There is this page called glassdoor.com. On it, both current and former employees write reviews of the company.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Frontier-Developments-Reviews-E372218.htm
Frontier has a spot there. It has rather low overall score and plenty of comments from the employees actually correlate to what forum community has long suspected. All in all, it is a very interesting read.
Note: most of the positive things people have to say about the company is about actual workers. Nobody has to say anything about management.
See some rather interesting tidbits.
(Note: i archived this, so it can move to reddit, if local zealots decide to delete it.)
Advice to Management
If you take away creative control from those beneath you they will leave. It's a common problem in the games industry so you're not the only guilty company but you need to learn to delegate.
The same as most positions on the games industry, few if any chances for promotion, emphasis on seniority rather than ability.
Cons
- Overtime, lack of flexible time management
- Paternalistic upper management
- Regular redundancies
- High employee turnover rate
Advice to Management
Trust your employees
This one really hits it spot on.
Pros
Frontier/Braben has high reputation in the history of gaming. But that reputation leads to a dark side - it entails complacency and arrogance leading to mediocrity in later endeavors.
Cons
Overtime day one.
CEO was disinterested.
Code base was a mess.
Lead programmer and senior programmers thought they had achieved perfection - and they had not.
Upper management treated employees like factory components.
Unlawfully asks its employees to sign restrictive contracts after they have signed employment contracts for the job.
Game design is infantile and derivative.
Advice to Management
Learn the value the human race. While Elite was a cool game, it was not genius.
Pros
Slightly higher salary than some other Cambridge games companies. I am told by friends who are still there that they now pay overtime, and have flexi-time, which is a big perk.
Cons
When I worked there, there were redundancies almost every 3 months. The don't personally trust the management as they wouldn't be honest about situations, be it financially, or managerial in the smaller teams.
They did not provide any benefits whilst I was employed there, not even a pension, but by law this has now changed.
They seemed to be constant cycles of hiring new graduates, then making them redundant as they couldn't afford to hire in the first place, then realising they didn't have enough people, so would hire more graduates, and the cycle continued.Show Less
Advice to Management
Don't go on such big hiring schemes when you have to make redundancies 3 months later as you can't afford them. This constant cycle of redundancies lowered staff morale considerably, and it was not a pleasant atmosphere.
Cons
Constant crunch due to mismanagement of time. Reckless spending and hiring without the money to pay for it. Project was discontinued with job losses due to management failings and medling. No managers lost their jobs.
Wage reviews were repeatedly postponed for some 8 months, up until the project was canceled and folks were let go. This came right after Christmas, when just before we were being assured funds had been secured. A lie.Show Less
Advice to Management
My advice is probably not fit for publication.
Cons
There is a lot of mismanagement the scheduling is non existent or has been cleverly calculated to mean overtime is unavoidable. The pay is quite low but I hear things have improved in that regard with some pay being offered for overtime. There are no real perks to speak of past free coffee, tea and cheap biscuits and a free fast food meal if you work long enough. Also while most people do work hard there are a bunch of dead weight that they tend to keep around because of politics and greasing up the chain of command. These are poison whisperers who tend to bring down people with actual skill.Show Less
Advice to Management
Stop with the overtime and offer realistic time-scale, or if the overtime is still unavoidable make some reason for people to want to be there. Also I know the yes men are lovely to have around to stroke your ego but they are clueless and will ultimately bring the studio to its knees as proven by a huge loss and now lack of talent.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Frontier-Developments-Reviews-E372218.htm
Frontier has a spot there. It has rather low overall score and plenty of comments from the employees actually correlate to what forum community has long suspected. All in all, it is a very interesting read.
Note: most of the positive things people have to say about the company is about actual workers. Nobody has to say anything about management.
See some rather interesting tidbits.
(Note: i archived this, so it can move to reddit, if local zealots decide to delete it.)
Advice to Management
If you take away creative control from those beneath you they will leave. It's a common problem in the games industry so you're not the only guilty company but you need to learn to delegate.
The same as most positions on the games industry, few if any chances for promotion, emphasis on seniority rather than ability.
Cons
- Overtime, lack of flexible time management
- Paternalistic upper management
- Regular redundancies
- High employee turnover rate
Advice to Management
Trust your employees
This one really hits it spot on.
Pros
Frontier/Braben has high reputation in the history of gaming. But that reputation leads to a dark side - it entails complacency and arrogance leading to mediocrity in later endeavors.
Cons
Overtime day one.
CEO was disinterested.
Code base was a mess.
Lead programmer and senior programmers thought they had achieved perfection - and they had not.
Upper management treated employees like factory components.
Unlawfully asks its employees to sign restrictive contracts after they have signed employment contracts for the job.
Game design is infantile and derivative.
Advice to Management
Learn the value the human race. While Elite was a cool game, it was not genius.
Pros
Slightly higher salary than some other Cambridge games companies. I am told by friends who are still there that they now pay overtime, and have flexi-time, which is a big perk.
Cons
When I worked there, there were redundancies almost every 3 months. The don't personally trust the management as they wouldn't be honest about situations, be it financially, or managerial in the smaller teams.
They did not provide any benefits whilst I was employed there, not even a pension, but by law this has now changed.
They seemed to be constant cycles of hiring new graduates, then making them redundant as they couldn't afford to hire in the first place, then realising they didn't have enough people, so would hire more graduates, and the cycle continued.Show Less
Advice to Management
Don't go on such big hiring schemes when you have to make redundancies 3 months later as you can't afford them. This constant cycle of redundancies lowered staff morale considerably, and it was not a pleasant atmosphere.
Cons
Constant crunch due to mismanagement of time. Reckless spending and hiring without the money to pay for it. Project was discontinued with job losses due to management failings and medling. No managers lost their jobs.
Wage reviews were repeatedly postponed for some 8 months, up until the project was canceled and folks were let go. This came right after Christmas, when just before we were being assured funds had been secured. A lie.Show Less
Advice to Management
My advice is probably not fit for publication.
Cons
There is a lot of mismanagement the scheduling is non existent or has been cleverly calculated to mean overtime is unavoidable. The pay is quite low but I hear things have improved in that regard with some pay being offered for overtime. There are no real perks to speak of past free coffee, tea and cheap biscuits and a free fast food meal if you work long enough. Also while most people do work hard there are a bunch of dead weight that they tend to keep around because of politics and greasing up the chain of command. These are poison whisperers who tend to bring down people with actual skill.Show Less
Advice to Management
Stop with the overtime and offer realistic time-scale, or if the overtime is still unavoidable make some reason for people to want to be there. Also I know the yes men are lovely to have around to stroke your ego but they are clueless and will ultimately bring the studio to its knees as proven by a huge loss and now lack of talent.
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