Japanese Game Developer Apparently Harassed So Much, She Attempted Suicide

In 2009, a twenty-something female joined Osaka-based game developer Capcom. The new employee was assigned to a couple of different games before becoming a member of the team developing Dragon's Dogma, Capcom's upcoming big budget title.

At first things were good. But by that December, things got awful—really awful. According to a recently released lawsuit, the new employee apparently felt so bullied at Capcom that she tried to take her own life.

[Snookies12]

Um yeah, I believe this completely.

Crapcom is the worst, that's all there is to it. Honestly, I hope they go out of business, the only series I care about is Resident Evil but screw that too, as much as I loved the series they've turned it into an action game without ANY horror at all.

I will never buy a new game from them, ever.

[fei-hung]

Jay? Is that you?

Anyhu, I agree with you. Capcom seems to be going from bad to worse this gen.

I haven't bought a new Crapcom game since RE5 and I plan on keeping it that way.

It's amazing how one of the best Japanese developers in the industry can go from hero to zero. Thank God we have the likes of PG and Suda51.

[hano]

I don't know about their business practices but I know their games rock.

That's all.

[zeprince]

Dude, Dudette! whatever, the last Capcom game you bought was RE5!!! ...That speaks volumes about you.

[fei-hung]

@zeprince

Dude/ dudette

Nope, the last NEW game, meaning not preowned.

I have bought Capcom games since then, such as: SSF4, Marvel vs Capcom, RE5:GE and Dead Rising 2, but they have been purchased as preowned.

I will do the same for DMC, RE6 and Asuras Wrath.

[DarkSymbiote]

Capcom just sickens me nowadays.

[tigertron]

Add Square-Enix and Activision to that list too.

[VileAndVicious]

@Dark Symbiote

add EA too.
Infact screw ALL big name developers....
-_-

[zeprince]

The best Game developing company is sony-owned Naughty Dog Studio's. They have yet to flop...EVAR!!!

[TekoIie]

This isnt Capcom. I hate the company a ton too but im pretty sure if the CEO heard of this sort of behaviour coming from members of the company he would want them out INSTANTLY.

This is one jackass:

"Even if the database is a success, you are worthless to the team"... Yes this is going to motivate employee's. If her colleagues had any social skills they would have noticed she is going to be depressed after a comment like that is made.

"Between October 20 and November 4, two other superiors began attempting to get the young employee to quit, saying "she's problematic", "she abandons her work", "she skips meetings", and "her ideas stink".

This is a few weeks after the first quote and Capcom as a company isnt to blame but their employee's are. How the hell do you expect her to work after her boss (article doesnt say this persons status in the company so i assume) tells her shes useless when she tried so hard to put effort into the company!

If i am wrong and this is Capcom as a whole to blame then i hope they go out of business! I usually think that anyone who says things like that is immature but i dont think anyone wants a work environment like that.

Its a real shame when people who go out of their way to help a corporation are treated like this. I wish her luck in the future and hope these idiots dont make her lose confidence in herself.

[rezzah]

^

I marked you down for being immature.

What you said is no different than saying anyone with a certain skin colour should be bullied or beaten because they are a waste of life or whatever else you would like to claim.

You are using your own beliefs as a means for violence, thus calming your sense of justice. But beliefs and justice vary from person to person. What you think is right makes you intentionally want to hurt another, but there are no rights and wrongs. Your beliefs is not the issue, but violence being the answer for you is.

I say if you want to beat up someone for buying a game then make sure you get yourself beat up first before passing on the pain to another. Hopefully then you could understand what your belief really causes; even witnessing the pain of another first hand is not on par with being the one who is actually receiving pain.

[VileAndVicious]

"I'm going to probably get in trouble for this but I don't care, I think anyone caught buying capcom products should be bullied or attacked just to teach them a lesson and try to make sure the company doesn't make any profit."

Because God forbid anyone have a different opinion than you. Also you dont want to see a company make any profit? Some innocent average honest people work there and Capcom is their lively hood. Why not just hope Capcom make better games? Your pretty immature man.

[Flavor]

Its all about Japanese culture. here in America, bullies in the adult working world are rarely seen outside menial labor and antisocial asshats. But in Nippon, bullying is not only common but encouraged and acceptable to weed out the ones who don't conform.

Also, senior level executives, managers or just people who have 'made it' and are secure in their positions treat everyone under them like garbage and do NOT listen to them for advice or input. That's why you see the same old names popping up in game design over there.. they don't make room for new talent, they don't innovate.

