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Discussion Despite pledges, Nintendo still has few female managers in Japan. Nintendo says 4.2% of its managers in Japan are women. (23.5% global)

Good article, this needs to be called out considerably more in the industry. The fact that Nintendo reports on the proportion of female workers in management positions and the pay gap between male and female workers is nice to see.

It's mentioned in the article, but Nintendo is in a unique position where I have to imagine this is even more of a difficult task for them to complete in a timely fashion given the average employee has a tenure of over 14 years.

Regardless of that, though, zero progress in two years sucks. I'd like to see a question posed at the next investor's call about specific actions being taken.
 
These numbers are absolutely wild. I know Japan is quite bad when it comes to this but even then, abysmal figures.
 
That's an absolute shame. They have to fix it and they have to fix it fast. I mean the worldwide number is already shameful, but 4,2%??? Wtf.
 
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Best selling japanese game ever (AC New Horizons) was directed by a woman.

I think woman in gaming can make much more broad appealing games, thus selling better than a male focused title.
 
Considering how many women are proving key to many of their successful series, this needs to be addressed.
 
  • Nintendo attributes that to issues of tenure in a place where workers stay at the company for an average of 14.3 years (and where veteran employees are mostly men).
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  • “The pay gap between male and female regular employees is mainly due to differences in the length of service and average age,” the company noted: “There is no difference in treatment between men and women in terms of salary or evaluation systems.”
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I have absolutely zero knowledge of Japanese business and whether culture is to blame for these numbers, but how could they effectively change the situation for the better?

I mean, just hire more women might be a over simplification of things so I would have liked to see something that goes a little more in depth.
 
Does anyone have gender demographics about new graduates entering the industry in japan? My googling has not yielded any info ,but I'm curious how much of this could be a pipeline problem similar to that facing STEM professions in U.S academia. From what I recall from Monolithsoft's hirings (which I have followed in the past), the newer hires have tended to be more even in terms of gender ratio, which would cut against this idea to some extent. Either way, it definitely can and needs to be fixed; it'd just change what exactly the solution would look like.
 
Oh that is awful. A bunch of great and inventive games come from women bringing their own ideas. Something needs to change, although I wouldn't know how.
 
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Yavga said:
I have absolutely zero knowledge of Japanese business and whether culture is to blame for these numbers, but how could they effectively change the situation for the better?

I mean, just hire more women might be a over simplification of things so I would have liked to see something that goes a little more in depth.
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I think it's naturally a long-term goal due to the lack of the turn-over.
 
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Yavga said:
I have absolutely zero knowledge of Japanese business and whether culture is to blame for these numbers, but how could they effectively change the situation for the better?

I mean, just hire more women might be a over simplification of things so I would have liked to see something that goes a little more in depth.
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Pretty much the old guard needs to retire.

It's the only reason why I'm kinda letting this slide. There's not a whole lot of available management positions available when everyone's been there for 15 years.
 
This is a hard problem to solve considering that the only way for new management positions to be created in the short term, is for Nintendo to fire managers. If their workforce doesn't leave willingly, then that would be the only option to do so. But Nintendo quite famously, holds onto their employees and do everything in their power to stop layoffs. Which is a labor positive thing. We definitely should applaud that.

The only other option is the company to expand and allow female employees to take those roles. However, Nintendo famously doesn't have any room in their offices anymore, and that's why they are constructing another building. By which time it will take a at least 5 years for construction and then they need more developers to expand.

No matter what, it's going to take a while. But at the very least, Nintendo knows of the problems, and can take steps to correct. But this is going to take a long while to correct.
 
Lozjam said:
This is a hard problem to solve considering that the only way for new management positions to be created in the short term, is for Nintendo to fire managers. If their workforce doesn't leave willingly, then that would be the only option to do so. But Nintendo quite famously, holds onto their employees and do everything in their power to stop layoffs. Which is a labor positive thing. We definitely should applaud that.

