Japanese Developer Bullied so Much she nearly Kills herself.

Umm, oh boy.

I think Capcom is in more trouble than ever now.....

...Okay, "Capcom is evil" just stopped being hyperbole.

i dont think this person knows what an anxiety disorder actually is, and it was my impression that the woman has anxiety disorder primarily because of her employers and superiors. not to mention he was pretty much invoking "first world problems" to, as usual, dismiss another persons problem because: hey, there are other people in the world suffering!

what a cunt.

edited 19th May '12 2:42:23 PM by Tarsen

I hate that conception of "first world problems" or any other thought derived from a belief that is sadly quite widespread: the judgement about if the other person deserves or not to feel bad depending on the problem itself (as if it were something objective), which divides things in "true problems" and "petty" things. I already ranted about it once in an OTC thread. I find it utterly disgusting, I shouldn't have read the comments on that article. Meh. Also, I hope she's better now.

edited 19th May '12 2:51:56 PM by Anfauglith

Lol the Schwarzwasser guy sounded like a real dick.

Capcom's been known for its crappy treatment towards employees(long before this incident), though the lady kind of seems idk...I can believe she was doing something wrong, but her superiors handled it the wrong way and by doing so made it so much worse. Seems like rather than handling any problem they had with her professionally, they acted like dicks instead. Well going by the story.

edited 19th May '12 2:56:40 PM by VertigoHigh

So Capcom, when are you going to stop giving me reasons to boycott you?

What a miserable excuse for a human being. You can only feel bad about things on the scale of war! God help you if you have personal problems.

... Comments like this are why I installed a comment blocker on my browser. What an asshole.

Back on topic... that's just messed up, man. It's like Capcom is getting harder and harder to like, or at least tolerate, lately.

As usual, lots of people get mad and post rants about how evil company X is or how pathetic person Y is, when none of them have any of the information needed to actually know who is at fault. It's quite possible that this woman was mistreated by a messed up system, and it's also quite possible that she is a pathetic leech on society with a frivolous claim, and given the information in the article we have no clue whether either is the case.

She still tried to commit suicide. I feel that's deserving of sympathy.

She also complained to HR who did nothing. Even if she is in the wrong they should have at least investigated this.

i wonder if the "she abandons her work" comment in the article is actually talking about the database thing or if we're being mislead.

confusing "being yanked out of the team" and "abandoning her work" seems a bit...bizarre. the only way that could possibly look understandable from the other side is if her superiors were spreading misinformation around and the one who said that was simply told the wrong thing. otherwise it comes across as bullying/slander unless it really isnt reffering to the database thing.

edited 19th May '12 4:16:07 PM by Tarsen

Running the original article through Google Translate can provide a bit of an unbiased viewpoint, which seems beyond Ashcraft's ability.

Not that this isn't a horrible thing no matter which way you slice it. My opinions on suicide aside, seems like pretty shitty management all around. I just can't help wondering why this is hitting the news now, when the original article was posted back in March. Especially interesting since the article had shown up in another DD thread on another site about a week ago.

so i was right. the abandons her work thing wasnt related to the database but instead to something the writer neglected to mention :/

well whatever.

x4 This.

Wow... That Schwarzwasser guy needs to get over himself, and quick.

Anyway, it's good to know the lady is ok.

Welp, this is just one more strike for Capcom in the eyes of many, I guess.

I'm throwing my lot against Capcom here. Whatever wrong the woman did, the fact that she couldn't get assistance within the company and then went on to attempt suicide is awful. I can't believe that so many of the Kotaku comments rail against her.

edited 19th May '12 5:21:26 PM by MadassAlex

Me too.

I hope she's ok!

Anyone else getting tired of the stigma that anyone that attempts suicide is just a weak, undeserving person that needs to get over their problems? You know, instead of that person having legitimate problems that should really, really get addressed?

Same here. Although I fear this event will be a stigma upon her career from here on.

(raises hand)

edited 19th May '12 5:34:00 PM by X2X

Oh no!!!

Me too!

A suicide attempt and a court case with a big name Japanese developer could hurt her chances with other jobs. Of course, I hope it doesn't come to that.

That sucks!

Wow. Um. I think that I was okay with Capcom, even after the stuff that'd happened in their game-making policies, but this sort of thing is what, I think, is going to make me stop buying their stuff for a while.

I like Monster Hunter, but I hope that they can get their damned act together by the time the next one comes out. Because otherwise, I'll probably just stick with Tri.

I was going to say that I no longer plan to buy a copy of Okami, but I remembered that at this point, it's only in used game stores, so they won't see the money from that particular purchase.

edited 19th May '12 5:53:54 PM by Enlong

This is low. I hate people within businesses like that - those who actively harass and hurt new employees, and force circumstances on them beyond their control.

I hope that the programmer will be able to find new work that isn't filled with scummy assholes like her previous employers.

The video games industry is already a place where mistreatment of workers is rampant due to quotas they just cannot fill; we need to seriously reconsider as customers what this means to us. Yeah, games like Dragon's Dogma look fun, but are they worth supporting these business practices?

edited 19th May '12 5:59:42 PM by Scardoll

And I was looking forward to getting Dragon's Dogma too. Capcom, you just have to keep fucking up, don't you?