal waste if we ever try to localize that in this current market, because look at you people. You don’t make up a big enough group.[/QUOTE] For context, it's about fans wanting them to localize Captain Rainbow and other japanese titles.

[Quote] “We got it in the States by luck,” he said, “that NoE decided, ‘Oh, we’ll take the fall. We’ll localize that.’ Okay, ‘cause someone is going to have to eat the costs somewhere, because that game is guaranteed to not sell enough to justify how big that game is.”[/quote] I'm guessing it was probably this, since it seems to imply that Treehouse or NoE are trying to localize games Nintendo might not think worth it.

his candid comments kind of paint nintendo as assholes

From reading the article it looks like he appeared on the podcast representing Nintendo without prior approval from the PR team. Employees can't do that in most places and is usually against company policies.

[QUOTE=TheHydra;48451743]his candid comments kind of paint nintendo as assholes[/QUOTE] It's not like Nintendo has the best record. They just have more spectacular nice moments followed by long mediorce time periods of mistakes.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;48451817]From reading the article it looks like he appeared on the podcast representing Nintendo without prior approval from the PR team. Employees can't do that in most places and is usually against company policies.[/QUOTE] NoA actually loosen up rules when it came to that recently, allowing employees to speak more freely about he company. I wouldn't be surprised if this incident leads to a quick reversal of that decision.

In terms of being a human: he's being honest and kind of confirming what everyone already knows, which is fine. In terms of being an employee and marketing: he was way out of line for basically telling a sect of the market they're not important enough.

By the way, he didn't just breach his NDA. He also made some rather hostile/passive-aggressive comments involving one of the most controversial and heated decisions Nintendo ever made that put a sizable dent in Nintendo's reputation with the JRPG fanbase. Nintendo would rather bury the Xenoblade controversy under positive news like Xenoblade 3D and Xenoblade X rather than have anyone dig up NoA's stubbornness and stupid decision to botch the North American release with Gamestop exclusivitiy + Less copies printed than goddamn Valkyrie Profile.

[QUOTE=Mingebox;48451728]“We got it in the States by luck,” he said, “that NoE decided, ‘Oh, we’ll take the fall. We’ll localize that.’ Okay, ‘cause someone is going to have to eat the costs somewhere, because that game is guaranteed to not sell enough to justify how big that game is.”[/QUOTE] Funny, considering that when Xenoblade [i]was[/i] released in the States it sold through its entire stock with second-hand copies still reaching $90 or even higher, and now X3D and XX coming over wasn't even a question. This attitude of "it will never catch on" - think of the audience they'd have missed out on without Operation Rainfall! Hell, you would've thought the whole Fire Emblem thing with Melee would've taught them that a decade prior. I love Nintendo, but I agree that they don't put enough credit into what Western gamers will like. [QUOTE=wauterboi;48451869]In terms of being a human: he's being honest and kind of confirming what everyone already knows, which is fine. In terms of being an employee and marketing: he was way out of line for basically telling a sect of the market they're not important enough.[/QUOTE] I hate how this is how it has to be and what "corporate culture" evolved into. Why did the game industry have to become so secretive?

There were other Nintendo employees who did far worse breaches of NDA and got to keep their jobs under the condition that they STFU and withdraw from social media. But really, bringing up the Xenoblade Affair is [B]BIG[/B] NO-NO, especially in today's gaming climate.

Anyone who tries to call Nintendo 'assholes' for this is an idiot, you can't have PR reps openly spilling that your company doesn't feel certain market groups are worth translating works for. Would you keep an employee who talked negatively about your company on the news?

[QUOTE=certified;48452025]There were other Nintendo employees who did far worse breaches of NDA and got to keep their jobs under the condition that they STFU and withdraw from social media. But really, bringing up the Xenoblade Affair is [B]BIG[/B] NO-NO, especially in today's gaming climate.[/QUOTE] You'd think admitting you screwed up and saying what went wrong would garner more trust for the future. It's becoming more and more clear that audiences value transparency over positivity, and [i]no one[/i] on the corporate side actually seems to [i]get[/i] that.