There are very few successful startups in the Japanese tech industry because of the stigma of 'failure' - in silicon valley, people fail and go under all the time, but they get right back up again and find funding. In Japan, you get one shot and if you fail, then nobody will lend you money or take you seriously.

Oh and also.. Japanese society is misogynistic to the extreme. Women are expected to be furniture, decoration, and playthings for the Man. You think its like that in the states but brother, you have no idea. AKB48 will tell you all you need to know about this bunch.

Goes a bit to explain why their country is in such bad shape.

[Blackdeath_663]

it serves them right. if you disregard the consumer, the consumer will disregard you. the payed no attention to the fans who in the end walked away and left capcom with jack sh*t.

the Devil May Cry HD remake will be the last capcom game i ever buy(my ps2 died on me so i can't play on it anymore)

[StraightPath]

yeah right you will be playing RE6 so dont just pretend.

[SilentNegotiator]

I don't like Capcom, so I'm going to assume their employees sexual harass each other, simply because a lawsuit is pending.

That's fair, right? What does the employee have to gain, anyway, other loads of money?

[Aither]

I wouldn't blame this solely on Capcom, the Japanese businesses are discriminatory against women all around. Why even in the 1980's - 1990's Japan had a major trouble getting into the American industry because they had a ton of lawsuits from American women that were treated indecently and unfairly by Japanese business men. This discrimination continues today over in Japan so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

[b_one]

Irony, just when dragons dogma is about to release they starting throwing shit

[dangert12]

None of us know what the truth Is but I get this feeling CAPCOM just does not understand how to treat people right.

This is not saying they are guilty I don't know...as I said it's just a feeling

[FlashXIII]

Well if Capcom can't treat the ones who pay their bills right, what chance do their expendable employees have?

[supremacy]

Let alone their customers.

[Cablephish]

@supremacy

We are the ones who pay their bills :P

[killcycle]

They understand how to treat people right completely.

They just choose not to.

[WeskerChildReborned]

Capcom is just trying to make themself look bad. I mean on disk DLC, overpriced RE6 limited edition, and now people killing themselves? tsk tsk tsk.

[Kran]

Don't forget obvious spelling mistakes on packaging.

[WeskerChildReborned]

Well aren't they the worst?

[Soldierone]

I'd like to hear the other side of the story. If Capcom comes up with some very general arguments, then I take the side of the girl. If Capcom can come up with actual facts and present key moments in detail, then I'm with them surprisingly.

I say that because there are people that just want attention. so they act like the baby, when in reality they are just being lazy or purposely messing up to get attention. You can't say you have never worked with this people if you've had a job..... That or she just simply didn't get along with the senior, perhaps she thought the job should have been hers.

On her side though there are those scumbags in the higher ups that do that to you. make you work your ass off, then call you worthless while they take credit for everything you've done. And being this is Capcom....odds are in this ballpark.

[DragonKnight]

Capcom has no side. Some of the comments on Kotaku have good points about Japanese based culture. They aren't the "want attention, act like a baby, lazy/screw up" types there. This whole thing can cost her big time. They aren't like the western world of sue happy people there, and with how Capcom's public relations have been this gen; their general disregard for anything other than maximum profit; I don't find it hard to believe that their employees are a$$hats.

[Soldierone]

Well our crappy ways of be lazy then sue had to start with someone.....

[DragonKnight]

Sure, but they didn't have to overcome centuries of culture that is pretty much specifically against it did they? Hell, Western society was pretty much founded on going against those above us. Eastern society, not so much.

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

DragonKnight

Although I understand that this is an assumption, I 100% agree with you. People tend to forget that it's a total different culture out there and while insurgence has it's place in our culture, in Japan it's not worthy the trouble.

Here one person can sue a company and live from the benefits the rest of its life. In Japan even if you decide to sue and win, there's usually no big pot on the table and it can hurt you trying to get a new job after.

They actually use the laws right. Some company or someone working for such a company did you wrong, you sue to try and make things right and lower the chances of it happening again. i.e. Sexual Harassment, if the company overlooked this they'll pay a price and the person who commited will be either arrested, fined, fired and/or face other consequences. If it's a case of exploiting the employee, the company will have to pay the equivalent to the employee work ours or other rights the Judge may see as fitting. If it's a contract being disrespected (like firing someone who's not working for being sick, refusing vacations pre agreed, exceeding work time, etc), the company may be forced to take the employee back if fired or to pay multiple contract breaking fines, as well as be forced to pay the salary while the employee get's a new job...

