General / Off-Topic Disastrous Release reflects FDev's current state as an employer

Winkelmann

Winkelmann
Apart from a reality distortion field around its CEO, I think the underlying problem of FDev is it's organisational failure: the disastrous Odyssey release reflects the current state of the teams and people working on it.

And here, morale seems to be at an all-time low, at least with parts of FDevs employees.

The evidence: Burried away deeply in another thread, somebody linked to employer reviews for FDev by former and current employees. While things like these always have to be taken with a grain of salt (disgruntled ex-employees etc.), they paint a bleak picture, even if only half of it is true.

Here are just a few snippets:
  • Morale on the longer standing projects is very low. People are only staying to get it shipped but most despise working on it and are desperate to leave.
  • morale is at an all time low - it seems as if most of the staff has left the company out of frustration/boredom. The handful I know are much happier elsewhere enjoying better work and higher salaries.
  • Tricky to work with inhouse Cobra engine - One of the worst engines i've ever used from an art perspective.
  • Very bad game engine with terrible tools for artists...
  • Mass hiring to fill vacant seats....usually low paid inexperienced grads who's first stint in the industry is to work as clean up crew for legacy content. shame.
  • Raising frustrations about the project to your lead does nothing as they don't enjoy the work either and have no say in the game direction
  • lots of leavers at the moment across all the departments but this is never addressed
  • No longer values the work, its employees or the quality of the products.
  • Very low morale in art department, a lot of people were leaving
  • A LOT of ungratifying, boring work, they rather send cool assets to outsource than give it to in-house artists
  • Chaotic management, you never know what you will be doing next month or next week and a lot of time things do not make sense
from https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Frontier-Developments-Reviews-E372218.htm
(read the site with Javascript turned off, or you'll be forced to register)
Click to expand...
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Winkelmann said:
Apart from a reality distortion field around its CEO, I think the underlying problem of FDev is it's organisational failure: the disastrous Odyssey release reflects the current state of the teams and people working on it.

And here, morale seems to be at an all-time low, at least with parts of FDevs employees.

The evidence: Burried away deeply in another thread, somebody linked to employer reviews for FDev by former and current employees. While things like these always have to be taken with a grain of salt (disgruntled ex-employees etc.), they paint a bleak picture, even if only half of it is true.

Here are just a few snippets:
Click to expand...
I just read the reviews. There's a general complaint about salaries (fair enough) but most of the bad stuff comes from what seems to be one artist (who posts a few times) with an axe to grind. It could also (if not the same person) point to problems in the art department, but not the general company culture - which seems to be a plus.

General consensus seems to be it's a great place to work, at least for folks starting out or veterans looking for a more relaxed place to work. Biggest complaint is the pay.

Capture.PNG
 
Last edited:

Juniper

Juniper
You know, as a software dev, it always puzzled me a bit when they came out last year saying that Odyssey was delayed "because of Covid".

I've never had an issue working from home (in fact, I'm more productive, and will continue doing so even after everything returns to normal). I don't know any developers who don't feel the same way (and I know a lot of developers).

Then I realised - Frontier do not pay very well (I looked into it before, when I thought Frontier were a good company), and with the cost of accommodation being so high in Cambridge (one of the most expensive areas in the country), it occurred to me that many people working at Frontier are in shared housing. So you'd have accountants, developers, artists, sound people, etc all attempting to work from home at the same time, and in the same small living space.

No wonder it is hard to get anything done... and no wonder morale is low.
 

Ydiss

Ydiss
JeffRyan said:
I just read the reviews. There's a general complaint about salaries (fair enough) but most of the bad stuff comes from what seems to be one artist (who posts a few times) with an axe to grind. It could also (if not the same person) point to problems in the art department, but not the general company culture - which seems to be a plus.

General consensus seems to be it's a great place to work, at least for folks starting out or veterans looking for a more relaxed place to work. Biggest complaint is the pay.

View attachment 233113
Click to expand...
You mean... the OP was just selectively looking for something else to complain about???? Never.
 

hunvagy

hunvagy
Juniper said:
You know, as a software dev, it always puzzled me a bit when they came out last year saying that Odyssey was delayed "because of Covid".

I've never had an issue working from home (in fact, I'm more productive, and will continue doing so even after everything returns to normal). I don't know any developers who don't feel the same way (and I know a lot of developers).

Then I realised - Frontier do not pay very well (I looked into it before, when I thought Frontier were a good company), and with the cost of accommodation being so high in Cambridge (one of the most expensive areas in the country), it occurred to me that many people working at Frontier are in shared housing. So you'd have accountants, developers, artists, sound people, etc all attempting to work from home at the same time, and in the same small living space.

No wonder it is hard to get anything done... and no wonder morale is low.
Click to expand...
that also sounds horrible for covid itself. I didn't want to see another human being unless absolutely necessary, and continue to do so.
 

Juniper

Juniper
hunvagy said:
that also sounds horrible for covid itself. I didn't want to see another human being unless absolutely necessary, and continue to do so.
Click to expand...

