Some quite shocking employee reviews can be found posted to the ‘Glassdoor dot com’ website and, in view of the continually falling share price of the company, perhaps Frontier Devopments need a jolt like this to face reality.
Former Employee, more than 5 years. "Used to be good but recent years were unbearable". 20 Apr 2021 — Senior Artist.
-Very low morale in art department, a lot of people were leaving.
-A lot of senior/principle artist who were in the studio for a decade are out of touch with the latest tools and are rather unwilling to learn.
-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.
-Lack of trust in management.
-Very bad game engine with terrible tools for artists.
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Former Employee, more than 3 years. "A staggering lack of understanding of the industry". 19 Jun 2021 — Full Artist
-The company is mostly run by people in their mid 40s and older which are so out of touch with what a modern game is and what the new development tools are that most of the best people are fleeing the company because they feel hopeless and don’t want their names associated with the mess that Elite Dangerous is.
-The salaries are among the lowest in the video game industry in the UK.
-There is no room to express creativity and try to make a genuinely great game , the profit of the company comes first and investors have to be pleased, so you’re just going to deal with lifeless big franchises that most of the employees do not want to work on.
-The CEO has no clue whatsoever what it takes to make a videogame these days, but no one is willing tell him that this is hurting the company.
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Former Employee, more than 5 years. "Has lost its soul and employee morale is at an all time low". 28 Apr 2021 — Senior QA Tester.
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Current Employee. "Low morale". 15 Feb 2021 — Senior Artist
-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.
-People are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. This is because they are either bored to tears of the project/work they are doing or because they are not appreciated.
-It needs to be acceptable for people to say they are not enjoying their work. At the moment people do not speak up because firstly nothing is ever changed and also there is a culture of 'getting happy people to talk about how great everything is'. Most people see through this but don't want to be the ones to speak out.
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Former Employee, more than 1 year. "Quantity over quality". 26 Jun 2021 — Senior QA Tester,
-The engine is beyond a joke in terms of how bad it is for developing games, pretty much unusable unless you're a programmer and even then.
-Due to the above, there is little prototyping or developing fully-featured, well designed mechanics.
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NOTE: The Glassdoor website is freely available for any member of this forum to inspect. I have concentrated here on a selection of negative employment reviews only. It should be noted that there are other employees at Frontier Developments who have written positive reviews about the company.
Former Employee, more than 5 years. "Used to be good but recent years were unbearable". 20 Apr 2021 — Senior Artist.
-Very low morale in art department, a lot of people were leaving.
-A lot of senior/principle artist who were in the studio for a decade are out of touch with the latest tools and are rather unwilling to learn.
-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.
-Lack of trust in management.
-Very bad game engine with terrible tools for artists.
-----
Former Employee, more than 3 years. "A staggering lack of understanding of the industry". 19 Jun 2021 — Full Artist
-The company is mostly run by people in their mid 40s and older which are so out of touch with what a modern game is and what the new development tools are that most of the best people are fleeing the company because they feel hopeless and don’t want their names associated with the mess that Elite Dangerous is.
-The salaries are among the lowest in the video game industry in the UK.
-There is no room to express creativity and try to make a genuinely great game , the profit of the company comes first and investors have to be pleased, so you’re just going to deal with lifeless big franchises that most of the employees do not want to work on.
-The CEO has no clue whatsoever what it takes to make a videogame these days, but no one is willing tell him that this is hurting the company.
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Former Employee, more than 5 years. "Has lost its soul and employee morale is at an all time low". 28 Apr 2021 — Senior QA Tester.
- No longer values the work, its employees or the quality of the products.
- key goals from its indie days have been replaced with cost-cutting, outsourcing and maximising sales.
- Raising concerns about serious issues is met with abuse and threats.
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Current Employee. "Low morale". 15 Feb 2021 — Senior Artist
-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.
-People are leaving like rats from a sinking ship. This is because they are either bored to tears of the project/work they are doing or because they are not appreciated.
-It needs to be acceptable for people to say they are not enjoying their work. At the moment people do not speak up because firstly nothing is ever changed and also there is a culture of 'getting happy people to talk about how great everything is'. Most people see through this but don't want to be the ones to speak out.
-----
Former Employee, more than 1 year. "Quantity over quality". 26 Jun 2021 — Senior QA Tester,
-The engine is beyond a joke in terms of how bad it is for developing games, pretty much unusable unless you're a programmer and even then.
-Due to the above, there is little prototyping or developing fully-featured, well designed mechanics.
-----
NOTE: The Glassdoor website is freely available for any member of this forum to inspect. I have concentrated here on a selection of negative employment reviews only. It should be noted that there are other employees at Frontier Developments who have written positive reviews about the company.