The only other option is the company to expand and allow female employees to take those roles. However, Nintendo famously doesn't have any room in their offices anymore, and that's why they are constructing another building. By which time it will take a at least 5 years for construction and then they need more developers to expand.

No matter what, it's going to take a while. But at the very least, Nintendo knows of the problems, and can take steps to correct. But this is going to take a long while to correct.
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I think the bigger issue when there's a lack of diversity at an organization is that there's often a lack of internal motivation to rectify the problem. It's been 2 years since Nintendo was forced to publicize these numbers due to a new law, but it's unlikely that there have only been a few managers who are women for 2 years. This is probably a long-term problem that we're learning about now.

In which case, why have they been unable to find women to promote to managerial positions (both before and in the last 2 years)? Why do managers require additional office space to be promoted? If they haven't seen any changes in 2 years, why should we expect them to take any corrective actions?

This is not a Nintendo-specific or even Japan-specific problem, and so I don't think they're uniquely bad (and I'm not criticizing you for providing reasonable explanations). However, I don't expect this to change until Nintendo is forced to change, whether that be via investor pressure, Japanese regulatory pressure, or from somewhere else.
 
LoneRanger said:
Best selling japanese game ever (AC New Horizons) was directed by a woman.

I think woman in gaming can make much more broad appealing games, thus selling better than a male focused title.
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Am I missing something or did you just forget to write “one of the best” because that’s not true. Agree with your overall point though.
 
We need a yikes-reaction button for news like this. And I'm sure that's the average across all of the business units, counting in moms on maternity leave and other tricks you can pull as a company to make these numbers look less yikes-y than they are. Also the medial representation of their developers, at least from what I remember, is 100% male as well.

We will get the 2024 report with the same number...
 
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Absolutely wild that these numbers are still so low two years after first having to report it.
 
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Fercho said:
Assuming that statement is true, what would be your problem with it?
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Realistically, what would you like them to do?

They don't have space to expand and there's barely any turnover in the company. Are you suggesting they fire or force retirement on their management to open up opportunities for women?

What's the plan here?
 
Fercho said:
Assuming that statement is true, what would be your problem with it?
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Well if you're going to just boycott a single title that's just half-assing it, if members here band together to boycott 1 game they will obviously pick a title they aren't interested in, in a way we're all boycotting specific titles. Something like a petition would be way more effective and proportional when you consider the influence the lack of women in manging positions has on your life. It would likely also attract people outside this small community.

As for the lack of women in management positions itself, discrimination could be a factor - which doesn't entirely rhyme with there being female managers already - but also unequal pools of potential candidates. To have 50/50 sex parity in every field the sexes would need to start behaving differently and I personally cant help but notice I mostly see parity or female domination wished for high status fields.
 
They’ve acknowledged the problem & we’ll have to see how they address it going into the future. I give them another three years to see if they had any plans to mitigate some problem areas like the pay gap. This would be a five year span where we could see small progress. Management positions could be somewhat addressed with the opening of the new building but this would be a very long term project regardless.

If you take umbrage with this news & wanna personally boycott then by all means otherwise trying to rally a forum wide boycott does little to nothing as we have seen multiple times now.
 
I did some additional reading on this, and there's a few pieces of information that are important to this story that I believe could be emphasized more to both elaborate on the reporting and further scrutinize Nintendo's lack of effort:
  1. Nintendo states that the figures are "Calculated in accordance with the provisions of the Act on Promotion of Women's Participation and Advancement in the Workplace (Act No. 64 of 2015)," not from their own internal objectives, and
  2. In their 2021 Governance report, they state that "The Company does not have specific targets for the appointment of women, foreign nationals, and mid-careers to managerial positions. However, as a global company engaging in the entertainment business, which is characterized by increasingly diversifying customer needs and preferences, it is essential that we leverage the talents of a diverse workforce."
I've bolded the section of #2 that actually matters, the rest is table stakes talk. They go on to say that "as part of these efforts, we are recruiting women and creating an environment in which women can build successful careers" again, nice, but table stakes. The lack of targets showcases why there was no change between 2021 and 2023 - they were not actively setting goals to encourage change.

