Fired Nintendo worker comes forward, talks union-busting

Mackenzie Clifton spoke at length about their experience being fired over an innocuous question about unionisation.

Mackenzie Clifton, an ex-Nintendo game tester who worked on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, spoke publicly to the press about the labour complaint filed anonymously against Nintendo, citing a question about unionisation as the reason for her dismissal.

Clifton spoke to Axios in an interview about her removal from Nintendo in February of this year. Their firing, Clifton believes, was tethered to a question they had asked Doug Bowser, president of Nintendo of America, about unionisation.

Their question was “What does NoA think about the unionisation trend in QA in the games industry as of late?” Clifton states that, later that same day, a supervisor from the contracting firm Aston Carter chided them over asking a “downer question,” suggesting that they instead ask those sorts of questions through Aston Carter and not Nintendo. A few weeks later, Clifton was fired.

“I hope that sharing this story can get more and more people thinking about how the games industry works and how these companies, that everyone’s come to know and love as providers of fun entertainment, are so much more than that,” Clifton said.

Nintendo denied firing Clifton over unionisation questions. Picture: Nintendo

Nintendo, for their part, stated that Clifton was dismissed for publicly disclosing “confidential information.” The proof offered by Clifton’s supervisors was of a tweet posted in February, which read “in today’s build someone somewhere must have deleted every other texture in the game bc everything is now red. Just like, pure red. it’s very silly.” The tweet does not identify what game or project Clifton was working on at the time.

To meet any conditions of a settlement, Clifton requested one thing: a letter of apology, signed by Doug Bowser. Nintendo instead offered to let Clifton speak to HR, and then later offered a “neutral letter of reference.”

Clifton’s case is currently being handled by the National Labor Relations Board or NLRB, and in the wake of their initial complaint, plenty of current and former Nintendo employees and contractors came forward, accusing Nintendo of creating “years of abuse” for game testers, customer service, and even some game writer teams.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.