They barely scraped by in 2024 with $1.5 billion in (net) profits, and people expect them to be able to continue to be able to pay their 7,724 employees without raising the price of their games?
I mean, if Nintendo tried to give every employee (including janitors and customer service) a paltry $175,000 annual salary increase, they'd barely have (net) profitted $200,000,000 last year.
People need to grow up, no business can be expected to survive like that!
The saddest part about modern gaming is the developer companies are making huge profits but then they layoff the actual developers that made the game.
God forbid you share the profits with the people most responsible for them. No. We gotta give all that money to the CEO that keeps making bone-headed decisions.
Nintendo specifically is pretty famous for doing very few layoffs though. They prioritize long term talent retention way more than most game companies, especially in the west.
You're correct they don't do profit sharing though. And they are still a public company so they do prioritize profits and shareholder benefits in the form of dividends.
Japan expects loyalty from their employees and shockingly frequently actually shows loyalty back. Their work hour expectations are a nightmare, especially for people who want to have families, but they otherwise do treat their workers a lot better than the US does easily
I mean, in Japan a man can spend practically Zero time with his family and still be considered a good family guy, East Asian societies are kind of like that, even Hindus MENA and Latinos who work ridiculous hours still value spending time with their families in a way that's just alien to Asians
Not even defending how brutal the working hours can get, but it's a completely different culture
I mean I am talking about Japan in general, not just Japanese game development. I have worked with several international workers from Japan and they have talked about the good and bad of the different work cultures through casual conversations. Which generally all jived with other anecdotes I have seen from others with similar experiences.
Like most studios go through "crunch" the same as any Japanese developer. That isn't in contention. The overall point is that Japanese studios rarely lay people off compared to western studios. Hell I can even dig up new stories showing Higher ups are Nintendo cutting their own salary in lieu of layoffs. This is a "well known" thing about their work culture.
So japan doesn't "Expect" loyalty, it's more that they are treated for and aren't at risk for getting fired? Seems quite different compared to the US where you can get fired after being "loyal" for decades like the music producer for halo at bungie.
Look, I know what you're trying to say, but it's ridiculous. Every country has problems and hyper focusing on japan's one core issue is hardly the big contention point people think it is.
Versus the US? Buddy the US has some of the worst labour laws in the entire world lmao. The same US that's self destroying itself? I do not understand how anyone can even remotely use the US as an argument for anything in 2025 against any country lmao.
The US lays off people in droves there's no other country as bad as the US for this. So no, I entirely disagree with you because it's nonsense to think toxic work culture is even remotely as bad as the risk of not having a roof over your head because you lost your job.
redditors and facts? No it's only about feelings here. Monopolies are bad (except when it's steam) and Nintendo is bad because inflation and global economics. Angry at games being $20 more and not the bag of chips that is $7 a bag or eggs that are $15. Lmao.
If gamers actually spend as much effort hating on publishers as they did voting maybe things would improve in the world.
The saddest part about modern gaming is the developer companies are making huge profits but then they layoff the actual developers that made the game.
"Money people" on one side and creatives and code wizards on the other. People might wonder how games can bring so much joy, but the gaming industry always seems to have something lined up to try and cram down consumers' throats against their will. Let it be a mystery no longer.
That's actually a lot lower then I expected it to be
if Nintendo tried to give every employee (including janitors and customer service) a paltry $175,000 annual salary increase, they'd barely have (net) profitted $200,000,000 last year.
I get what your saying but $200 million wouldn't be a lot for reinvestment into developing new games...they work on these for years with teams of dozens of developers at minimum...now I'm not saying I understand their development system or payment schedule but $200 mil would disappear real quick
For reference Tears if the Kingdom was in production for 6 years despite being able to reuse parts of Breath if the Wild code...and there were 300 of them
300 salaries x theoretical $175k is already $52.5 million...and they put out multiple games a year so multiple teams working before even considering the overhead of running the company that following year
$200m mil doesn't go as far these days on this scale :/
I get what youre saying and youre right but the guy youre replying to is referencing profit which included reductions for operation costs and payroll, and said giving huge salary raises to all the people doing that work still left them with 200mil profit for the year. the 200mil in that example wouldn't be going into the costs youre talking about and would be saved for the rougher parts
again, youre right, if their revenue somehow craters the following year
People need to grow up, no business can be expected to survive like that!
Unironically, yes. Games are inherently a feast-or-famine industry. When you're doing well and have a hit on your hands, you need to be building up reserves. Otherwise the next Dreamcast/Wii U/PS Vita just bankrupts you.
Nah they need the stockpile to weather the bad years of a flop like wiiU. That's one reason why they can keep doing experimental and weird stuff, because they can afford it.
I'm confused. They are already killing it (EA has a 19.84%Â operating margin).
I mean, cool and great for them if they manage to pull it off . . .
but also they have like 7k employees and are hand over fist raking it in; so, all considered . . . kinda greedy. Not making more money when you are almost double some of your large competition's margins isn't going to harm your business.
Going from 33% margin to 19% is bad for business regardless how much youre profiting. That means you're spending more money to make less. That's no good.
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u/Mughalbadsha12 23h ago
leave the billion dollar corporation alone theyre just a small indie team