Here's what I'd like to see from Nintendo:
  1. Internal objectives relating to the hiring and promotion of women reported as part of their Annual Report to shareholders.
  2. Those internal objectives additionally tying directly to individual performance bonuses and KPI targets (we wouldn't know about this, publicly).
This sort of area of HR is complex and requires top-down buy-in at a company from the CEO level. The best way of ensuring that hapens is by tying it to KPIs and corporate performance. The best way of achieving those targets is by tying it to the performance bonuses of those who can achieve the goals.

I'm not an HR expert, but there's a lot of change management here and it's a long-haul effort and it needs to be a constant effort from stakeholders that have a vested interest in it. If there's just numbers being reported for the sake of abiding by workplace reporting requirements, change won't happen.
 
Chindogg said:
Realistically, what would you like them to do?

They don't have space to expand and there's barely any turnover in the company. Are you suggesting they fire or force retirement on their management to open up opportunities for women?

What's the plan here?
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KarmaDesires said:
Well if you're going to just boycott a single title that's just half-assing it, if members here band together to boycott 1 game they will obviously pick a title they aren't interested in, in a way we're all boycotting specific titles. Something like a petition would be way more effective and proportional when you consider the influence the lack of women in manging positions has on your life. It would likely also attract people outside this small community.

As for the lack of women in management positions itself, discrimination could be a factor - which doesn't entirely rhyme with there being female managers already - but also unequal pools of potential candidates. To have 50/50 sex parity in every field the sexes would need to start behaving differently and I personally cant help but notice I mostly see parity or female domination wished for high status fields.
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Well first of all i don't think that user is being serious.

Nevertheless, the thing here is that a boycott is just a protest , right? , you can take any reason important enough for you and boycott anything you want, that's your right as a person. You can tell somebody why you are boycotting , aske them to join, that's also their right.

You can be also against or to don't agree to that boycott. That's also your right.

What makes always give the side eye to someone is when they attack, mock or have a gut reaction to someone who is boycotting something specially for a social justice cause, time and time again experience has telling me that these people are against "the idea" behind the boycott, not the boycott itself because, let's be real, most of boycotts to big companies in this uber capitalist society are destined to eventual failure or to not hurt the companies as much as we may want. The people who has gut reactions to boycotts , once you start asking questions, their arguments fall apart very quickly and eventually start showing their assess.

KarmaDesires said:
To have 50/50 sex parity in every field the sexes would need to start behaving differently and I personally cant help but notice I mostly see parity or female domination wished for high status fields.
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Could you please expand more in this statement?
 
Seeing how great the games that Rieko Kodama and her team made were, I'd love to see more games being directed or produced by women.
 
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Fercho said:
Well first of all i don't think that user is being serious.

Nevertheless, the thing here is that a boycott is just a protest , right? , you can take any reason important enough for you and boycott anything you want, that's your right as a person. You can tell somebody why you are boycotting , aske them to join, that's also their right.

You can be also against or to don't agree to that boycott. That's also your right.

What makes always give the side eye to someone is when they attack, mock or have a gut reaction to someone who is boycotting something specially for a social justice cause, time and time again experience has telling me that these people are against "the idea" behind the boycott, not the boycott itself because, let's be real, most of boycotts to big companies in this uber capitalist society are destined to eventual failure or to not hurt the companies as much as we may want. The people who has gut reactions to boycotts , once you start asking questions, their arguments fall apart very quickly and eventually start showing their assess.


Could you please expand more in this statement?
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I wasn't trying to mock the call for the boycott. I was asking what a boycott was supposed to accomplish.

Unless you're ok with firing/force retiring talented people to increase a percentage stat then I'm not sure what the plan forward is supposed to be. There's only so many management spots and with no expansion along with little turnover the stat is not going to be great for a while. While I'm hoping that future openings will be filled with women over time, I look at calls for a boycott now as a reactionary measure to a stat that lacks actual nuance.

