Department of Communication & Theatre Arts
Old Dominion University
Wynter Fayson
(She/Her)
Wynter is currently a senior at Old Dominion University. She is a Psychology major with a double minor in Management and Communication. She is currently applying to graduate programs to start her Masters in the summer! In the meantime though, you can usually find her playing video games.
​
Pre-Travel Analysis
The company that I selected to complete this assignment on was the Nintendo Corporation, located in Redmond, WA. Redmond is a small suburb just outside of Seattle, and is a staple in the PNW region. Nintendo is a notable entertainment company and has cemented itself in the hearts of fans and people alike all over the world, myself included. Growing up, I have fond memories of all of the titles that I played produced by Nintendo and its partner companies. To this day, I still have consoles and games that I keep up with years later. It’s like their stories just never leave you! So, I decided to select Nintendo as my focus for this project because of not only its notoriety in the entertainment industry, but because of its status as a contender in the space of big tech!
​
Nintendo states that its results are better when the company’s teams represent its potential consumers and fans (Nintendo, DEI). At a first glance, I take that as a commitment to diversity and trying to understand the hearts of global players. It also notes that they are building a culture where employees feel comfortable sharing their knowledge and ideas for the sake of innovation. The company has a dedicated webpage for all inquiries into its policies surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion, and approaches the page’s subject through listing its various employee resource groups(Nintendo, DEI). With their statements on diversity and the effort that Nintendo takes to highlight the various ERGs, I feel that it ties in pretty well with what we tackle in class regarding subject matter and being exposed to different experiences of marginalized groups.
​
With that last point, the material that we cover in this course references media that covers the different realities of marginalized groups, and as a parallel, Nintendo attempts to bridge that gap in a way. They acknowledge that innovation is created by their employees who may have differing knowledge, ideas, and perspectives, as that’s what makes creativity thrive at Nintendo(Nintendo, DEI). To further highlight this point, I want to point out the benefits that Nintendo offers as a part of its employment package. The main benefit options that stand out to me are the family-forming assistance benefit, geared to assist employees with all paths to parenthood, including fertility, adoption, and surrogacy support, and the employee assistance program, where Nintendo provides free, confidential counseling services, and resources for employees(Nintendo, Benefits and Perks).
​
With that, the Nintendo company’s mission statement is short and sweet, with emphasis on humanity and their humble beginnings as a company in Kyoto, 1889(Nintendo, About). In the very first sentence, it tells the viewer that “Nintendo’s mission is to put smiles on the faces of everyone we touch.” I think that's an impactful way to start off the statement of any company, whilst also being a great marketing strategy that targets its consumer’s emotions regarding their nostalgia of being a kid and playing around with Nintendo products. That opening statement also applies to the various company happenings as well, as the Nintendo company has a 98% employee satisfaction rate in Japan(Doolan, 2023). With that, I believe that it would be worthwhile to credit the various employee resource groups that were mentioned earlier on. Some groups displayed on Nintendo’s page dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion are groups for Black, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ+, women, and disabled employees(Nintendo, DEI). While information regarding any internal information about the employee resource groups is scarce, from an outsider standpoint who’s looking at employee statistics I feel confident that the employee resource groups that Nintendo has are treating their marginalized employees fairly.
​
From what I have been researching about the Nintendo company, I think that how Nintendo portrays their employees, staff, consultants, clients and customers who are same sex & LGBTQ+, is overall positive! With a company this big that has headquarter offices in multiple countries, I think that they are doing a pretty decent job at being impartial towards their employees, staff, consultants, clients and customers who identify that way. Internally, starting with the healthcare and benefit policies that are offered, and a specific example would be the family planning assistance that is offered to all employees, regardless of orientation or pathway to parenthood. With that being said, Nintendo is above all still a corporate entity, regardless of humble beginnings or not. Their objective remains to make money for them whatever way that they can. Their efforts come into scrutiny when things come up that the company has done wrong, and a recent example is the claims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination against women in their workplaces(Weatherbed, 2022). This is a global company spanning continents, and despite their work and internal advocacy for marginalized groups, this is what’s happening. There can be change, and I believe it’s possible. For an influential company there are people working to change the culture, and bring attention to issues of this kind.
