Well, this one hits pretty close to home.  For those who are not aware, Chris Pranger, who worked at Nintendo on localization projects, was recently let go after appearing in a podcast for GoNintendo.  Kotaku spoke about this here:

Nintendo Fires Employee For Speaking On Podcast

The reactions to this have been… interesting.  Far more people have been closer to the truth than usual in my experience when something like this happens.  They range from people saying Nintendo is evil for doing something like this, to those saying that Mr. Pranger did something so incredibly stupid that they are happy that he faced this consequence, though thankfully most are, while clearly sided, shy of those extremes.  In fact, far more people have pointed out the very real business concerns at play here.  I am a bit heartened to see maturity and professionalism call out knee jerk “They’re being big ‘ol meanies!” kind of thinking, even if something so unfortunate was the catalyst.

Some commenters took a more high minded approach to their objections, saying that employees should feel free to speak about poor conditions or illegal activities of their employers.  Again, hearteningly, others replied to point out that there are whistle-blower protection laws in place for that exact situation.

Even Cliff Bleszinski implied that he would not be willing to work with Nintendo ever because of this:

Nintendo fires employee that goes on a podcast. Next up they can folks that post youtube videos and do Twitch streams and Twitter?!

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 14, 2015

Kinda sad to know the company you grew up with and worshipped and still adore you'd never want to work for, ever.

— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) August 14, 2015

My Quick Take

Normally I would conclude with this, but I want to put this out there to frame the rest of this article.

The reality of the matter is this: unless there wasn’t one in place (which would boggle my mind if that were the case) he broke his non-disclosure agreement.  This is an offense that can result in disciplinary measures up to and including termination of employment.  This is common language on NDA forms, and should not take anyone by surprise.  Is it an unfortunate situation for everyone.  I doubt his immediate superiors at Nintendo were happy about any step in this process.  Certainly Mr. Pranger was unhappy about it.  Some disciplinary action was entirely merited, and you can argue that termination was too far, but it is neither wholly unreasonable, unprecedented, or something he was unaware of as a potential consequence.

I can’t speak to his own motivations, but to me it seems that Mr. Pranger simply got caught up in the idea that he had something he could say that other people would be interested in hearing, and unintentionally crossed the lines of what he should have disclosed.  I firmly believe that he had no intent to violate any terms of his employment, or even that he went in thinking he could say anything and that it would fly under the radar.  He simply started talking, got some of the lines of what is and is not appropriate blurred, and crossed them.  Now, while I say this is a simple error, it does not make it insignificant.  It is the employee’s responsibility to understand these lines, and as such, the employee is culpable for any violations of those terms.

This is why I never speak of my own employment specifically, nor any projects or people I work with.  This is also why the Tales from the Trenches are always obfuscated and anonymous.

One might counter with “Well, what about James Portnow of Extra Credits!?”  He is an industry professional as well, and talks in general terms of his experiences, but still does not reveal any specifics.

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