I worked for Nintendo of Russia almost from the very beginning. Think I lasted 9 months or so, which seems like a real achievement now :'D I have to admit, at some point while watching the stream video, I had to stop and remind myself that it's all behind and Yasha is shouting all these nice words not at me, but at some other poor guy. That's how traumatized I am, I guess :( (couldn't even bring myself to use my real account instead of a throwaway)
The stuff in that article is 100% true, except (thank god!) I never had to deal with sexual harassment and never saw anything like that in the office. But yeah, I cried on multiple occasions and had nervous breakdowns (the most memorable one was during some Russian game expo) and the work I had done was being called "shit" constantly. (Yes, "fucking" and "fuck" are really his most commonly used words at the office. Along with some french analogs) He did ask us to make our social media pages private and remove some pictures he thought were unworthy of a Nintendo employee. According to Yasha, I had to be forever grateful to him for all the "opportunities" he provided me with and he never forgot to remind me of it, whenever I was starting being "ungrateful" in his opinion.
And yes, he really does try to make your colleagues look like they're against you and plotting something behind your back. Experienced it firsthand.
When I started there, my working hours were kinda flexible and I could work from home and had to come to the office maybe once a week to attend a meeting. Then it all suddenly changed, because Yasha got paranoid that I was doing nothing (which he often accused me of), so my supposed-to-be-so-cool remote job for Nintendo transformed into a usual office job (but at least Yasha could see I was really working and shout at me one-on-one whenever he wanted!). Calling me late after working hours or on weekends was a norm. And don't you dare to ignore it: 15 missed calls and more enraged shouting for you!
Why did he call? Oh you see, there was a comment on a social media page with no reply! So I had to immideately stop doing whatever I was doing in my free time and reply to this post. Eventually I refused and that was the day I was told "you're fired". That was one of the happiest and most liberating days of my life (I'm not kidding).
Yes, when he's out of the office, it's one of the coolest and funniest guys around. You would NEVER believe he is constantly raging and humiliating his employees at the office. I am really traumatized by all this even though so many years have passed. Never thought I'd see the day when all of this will become public (I was soooo happy when I saw the stream video published and all of it getting bigger!) Thank you, whoever saved and uploaded this video. I really hope justice will be served!