My questioning to this boycott specifically isn't because I'm defending Nintendo or against social justice causes. My questioning is addressing what said boycott is supposed to accomplish beyond a reactionary measure.
 
Chindogg said:
I wasn't trying to mock the call for the boycott. I was asking what a boycott was supposed to accomplish.
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Sometimes a Boycott is only " i will not give this company my money anymore" have a piece of mind and that's it. It's that bad? Nobody is going to twist your arm to join a boycott.


Chindogg said:
Unless you're ok with firing/force retiring talented people to increase a percentage stat then I'm not sure what the plan forward is supposed to be.
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I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean or how we reach this conclusion. Firing talented people to meet a quota? is Nintendo going to fire Shigeru Miyamoto because of the big , bad scary feminists?? is that your fear?





Chindogg said:
My questioning to this boycott specifically isn't because I'm defending Nintendo or against social justice causes. My questioning is addressing what said boycott is supposed to accomplish beyond a reactionary measure.
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Sometimes you have to be reactionary and that's ok, nevertheless as i said, sometimes the only goal is to not give your money to a company/artist/whatever that you disagree with and have a piece of mind, maybe make other people aware why you are doing it and have that long shot in make other people support you, to agree with you or at least make them aware of the problems that made you take that decision. Why is that bad? it's not like your $60 is going to broke the company.

The hilarious thing for me in this thread is that even talking about an hypothetical boycott to Nintendo has some DF talking about the fear "firing talented people to meet a percentage", claiming that "sexes need to modify behavior" and etc etc. Imagine if someone comes here and dead seriously says :

" Moving forward I will boycott Nintendo for their shitty business practices, their draconian and shitty treatment to its fans and community, their shitty treatment of employees, their shitty treatment of contractors and their lack of diversity on their management"

Just imagine the the fury of defense force with their : "Hey are you serious!!!?? i cant believe I'm the first one asking this, woof woof woof" . HELL writing this message makes me wonder why I don't I boycott myself LMAO.
 
Fercho said:
Sometimes a Boycott is only " i will not give this company my money anymore" have a piece of mind and that's it. It's that bad? Nobody is going to twist your arm to join a boycott.




I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean or how we reach this conclusion. Firing talented people to meet a quota? is Nintendo going to fire Shigeru Miyamoto because of the big , bad scary feminists?? is that your fear?







Sometimes you have to be reactionary and that's ok, nevertheless as i said, sometimes the only goal is to not give your money to a company/artist/whatever that you disagree with and have a piece of mind, maybe make other people aware why you are doing it and have that long shot in make other people support you, to agree with you or at least make them aware of the problems that made you take that decision. Why is that bad? it's not like your $60 is going to broke the company.

The hilarious thing for me in this thread is that even talking about an hypothetical boycott to Nintendo has some DF talking about the fear "firing talented people to meet a percentage", claiming that "sexes need to modify behavior" and etc etc. Imagine if someone comes here and dead seriously says :

" Moving forward I will boycott Nintendo for their shitty business practices, their draconian and shitty treatment to its fans and community, their shitty treatment of employees, their shitty treatment of contractors and their lack of diversity on their management"

Just imagine the the fury of defense force with their : "Hey are you serious!!!?? i cant believe I'm the first one asking this, woof woof woof" . HELL writing this message makes me wonder why I don't I boycott myself LMAO.
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Looks like you're more interested in casting judgment to prove moral superiority then actually having a conversation about what an action is actually meant to accomplish.

Yeah I'm good.
 
Chindogg said:
Looks like you're more interested in casting judgment to prove moral superiority then actually having a conversation about what an action is actually meant to accomplish.

Yeah I'm good.
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LOL I literally told you (twice) what the action is meant to accomplish and I indirectly called out my own hypocrisy and lack of moral superiority in not boycotting (yet) myself.

