The Nikkei Asian Review published a report today that alleges Japanese game company Konami has been reliably blacklisting, stonewalling, and generally just making things difficult for people who choose to leave.
These allegations are a real bad look for the company, which already has a reputation for enforcing a very controlling corporate culture.
The report is based on information from anonymous sources, but is worth paying attention to in light of how reliable other reports out of The Nikkei (a Japanese-language sister publication of the English-language Asian Review) have been in the past regarding Konami’s business dealings.
The Asian Review reports that devs who leave (who it refers to as “ex-Kons”) are not allowed to put their Konami experience on their resumes. Moreover, the company has reportedly earned a reputation for telling executies at other companies not to hire ex-Kons, sending companies who do hire former staffers a letter of complaint.
According to the Review, at least one ex-Kon tried to throw their former exployer off their trail by joining a construction company for a brief time before returning to work in games.
The report also alleges that Kojima Productions — founded in 2015 by Hideo Kojima (pictured, in his own game) and other former Konami staffers — has been stonewalled in a variety of ways, for example, the Asian Review reports that Kojima Productions’ application for health insurance through Japanese provider ITS Kenpo was blocked because the chairman of ITS Kenpo is also an executive at Konami, and thus the healthcare company “could not show this application to the chairman.”