A Japanese game developer who worked on Dragon's Dogma at Capcom is claiming that she was bullied by her fellow employees to the point where she considered committing suicide. According to an article on Japanese publication Minpokyo, the unnamed 20+ year old female joined Capcom in 2009 and was assigned to the Dragon's Dogma development team. But the trouble began when a senior female employee was assigned to the team too. According to the report, she decided to make it very unpleasant for the unnamed employee.
The female employee claims that the manager went out of her way to criticize her in meetings and conspired to give her tasks that were impossible and often without any instructions. In one cited example she claims that she worked on a database to improve the efficiency of internal game development only to have her work put on the junk heap and told that "even if the database is a success, [she was] worthless to the team."
The report goes on to say that shortly after that happened two other managers went out of their way to get her fired. They allegedly spread rumors throughout the company that "her ideas stink," that she was a "problematic” employee who would abandon her work and skip meetings. When she attempted to fix the problem with Capcom's HR department, she claims that they did nothing to fix the situation.
Later that year the woman was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and while on sick leave she reportedly attempted to commit suicide using sleeping pills, antidepressants and cold medicine. When she returned to work some of her co-workers said she hadn't fully recovered from her illness. Her boss eventually suspended her and later fired her.
Naturally this whole ordeal has led to a lawsuit against Capcom.
Capcom has not publicly commented on this story and it should be noted that hearing one side of the story puts Capcom in a bad light. No doubt the company will mount a defense against the young woman's claims in court.