And yet, not only you avoided the questions i make you (have a "conversation" as you put it) but you have to throw your "moral superiority" dig at the first chance and peace out, like a coward.

I mean, I knew this was going to happen, the "your moral superiority, antiwoke, cancel culture hating" sector in our hobby are very predictable, I just didn't expected that it was so soon :ROFLMAO:

I'm good too.
 
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Hasn't the JP Directs mostly been narrated by Yuichi Nakamura (the YouTuber/voice actor)? A female presenter would be cool though.

As an aside, I noticed a couple of female NoA employees got promoted over the weekend on Twitter. Not sure of the full extent of those promotions since I only saw two but the timing is notable.
 
mariodk18 said:
I'm still waiting for a JP Direct of any kind to have a female narrator. Or even a presenter.
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astrogamer said:
Hasn't the JP Directs mostly been narrated by Yuichi Nakamura (the YouTuber/voice actor)? A female presenter would be cool though.

As an aside, I noticed a couple of female NoA employees got promoted over the weekend on Twitter. Not sure of the full extent of those promotions since I only saw two but the timing is notable.
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Yeah I thought Nakamura was narrating lately. It makes sense considering how many women are Switch owners.
 
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Chindogg said:
I wasn't trying to mock the call for the boycott. I was asking what a boycott was supposed to accomplish.

Unless you're ok with firing/force retiring talented people to increase a percentage stat then I'm not sure what the plan forward is supposed to be. There's only so many management spots and with no expansion along with little turnover the stat is not going to be great for a while. While I'm hoping that future openings will be filled with women over time, I look at calls for a boycott now as a reactionary measure to a stat that lacks actual nuance.

My questioning to this boycott specifically isn't because I'm defending Nintendo or against social justice causes. My questioning is addressing what said boycott is supposed to accomplish beyond a reactionary measure.
Click to expand...

Well, the biggest issue is there doesn’t seem to be a plan going forward, period. They haven’t communicated anything resembling one, and a couple years ago when it was first brought to light they flat out said there wasn’t one.

You can’t change this overnight, for sure, but a company with almost 3,000 employees is also not bereft of management positions or turnover either. They can’t make a massive leap even if every single vacancy they filled in the last two years was with a woman, but they certainly could have done better than nothing. And again, more importantly, they could and should have a plan in place to address over the next 5 to 10 years where you can make a significant change.
 
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I had a lot to say the last time this was brought up on 2021, and it's all still relevant:
Terrell said:
A lot of that has to do, in my estimation, with the fact that the current managers were promoted to that position before Nintendo began broadening its number of women in their workforce in Japan and the fact that many managers don't retire all that quickly. They're also limited by who is permitted to exit university with a degree, and there's a lot of hay being made in Japan about how the university system has gendered favouritism towards men in multiple facets. Many women hired in STEM positions in Japan studied abroad because of that precise problem.

NCL's odds of gender equality and inclusivity are unfortunately stacked against them due to the national culture they're surrounded in. For example, this:
www.nintendolife.com

Nintendo Underlines Its Commitment To Diversity And Inclusivity

And details its new Partnership System
www.nintendolife.com www.nintendolife.com
In spite of NCL's commitment to equitable treatment for LGBTQ employees, you'd be hard-pressed to find employees who are willing to be out at work there in spite of this, because while there may be trust with management, there likely isn't any trust among the other employees and it may not be enough to overcome the anxiety associated with doing so. There is such an immensely pervasive culture of terror regarding being out to anyone in a work environment that no statement of principles from management can fully alleviate, so what Nintendo's own LGBTQ employees believe will happen to them if they stand up and account themselves as being LGBTQ and advocating for the community in development is going to heavily diminish efforts of inclusivity, thanks to a national culture abundant with examples of negative outcomes to coming out at work there, particularly a rash of forced outings that ruined several LGBTQ lives and livelihoods. Here's an excerpt since it's paywalled:

"People having their sexual orientation or gender identity revealed without their consent has become a deepening problem in Japan, a country known for its culture in which the "nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

In recent years, there have been a growing number of cases in which a person has been outed by someone they trust, sometimes resulting in the affected person feeling they have to quit school or work to escape the fallout.
.....
Maezono explained that the root of the problem lies in society's unwillingness to recognize sexual diversity. "Many sexual minorities are in a situation where they feel they must hide," he said."

