Fired Nintendo employee who asked about unionization says he leaked information about the company

A former Nintendo employee who was fired from the company less than a month after asking the company for their views on unionization has spoken out and challenged Nintendo’s own account that they were fired for an entirely separate reason – a breach of confidentiality.

QA tester Mackenzie Clifton spoke publicly to Axios about their departure from Nintendo of America and revealed both the unionization question they asked, as well as the “confidential information” they were accused of. to have disclosed.

During a January Q&A session with Nintendo of America boss Doug Bowser, Clifton said they submitted the following question: “What does NoA think about the unionization trend in QA in the games industry lately?

No response was provided, and Clifton later received a follow-up from Nintendo’s Q&A contractor company, Aston Carter, in which they were told the question had been a “depressing one”, and to send him questions. on the subject rather than on Nintendo itself.

In February, less than a month later, Clifton was fired. Nintendo previously told Eurogamer that the dismissal was due to the disclosure of “confidential information and for no other reason”.

Now, Clifton has revealed the tweet Nintendo fired them for, which was posted on February 16:

“In today’s build, someone somewhere must have removed all the other textures from the game because everything is now red. Just like pure red. It’s very silly.”

Clifton claims that this message does not reveal information about the project they were working on and suggests that it is a cover of Nintendo’s own reasoning.

Either way, the case comes amid discontent at Nintendo of America – and particularly from its quality assurance testers – who have spoken out this year about employee rights and working conditions. work.

After several media reports on the matter — and pressure from unionizing efforts at studios elsewhere — Nintendo of America’s Doug Bowser released a statement in May saying he found said reports “disturbing” and that the matter was in full swing. exam course.

Bowser’s predecessor, Reggie Fils-Aimé, also commented on the situation, saying, “It’s not Nintendo that I left.”

We reached out to Nintendo for more details today. In the meantime, here’s Nintendo’s previous statement on Clifton’s firing in full:

“We are aware of the complaint, which was filed with the National Labor Relations Board by a contractor who had previously been terminated for leaking confidential information and for no other reason,” a door-to-door member said today. word of Nintendo UK to Eurogamer. “Nintendo is not aware of any attempted unionization or related activity and intends to cooperate with the NLRB’s investigation.

“Nintendo is fully committed to providing a welcoming and supportive work environment for all of our employees and contractors. We take employment matters very seriously.”