​
Despite the issues that I see internally, the question of would I work at Nintendo would be a yes. I would like to see how a company of that scale operates in a logistical sense. How are ideas generated for new titles? What goes on inside of board rooms? Is there frequent collaboration with the headquarter offices in other countries? Things of that nature appeal to me about Nintendo, and I think it would be a nice place to spend a few years developing as a student in an industry of that sort.
References
​
“About Us.” Nintendo, www.nintendo.com/us/about/. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
​
“Benefits & Perks – Careers at Nintendo of America – Health Insurance, Paid Time Off.” Careers at Nintendo of America – Official Site – Employment Opportunities, Nintendo, Retrieved February 26, 2024, from careers.nintendo.com/benefits-and-perks/.
​
“Diversity, Equity & Inclusion – Careers at Nintendo of America.” Careers at Nintendo of America – Official Site – Employment Opportunities, Nintendo, Retrieved February 26, 2024, from careers.nintendo.com/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/.
​
Doolan, Liam. “Nintendo’s New Employee Retention Rate Is 98.8% in Japan.” Nintendo Life, September 3, 2023, Retrieved February 26, 2024, from www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/09/nintendos-new-employee-retention-rate-is-98-8percent-in-japan/.
​
Weatherbed, Jess. “Nintendo Is Actively Investigating Reports That Its Female Testers Face Harassment and Discrimination.” The Verge, August 18, 2022. Retrieved February 26, 2024, from www.theverge.com/2022/8/18/23311202/nintendo-harassment-and-discrimination-claims-investigation/.
Post-Travel Reflection
As of writing this, it's been a little over two weeks since coming back from Seattle. For my first time on the west coast, it’s been an amazing trip where I got to know more about queer history in areas unfamiliar to me.
​
With that, my understanding of diversity absolutely changed this semester. It actually changed the moment I arrived in Seattle. Upon touching down at SeaTac and getting into the city proper, the diversity on a surface level was objectively poor. It took me a moment to understand that in a region like the PNW, diversity is not only recognized by the way you look or who you’re attracted to; but by being accessible, and being able to openly say “queer.” It’s having the privilege to have a public memorial dedicated to the AIDS crisis and its survivors. It’s being able to say the quiet parts out loud with resources and legislation to benefit groups affected.
Through this experience, I reinforced the attitude that my values are flexible and change when presented with new, cooler information, especially when it comes to my career and post-grad plans. I learned that other’s values are often infallible and they will often double down on them, even when presented with new information. Traveling out of the south, into the northwest, and back into the south has shown me that some things are strictly black and white for some people back home, and gray areas are not acknowledged, or even considered! Especially to make the point of queer lifestyles and joy, those things being considered a “gray area,” to some in the south does a great disservice to the folks that live that lifestyle here. I learned that organizations value the people and innovation that not only operate, but to stay ethical as well. To end that point. I also learned that the Seattle locals have a term for that plucky, persevering attitude present in the city, lovingly referred to as the “Seattle Spirit!”
I would say that organizations don’t usually cater to LGBTQ+ persons' needs as customers or consumers in earnest. A company will support anything that’s socially and fiscally advantageous to its shareholders and the court of public opinion. What’s ultimately problematic about these endeavors is that the aforementioned support is often a facade, circling back to anything that's advantageous for the company to be supporting.
I’d say that I’m different in the sense that I know what it means to be more independent, such as figuring out a new transit system in a foreign environment, and knowing how to be safely curious. Being in a new environment such as Seattle, I wanted to experience new things and have nice souvenirs with stories attached to bring back home. So having the knowledge to both explore and know when something has the potential to become dangerous is an essential skill to not only have, but knowing when to utilize it.