These systemic cultural issues CAN be overcome, and Nintendo doesn't seem to be afraid of being ahead of the curve on these things (they were one of the first Japanese video game publishers to hire women for development roles and have one of the best gender splits in the total workforce in the industry there) but it's not going to be easy and it's going to take time, assuredly more time than we want it to take.
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From what I have seen, the systemic cultural issues that prevent women and LGBTQ people from either entering, proceeding and staying in the workforce (the STEM workforce in particular) have not been abated to a satisfactory level. And, to put a finer point on it, the fact that Nintendo - even with these numbers presented - has one of the best records for employment of women in the video game industry in Japan speaks volumes as to how widespread, far-reaching and systemic the problem is, in that extends far beyond Nintendo's own control. Corporations in Japan being required to report dismal numbers like this will only motivate them to pressure the government to actually resolve these systemic issues, but the ruling LDP only has interest in lip service to systemic issues rather than making hard choices.
Lozjam said:
This is a hard problem to solve considering that the only way for new management positions to be created in the short term, is for Nintendo to fire managers. If their workforce doesn't leave willingly, then that would be the only option to do so. But Nintendo quite famously, holds onto their employees and do everything in their power to stop layoffs. Which is a labor positive thing. We definitely should applaud that.

The only other option is the company to expand and allow female employees to take those roles. However, Nintendo famously doesn't have any room in their offices anymore, and that's why they are constructing another building. By which time it will take a at least 5 years for construction and then they need more developers to expand.

No matter what, it's going to take a while. But at the very least, Nintendo knows of the problems, and can take steps to correct. But this is going to take a long while to correct.
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With the expansion still in progress, I could see Aya Kyogoku being promoted to Deputy General Manager within the next 5-10 years and opening a seat for EPD Production Group 5 manager that she could fill with another woman. It's stuff like that which will help make the difference. It's part of why I've been so positive about their employment expansion, it opens up new opportunities.
 
Terrell said:
I had a lot to say the last time this was brought up on 2021, and it's all still relevant:

From what I have seen, the systemic cultural issues that prevent women and LGBTQ people from either entering, proceeding and staying in the workforce (the STEM workforce in particular) have not been abated to a satisfactory level. And, to put a finer point on it, the fact that Nintendo - even with these numbers presented - has one of the best records for employment of women in the video game industry in Japan speaks volumes as to how widespread, far-reaching and systemic the problem is, in that extends far beyond Nintendo's own control. Corporations in Japan being required to report dismal numbers like this will only motivate them to pressure the government to actually resolve these systemic issues, but the ruling LDP only has interest in lip service to systemic issues rather than making hard choices.

With the expansion still in progress, I could see Aya Kyogoku being promoted to Deputy General Manager within the next 5-10 years and opening a seat for EPD Production Group 5 manager that she could fill with another woman. It's stuff like that which will help make the difference. It's part of why I've been so positive about their employment expansion, it opens up new opportunities.
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Do you know which is higher between senior officers and the deputy managers? Like you said I’m surprised Kyogoku wasn’t made into either one of those positions alongside Sakomoto or Tanabe considering the sales of NH. Maybe it’s just a tenure thing?
 
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Nintendo pledges to improve the gender and pay gap and what? Sounds like typical corporate speak to keep people off of their backs.

I'd like to know the rate of women applying at Nintendo vs men. Do they need to entice more women to their company? I'd also like to know the pay of everyone, man and woman and how much time they've taken off for family. Having children can take a considerable chunk of time from anyone's job, decreasing tenure compared to anyone else working continuously.
 
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