This is using Nintendo to talk about an industry-wide problem. In essence, tech companies use contracted labor to skirt around minimum standards for employment and the law lets them get away with it.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but tentatively I think the answer is yes. They avoid the legal standards for employment by abusing a 'contractor' legal status.
A contractor is supposed to be an outside expert, not a sub-employee.
And there are very perverse incentives that put massive pressure on an individual contracted employee that is absent when they're an FTE.
A sexually-harassed FTE may be concerned that fighting for their rights is going to black-ball them in their career, but they rarely need be concerned that it'll cost all their colleagues their jobs, because a company is rarely incentivized to cut a whole department if one employee sues but can decide working with a contracted company isn't worth it, and go with one of their competitors to fulfill the contract, if one of the contracted employees makes waves.
A contractor is supposed to be a person operating a business that provides services on a contract basis, a contractors business is no different from any other business that provides professional services. A contractor engages in this work knowing that they are exchanging all of their employment rights for better remuneration. This is how I personally manage to get paid anywhere between $200-$500/hour, and the only person abusing the system here is me taking advantage of companies inability to hire enough permanent staff.
You, as an experienced adult contractor, can say this.
Now imagine being a naive post-teenager being offered to work in "the greatest video game company of all time" but under the sole little condition that you are hired as a contractor.
It works with any big name that you would be personally proud to work for.
And what is even more saddening is that the more the brand is loved (Nintendo is part of the childhood of basically any today engineer), the more they can abuse those tactics. For a lot of people, working for $BIG_COOL_BRAND is already felt as such a gift that they would sign anything without negotiating.
Like everything in life, the older you get, the less you fall in those traps, but that’s not a problem : there is a continuous influx of new people ready to fall for the same tricks.
This applies to any type of employment for a “prestigious” brand, or any other type of “dream job” situation. Any company that has that status can get away with inferior working conditions, because their passionate job applicants find the work rewarding for reasons other than money. This is why the entire video games industry has a reputation for poor working conditions.
Absolutely nothing you’ve said has anything at all to do with contracting.
While on a literal "definition of adult" level, yes, this is correct, let's not pretend that a 22 year old that likely just finished a degree and wants to work for Nintendo making games has a significantly different mentality than a 16 year old that looks forward to earning a degree and then working for Nintendo making games.
That's exactly the word they're not looking for. They don't want to admit that they made poor life choices and paid for them. Once you hit the age of majority you're a functioning adult and you don't get to make excuses anymore. If you make a bad deal then you make a bad deal. The trick is to realize that "bad deals" can be transmuted into good deals with a little spiritual alchemy. In my case I traded roughly a year at Amazon and some Bohemian-style living to make a pile of cash that I'm now pouring into my own business. That option is not for everyone, of course, so in other cases that alchemy simply means trading your time at $SHITCOMPANY for a better job somewhere else. After all: If you have the name of a FAANG on your resume that opens up a lot of doors, right?
TL;DR People really need an education in career development, and clearly they're not getting it.
> a person operating a business that provides services on a contract basis
That's obviously not the case with the contractors described in the story, who are blatantly just direct employees in all regards except with less benefits.
You are in a radically different industry from game testing. Game testing is taking advantage of loopholes in contract law and the naivety of a relatively young employee base.
What is that? Do you mean "law"?