[QUOTE=certified;48452012] Nintendo would rather bury the Xenoblade controversy under positive news like Xenoblade 3D and Xenoblade X rather than have anyone dig up NoA's stubbornness and stupid decision to botch the North American release with Gamestop exclusivitiy + Less copies printed than goddamn Valkyrie Profile.[/QUOTE] Xenoblade controversy?

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;48452123]Xenoblade controversy?[/QUOTE] Xenoblade was NEVER going to be released in North America. That pissed o0f American JRPG fans, so Operation Rainfall was the Campaign to bring it over here.

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;48452123]Xenoblade controversy?[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2013/08/xenoblade.jpg[/IMG] You know what games cost this much? Ones that have been out of print for 15+ years. This image was taken mere months later. [editline]13th August 2015[/editline] If a game goes above MSRP less than five years to a decade after release, it [U]wasn't fucking printed enough to meet demand.[/U]

[QUOTE=certified;48452025]There were other Nintendo employees who did far worse breaches of NDA and got to keep their jobs under the condition that they STFU and withdraw from social media.[/QUOTE] His firing was a 100% PR moveby NoJ to try and undo the damage he did on the podcast. If he didn't go out of his way to mock fans of games like Captain Rainbow, I would be almost certain he would still have his job, but most likely be reprimanded in some way.

[QUOTE=Fangz;48452181]His firing was a 100% PR moveby NoJ to try and undo the damage he did on the podcast. If he didn't go out of his way to mock fans of games like Captain Rainbow, I would be almost certain he would still have his job, but most likely be reprimanded in some way.[/QUOTE] That's exactly what I'm saying. Nintendo's Wii-era localization decisions, Xenoblade especially in particular, were a dark era for Nintendo's reputation with core gamers. Which is probably one of the things that has lead to the WiiU selling less than the Gamecube, which was considered by many to have only been touched by the core Nintendo fanbase.

I am seriously worried about his mental state though. [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1480315&p=48450355&viewfull=1#post48450355]From his now deleted facebook post[/url], it seems like he has given up on life to some extent.

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;48452123]Xenoblade controversy?[/QUOTE] Back before Xenoblade was released, Nintendo of America actually pretended to not know what the game was in official statements when fans asked about it. The people at NoA genuinely believed that information like that couldn't cross borders. The only reason the US got Xenoblade is because NoE (who is run directly by NoJ) localized it, and then NoA released an extremely limited run of the game in the US. The way NoA handled it was to give Gamestop exclusive rights to distributing the game. Gamestop responded to this by opening all copies that were given to them and selling them as "used" at an extreme markup. NoA did nothing about this, and then this guy goes on a podcast and is all "hurf durf americans didnt buy xenoblade, you lot are stupid and don't know what you want and your hands are too fat for the regular new 3ds model."

I don't like thinking of Nintendo as people who try to stick within the confines of financial security and guaranteed success, but the whole Xenoblade thing sounds ridiculous.

Honestly whatever your thoughts are on Nintendo's current game plan there's nothing unreasonable about this, if you're under contract not to share secrets and you share secrets what do you expect?

Looking into this more, it seems like this might have been a final straw situation, as that he kept on making controversial comments over the past two weeks such as [url=http://www.gonintendo.com/stories/239876-more-details-on-how-hard-creating-smash-bros-is-on-sakurai]comparing Sakurai to Van Gogh in a someone negative way[/url].

Oh shit, it's the guy who talked about the localization stuff. I did think at the time I was reading it that it was pretty shocking that they would admit to all these things. I also thought it was nice that Nintendo was actually telling us [I]something[/I] about localization for once instead of being silent about it as usual. It's a shame he lost his job over it, but like someone already said, an NDA is an NDA.

[t]http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/005/100/097.png[/t] Yes, Sonic, thank you for your usual quip...

What is the NDA?

[QUOTE=Benx303;48454398]What is the NDA?[/QUOTE] Non-disclosure agreement

[QUOTE=VinLAURiA;48452039]You'd think admitting you screwed up and saying what went wrong would garner more trust for the future. It's becoming more and more clear that audiences value transparency over positivity, and [i]no one[/i] on the corporate side actually seems to [i]get[/i] that.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that seems right. It's not humane to fire people for the sake of keeping up pretenses.