We have covered Konami’s prejudicial treatment of its console games division a few times before. Today, new details have come up of how far the company goes when it comes to monitoring their development staff, crossing the line into surveillance.
It’s no exaggeration to make comparisons to the George Orwell novel 1984. Konami’s measures definitely go above and beyond the norm for game studios in Japan. While monitoring employees is not unusual on its own for Japanese companies, including game studios, Konami’s contemporaries call their measures draconian.
Konami has two divisions dedicated to monitoring, the Internal Audit Office and the Monitoring Group. The Internal Audit Office checks on all internal communications, closed circuit camera footage, and keeps tabs on who leaves and enters the company. This division is referred to by employees as the secret police.
In contrast, the Monitoring Group is specifically tasked with monitoring all the CCTV footage. They get footage from the rooms, data centers, all the way down to the corridors. As noted above, the Internal Audit Office has access to all of this data as well.
Internet use and bringing your work laptops home is also heavily regulated, by the company’s IT department. If you want to use the internet in the office, or bring a laptop home, you have to logon to a VPN. Every now and then, employee computers get randomly checked up with screenshot checks. Of course, employees can get in trouble based on what is on their screens at the time.
Now, to really freak you out. There are strict rules on what exits and entrances employees can use.If you leave, you have to show the guard your Konami ID, and explain where you are going, even for minor things like taking a cigarette break. Konami actually tracks this down and will chastise employees who leave during work too often.
To cap it off, Konami holds daily meetings, hosted by their operating officers and broadcast internally. The employees are required to watch these meetings. Anyone who passes them over get their name and division announced.
As if that isn’t enough, leaving the company is not even the end. The Internal Audit Office goes out of their way to contact employers of former Konami employees to tell on their worst offenses.
Again, it is not entirely clear why Konami feels the need to do this. Other Japanese developers who have shifted efforts from console to mobile gaming, such as Sega, are not particularly known for having hostile policies towards their console game studios. It also stands to reason that when they lose interest, these companies could simply shut down or sell these studios without further incident.
What do you think is going on at Konami? Share your thoughts with us in the comments. Image is of Konami founder Kagemasa Kozuki.