There no getting rich in between the lines, so you gonna need the next job, and the companies don't like employing sue happy people.

[sazzrah]

I thought a lot of the comments on Kotaku were shockingly sociopathic; showing little to no empathy for the woman involved.

Apparently attempting suicide means you deserve to die for being weak and that pain only qualifies as genuine 'pain' if there's no one out there worse off than you - you gotta be living under a genocidal dictator in an impoverished third world country otherwise you're just a big baby who needs to 'man up'. It's that 'there's always someone else worse off than you' attitude which people spout off without a thought on how diminishing and callous those words can feel on the receiving end.

I'm a psychotherapist, so I know a thing or two about the day to day struggles of normal people, and one thing I tell my clients regularly is that just because people are worse off in the world doesn't mean you don't feel pain, and doesn't mean what you're going through is any easier.

Frankly, I had to stop reading the Kotaku comments before I lost faith in humanity.

[xtreampro]

Even if she was in the wrong I would never say things like to anyone's face. How can you look down on someone in that manner?

If I had an employee slacking or not contributing to the team as much as everyone else I would want to help them improve in their abilities and find out what exactly is the problem, I wouldn't bash them and tell them to get lost.

That's just wrong.

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

Exactly. Even if it was the worst case of a lazy employee we had ever seen, there's the right way to make people get a grip, to work with the team and even to fire someone who's not fitting well with the job. We don't need to bully people for that, and not just because you would be hurting the employee, the whole professional environment goes to hell when people have to put up with this crap.

[FlashXIII]

Lol Capcom, I think their fall from grace is bigger than Square's and that's saying something considering I spent the best part of my teenage years LOVING the FF games on the ps1/2.

Look at all the awesome things they done over the last few generations.. On the ps1 they pretty much invented the survival horror genre with the resident evil games and to a latter extent Dino Crisis. On the ps2 they created imho one of the most memorable gaming experiences of all time with the original Devil May Cry game. They also took chances by creating new quirky IPs like Ace Attorney and Okami. They also tried new things like with Resi 4.

The horrible DiscLockedContent fiasco aside, you can see they're a shadow of their former self much like SquareEnix focusing so hard on making games appealing to the west, that they've completely forgotten what made them awesome. Outsourcing games to shitty development companies relying heavily on their names to sell the games like Operation racoon city. Don't even get me started on Emo Dante.. I've never wanted a game to fail so hard.

[Tony-Red-Grave]

don't get ME started on devil may cry.

if your going to call him emo dante then we could both agree you have no other agruements

[Kratoscar2008]

Bullcom are bastards even with its own people, no wonder they screw gamers as they are acustomed to screw everyone.

Bullcom is more sickening by every passing minute.

[Truth]

I want to hate Capcom, but one word keeps the hatred locked away by a faint, sliver of hope that they'll one day be able to redeem themselves. Okami. By far one of my most favorite character/games of all time. Up there next to Mario, Link, Samus, Cloud, Snake, etc. Please Capcom, be awesome again. Pretty please?

[Megaton]

All the people who made Okami are gone. They formed Platinum Games. While Capcom owns the IP, don't expect much in the form of greatness as long as its original creators aren't employed there anymore.

[telekineticmantis]

not about what you feel about capcoms games. I think suicide is very unnecessary, but to harass someone to that extent is shameful

[Vandamme21]

Capcom is the best..all those hating articles are just trolling

[Godmars290]

This kind of thing speaks volumes about Capcom. Sadly.

Sounds like most if not all of their senior staff needs to be fired.

[J86blum]

If they had any value for their ancestors they all should of just shoved the blades in their own guts, and somehow megaman walks behinde them beheading them.

[european_cannon]

This is low even for Kotaku, devling into the personal life of a Capcom employee for a story. Sounds like TMZ, oh wait, its Kotaku!

[hano]

Hope she wins and her boss gets kicked out.

And by the way, can you imagine the uproar if her boss was a man? Thank goodness, or feminist pussies would be all over this article.

[jjb1981]

What a bunch of jerkoffs!

[Lou Ferrigno]

meh,it's crapcom..

[ShaunCameron]

Nah. That's just the average workplace in the world.

[L6RD7BLU3]

that sucks

[Razgriz383]

People suck...she tried her best and they still acted like a bunch of imbeciles.