Well, if you're only in contact with the same 5 or 6 people then they're effectively your "bubble". Not much risk of infection providing everyone follows the rules. I'm only really in close contact with my immediate family... same thing. 🤷‍♀️

My point was more about turning that chaotic home environment into a working environment, when there isn't enough personal space to do that.
 

hunvagy

hunvagy
Juniper said:
Well, if you're only in contact with the same 5 or 6 people then they're effectively your "bubble". Not much risk of infection providing everyone follows the rules. I'm only really in close contact with my immediate family... same thing. 🤷‍♀️

My point was more about turning that chaotic home environment into a working environment, when there isn't enough personal space to do that.
Click to expand...
True, especially if as you say art, sound and trying to code clashes. Also one trying to work, the other 3 being in a zoom meeting with their respective teams, does not sound pleasant.
 

ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
I'm not the biggest Star Citizen fan but I would disregard literally everything written about CIG on glassdoor.

Anything with fans/haters is just noise on sites like that where people are motivated to vandalise a company image for some tribalistic reason.

Its worth checking the reviews if your going for an interview at "Bob's corporate sprockets" but not so much for games companies and well known entertainment media groups.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
I always say take glassdoor reviews with a pinch of salt. There's no verification that they are actually from employees or in any way honest.

We've had some good laughs over the years from glassdoor reviews for CIG that were clearly written by CIG's marketing department or highly negative, but you never know if those negative ones aren't being written by someone who has never worked at CIG and just has an axe to grind.

I once saw a review for a company i worked for and didn't even understand what they were talking about. It was nothing like the company i worked for.

At the end of the day, it could have been OP who wrote that review. We have no way of knowing.

If you get a number of people saying the same things though, and clearly not just the same person spamming glassdoor reviews, then there might be something to it.

As noted above, the most common theme in relation to FD is poor salaries.

What I can say about working in game dev comes from knowing a few people who did it and moved out of the industry to work in development for finance and healthcare, and that is, in general, working in game devs is horrible. Unreasonable deadlines, low salary, customers who do nothing but dump on your efforts, calling you lazy or worse, ridiculous expectations from management and customers, crunch.

It amazes me that companies like FD, CIG, EA, etc, can hire any competent devs. Perhaps they really struggle to do so. Maybe that's the reason why so many releases are lackluster. Maybe its why the big publishers focus on rereleasing the same games year after year. Most of the real talent wants nothing to do with the gaming industry. Better to work in a decent 9 to 5 job with good benefits, bonuses, and minimum crunch.

And when you release, you actually have greatful customers instead of forums full of people complaining about your work.
 

hunvagy

hunvagy
Agony_Aunt said:
I always say take glassdoor reviews with a pinch of salt. There's no verification that they are actually from employees or in any way honest.

We've had some good laughs over the years from glassdoor reviews for CIG that were clearly written by CIG's marketing department or highly negative, but you never know if those negative ones aren't being written by someone who has never worked at CIG and just has an axe to grind.

I once saw a review for a company i worked for and didn't even understand what they were talking about. It was nothing like the company i worked for.

At the end of the day, it could have been OP who wrote that review. We have no way of knowing.

If you get a number of people saying the same things though, and clearly not just the same person spamming glassdoor reviews, then there might be something to it.

As noted above, the most common theme in relation to FD is poor salaries.

What I can say about working in game dev comes from knowing a few people who did it and moved out of the industry to work in development for finance and healthcare, and that is, in general, working in game devs is horrible. Unreasonable deadlines, low salary, customers who do nothing but dump on your efforts, calling you lazy or worse, ridiculous expectations from management and customers, crunch.

It amazes me that companies like FD, CIG, EA, etc, can hire any competent devs. Perhaps they really struggle to do so. Maybe that's the reason why so many releases are lackluster. Maybe its why the big publishers focus on rereleasing the same games year after year. Most of the real talent wants nothing to do with the gaming industry. Better to work in a decent 9 to 5 job with good benefits, bonuses, and minimum crunch.

And when you release, you actually have greatful customers instead of forums full of people complaining about your work.
Click to expand...
Trust me, there were times where I thought to myself that flipping burgers would be more relaxing, appreciated and rewarding. And I'm not even in the game industry.

But even in other fields, IT is trying to shoehorn and "transform" to agile, and to the managers, that means that people do everything faster and that they don't need to hire testers any more, or architects, the dev will do everything. In a landscape like that, where they throw rubbish bingo like T-shape at you at every corner, it is hard to find competent workers, when you don't open your wallet.

I'm still in a team of two, because the third one left due to how the management and customer behaved, and you can't just hire a SharePoint developer off Fiverr :D
 

Stanis

Stanis
The main problem is the release. the decision of the release.

So now, what's happened:

A big meeting, and all dev teams and managers said "go"!

A small meeting with only the managers said "yes go, no many problems, it's ok, you can trust us CEO"

Or only one person, CEO said "OK, go, many issues, but no choice, I go ahead"

Who knows..

But it was a very bad decision, sure.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Shanaeri said:
While GD can give an insight into the inner workings of a company, you have to temper the entries are either from 1/ex employes who left because something better turned up or 2/ current employees with a grudge/
Click to expand...
If you go out on the street and ask 10 random people if they think they could do a better job than their boss, how many would say yes?
7/10? 8/10?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom