Fight! — Legal game in video games

The video games industry is seeing some real-life action and suspense this month. In early June, Tomonobu Itagaki, head of the Team Ninja development team at Tecmo, and the man behind titles such as Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden, recently announced his resignation from the company and has filed complaints against it for unpaid bonuses and against Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda. Two of his colleagues at Tecmo later followed suit with similar complaints of unpaid overtime. At face value, the cases may seem altogether unremarkable especially to those not particularly interested in Tecmo games or video games in general, but given Japanese reticence towards litigation versus the recent clamor for work-life balance, the possible ramifications may spread to other industries as Japan struggles with labor practices and workers’ rights.

For those of you who haven’t been keeping score, here’s a brief rundown of key events:

June 3, 2008 Itagaki announces his resignation and discloses complaints against Tecmo concerning unpaid bonuses and against company president Yoshimi Yasuda.

June 4, 2008 Tecmo responds to Itagaki’s complaints, stating that it has regularly paid Itagaki’s bonuses every year, and that the unpaid bonuses Itagaki is referring to are separate and were agreed to by previous management. [Japanese pdf] [Summary at Gamasutra]

June 10, 2008 Tecmo files for a gag-order on Itagaki, which would in essence prohibit him from talking about the company in any way to anybody. [Summary at GameSpot]

June 16, 2008 Hiroaki Ozawa and Tatsuki Tsunoda file a separate lawsuit against Tecmo. According to Game Watch Impress, the contents of the suit allege that Tecmo used a ringer to act as “Employee Representative” — Tecmo Union leader — in order to forge documents to avoid paying workers overtime. [Commentary in English here and evaluation of the documents here at kotaku]

June 18, 2008 Itagaki and Tecmo submit almost identical but conflicting documents regarding “special incentives”. [itmedia via kotaku]

From a more base perspective, this case pretty much has everything — a rock-star plaintiff, a ringer, forged documents, millions of yen at stake and even some violence and undulating bosoms! While I cling to slender hope that the cases may bring about some positive precedents, others in the industry have a somewhat more cynical take, and expects that in the end business will continue as usual.

Should Mr. Itagaki win his suit, it might have interesting repercussions. He could, with a little image make-over, be considered somewhat of an example for other, embattled employees struggling with Japan’s changing corporate atmosphere where employee rights are becoming more important. On the other hand, this being Japan, it is equally likely that, win or lose, everything will stay just as it is. Actually, that is far more likely an outcome. (original emphasis)