In November 2020, Capcom suffered a cyberattack where a terabyte of data on consumers and employees was stolen. In January, facing yet another wave of COVID-19, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared a state of emergency for multiple prefectures of Japan, including Osaka, where Capcom’s main office is located.
This state of emergency was intended to limit the spread of the virus, yet Capcom seems to have prioritized other things, according to a whistleblower report from Business Journal of Japan. In a time where the nation was requested to work together to protect one another, concerning reports are coming in from Capcom employees during the unprecedented pandemic.
The whistleblower report says Capcom employees were forced to go to work shortly after the cyberattack last November, concluding that it couldn’t guarantee the safety and security of data under the constraints of working from home. An email sent to employees in January, informing employees of their return to the office, said “there is no choice but to come to work.” Notably, the report does not immediately appear to violate Japan’s Labor Standards Act, more so offering questionable dealings with employees and the workforce during the pandemic and state of emergency.
Capcom said it was doing its best to comply with the Labor Standards Act and the state of emergency: employees had a temperature check upon arriving to work, staggered shifts were implemented to ensure that employees weren’t working too closely together, and masks were enforced. The report, however, said flexible work hours are reserved for more senior positions within the company, implying the lives of the lower-level employees were more at risk during the pandemic. The daunting environment has concerned many employees and piqued the interest of watchdog organizations for employee rights. Kotaku reports that Capcom is, “Taking their rights into consideration.”
Capcom is far from the first corporation that is reeling from a cyberattack, as CD Projekt Red is still dealing with the fallout of data theft. Yet Capcom is notably one of the few video game companies that is continuing to, as Business Journal of Japan puts it, “Force employees to come to work.” A senior Capcom executive explained to employees that while 70 percent of Japan is working from home, 30 percent needs to continue to work to support the Japanese economy. Capcom employees are in the 30 percent.
The road ahead of the video game industry is not one easily parsed during the pandemic, where work-from-home situations greatly increase the risk of cyberattacks as communication is piecemealed across a variety of channels. While some companies are offering permanent work-from-home plans such as Square Enix, companies like Capcom are apparently increasingly desperate to keep data safe, even if it reportedly comes at a risk to employees.
Sources: Kotaku, Business Journal of Japan
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