[Captain Qwark 9]

without being there i cant really comment becuase i dont know all the facts.

on one side of the coin, if what she says is true, thats terrible.

at the same time though, she could have just legitimately sucked nuts at her job. maybe they went about it poorly and should have just let her go but truth be told, if she was good at her job she prob wouldnt have had anything like that happen to her

[Fatty]

She could have unlocked better co-workers, but she wouldn't pay 10 bucks for the DLC.

[TheLyonKing]

Bullying is one of the worst forms of torture, I have only been bullied a little and it was not fun.

I find acts of harrasment and bullying a sick an disgusting behaviour and I make it a point to help stick up for people being bullied.

Now am sure this does not reflect capcom as a whole but the fact they never picked this up is just as bad.

[TBONEJF]

This is just sad. This makes me hate CAPCOM so badly. I'm just glad I never bought a SINGLE CAPCOM game since the old NES days. after reading this the way the BOSS said to her. i would beat the SHYT out of him/her NOT TO TALK TO ME LIKE THAT and QUIT. how can the hell you call someone USELESS. When the programmers ARE THE ONES MAKING THE GAME and making it look good. ALL THE BOSS do is sit on his/her lazy ass collecting big bucks. Just glad shes still alive hope she left CAPCOM and never return.

[Ulf]

This story is curiously one-sided, in Kotaku's report.

So... what if she actually was a total slacker, and people disliked her because she was unreliable and emotionally unstable? You know... the kind of person who might be inclined to attempt suicide.

Harsh, yes, but its a rare story that is as one-sided as Kotaku is portraying. Their storytelling is so biased, I can't help but wonder if they're just fishin' for hits most of the time.

Was she the only employee treated this way? If so... why just her? I doubt she's the only female employee of Capcom, besides her superior, so is her sex/gender *really* the issue?...

[Tundra]

So the victim's superior, a female, saw the victim as a threat to her position as one of Capcom's "Bottom B***h." Bottom B***h fought to protect her position and got other pole jockers to join in on the 'fun' (My interpretation from the read).

If your bosses continue to call you s**t, you're going to feel like s**t. When you seek help to remove this s**tty feeling and the company that employed you does nothing(NOTHING), s**t feels worse.

Finally, s**t catches up to you and you feel worthless all because some b***h felt her position was threatened. The victim attempts to kill herself, lives and now wants payback.

Capcom, you are now the definition of the word "Screw Up". There should be a Capcomlogo.jpeg next to the word "Screw Up" on urbandictionary.com

Nice going guys. Hopefully she can find peace within herself. Psychological assaults can be the harshest of attacks.

[byrnezy]

TBH I don't want to buy RE6 because of the way CAPCOM have been treating customers and now employees it seems but I know I won't be able to resist.
But shame on them if this is true!

[gamerben]

Capcom is by far the greediest company I've ever seen.

Even back then... 6 megaman games? and how many street fighters II remakes?

Wouldn't it be better just to develop the game longer with more content? jeez.

[ShaunCameron]

<Wouldn't it be better just to develop the game longer with more content? jeez.>

Most games this generation are not all that long.

[gamerben]

I was talking about back then, like, if they would have took more time developing megaman 3, imagine how awesome it could have been.

[yokokoroma]

This is a very sad case, based on what's written it appears to be true. I mean there are too many factors that reinforce the female developer's claim. The question is, why was this behavior allowed. It seems the female developer put forth an intuitive effort to help with Dragon's Dogma. Then again, there is the never changing stigma, that is males are superior to females, which resonates the world over.

It's ashame Capcom has fallen from the position it held last gen. This incident only makes it worse.

[Richdad]

Atleast you can file lawsuit in Japan for this. Still I think she took way beyond the limits. Why not move to a new job if your current job stinks.

[jon1234]

i hate these types of articles, i want to come here to get news about games coming up, not watch an article harbor hate for a company... seriously i dont understand why everyone is so surprised with how capcom does its buisness... its out to make money... simple as that, they dont care about you or how you feel about them and i doubt whining about how much you hate them here will change things

[maniactadpole]

Pirate Capcom games from now on :P

[SnakeCQC]

the messed up asuras wrath (will hopefully review the second i finish it) they mess up and screw over everyone and i believe this lawsuit and hope she gets a massive cash sum for her troubles

[Sobaskets]

If she killed herself, there would be WAY less of an outrage.....

Just saying.

Attempted shit is shit, nothing more.

[AIndoria]

Why isn't she in Kitchen?
(Hint: Sarcasm)