Kotaku: Pissed Off Employees Bash Pretty Much Every Major Video Game Company
polycounter lvl 16
Just read this at kotaku
http://kotaku.com/5940672/pissed-off-employees-bash-pretty-much-every-major-video-game-company?post=52427014
is this situation true for all? im beginning to lose hope on this industry; i have worked on one of the companies mentioned and it is exactly correct. i guess kickstarter, the app store, pre made game engines, etc pave the way for indie dev, but for the bigger, epic games is this really the price?
http://kotaku.com/5940672/pissed-off-employees-bash-pretty-much-every-major-video-game-company?post=52427014
is this situation true for all? im beginning to lose hope on this industry; i have worked on one of the companies mentioned and it is exactly correct. i guess kickstarter, the app store, pre made game engines, etc pave the way for indie dev, but for the bigger, epic games is this really the price?
Replies
I'm not sure I can take glassdoor.com's word for it, and by extension, Kotaku's. It's kind of the same thing with ratemyprofessor.com. What kind of people do you think flock to those websites ready to blow off some steam? If your answer is, "Mostly immature people who had different expectations than what reality dictates" then you're probably correct. In other words, it's not the best indicator.
Having said that, one of the ways to discover truth is by checking to see if there are multiple attestations. I hear -a lot- of groaning from those in the industry. Again, there's probably a lot of butt hurt based on wrong expectations, but there's also a lot of legit bad stuff going on. There's no excuse to work someone 14 hours a day. I don't care if "that's the industry we live in" or not. There's working hard and working smart. It sounds like there are lot of project managers who need to be fired.
But that can also be said for every industry. It really seems to be true for the games industry through, where shortcuts, high turn around, and high expectations of talent are king.
GlassDoor: Wouldn't you like something else, like beer?
Kotaku: No I'll take the crap thanks and hurry, I have a deadline and I need as much of this stuff as I can cram into some kind of an article.
GlassDoor: Ok... here's your crap...
Kotaku: WOA this isn't my crap is it!? Are you guys hiding in the sewer or something? I live in an apartment complex how do you know what's mine!? AAAAHHHH.... (runs away screaming).
GlassDoor: This isn't going to make us look good is it?
This is like walking into Koticks office and demanding that he create a new studio, install you as head and let you do whatever you want because well you worked in the mail room for 8 years.
You want to be a rockstar? You don't get there through osmosis, go get some skills. Don't blame the company for not inventing an entire educational pipeline so employees can flow from coffee boy/QA to designer to CEO over night.
There are good reviews as well as bad. Read both and rationalize it. If you just base your decision on a couple of bad reviews then you might be looking at this from the wrong perspective.
Take a look at what's actually on the Activision page for example -
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Activision-Blizzard-Reviews-E3809.htm
The reviews run the full gamut from 1 star to 5, and I'd expect that the rest of the pages look somewhat similar (besides the Valve one).
Glassdoor is a valuable website, but Kotaku's article is pretty misleading.
This is no different than any other job in the history of employment. There will always be disgruntled people in any field.
This is true in all facets of life.
That being said, all companies in every industry have issues. If you want to work somewhere, try to get a behind-the-scenes interview with 2-3 present/past employees to see how it was at the studio.
You'll get more honest and critical feedback by doing the research yourself.
I do have to say shame on Kotaku, though. They purposefully took all the negatives and none of the positives. They made it sound like every company was the worst place to work, which is not true.
LOL. So, pretty much everything they posted is true about them as well. Long hours, being taken advantage of, etc. FFS.
Is it just me, or is Valve not on there? It seems like in general Valve is very stealth-mode in this industry.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Valve-Corporation-EI_IE24849.11,28.htm
Cool, thanks dude.
dude, I once got written up for lowering my chair to low. the girls I worked with didn't like having to raise it back up, and yes, management took it seriously.
I mean who is to say some kid who never touched a competent software in their life, but watched millions of videos on Youtube didn't just bad mouth a company because they're a tester?
I can count on my hands how many time something happened with Valve, and each time it truly was a concern (example, Mudds doesn't get published but Revelations 2012 does because it uses Source engine, back lash occurs, Valve gets GreenLight going).
And as I keep on saying, Kotaku is a shit-hole of a site.
Most of the time it's female writers coconut up an article out of blue air, in which they make their sex known pretty well every 5 seconds and bring it up with a controversial opinion and follow up with Jade-Trick retorts, guys like Tot made a huge fucking deal on why the female character in the new AC game is black, but isn't voice by a black actress (funny thing is, that it's the same VA actually voiced Ash from pokemon!), and berated the dev's for not putting up extra money for a black VA.
I usually stick to reading articles by Luke only at this point.
All you are doing is attacking the messenger and not addressing the cause.
The Villages Media Group
This is something people internally have to deal with, get Human Rights Watch or something on the case, be active about it from within, not wait for some site to report on it randomly.
Thats the job of reporters. Should gamers not even be given a hint what happens in this industry? Should reporters have kept mum about Foxconn and Apple? As it was internal?
Your argument holds no value.
interesting read but yeah needs to be read with a pinch of salt, some sugar douhnuts, a dumpling stew and half a bag of chips
For whatever reason, really hearing *anything*, good or bad, about Valve internally is very hard.
Oh my god... my Wife HATES when I lower the chair. And this is at home, no chair issues at work, though.
The thing is... They're not reporters, well not seriously.
Game journalism has not really matured to that point yet. They're more like film critics from your papers arts section at this stage.
At the end of the day, they're blog. Granted they're very passionate people but I'm not sure if I'd put them in the same boat as other reporters.
I just can't see how this is bad(for lack of better word)
LolKotaku.
I can so see how this really makes you hate Ubi:
"To go from my desk to the bathroom and back, I had to go through four security doors, using my keycard to unlock each."
- john "diarrhea" smith (*)
great journalism - "we went to a 'say crap about a company site' and picked one negative review to sum up the entire company! plus we took more cons than pros...". I got no problem with journalism exposing malpractices, but making blanket statements like this is just sensationalist attention whoring. But I'm having a good laugh.
(*) did you pay attention? It's just 2 security doors for one way! unacceptable! Thinking of it, almost all companies I worked for had 2 security barriers before the loo. Although sometimes they were just door opener buzzers. Conspiracy or industry standard? you decide
You're probably always going to find the disgruntled employees talking about the bad experiences, because lets face it, in life when you feel like you get fucked over your first instinct is revenge.
Unfortunately the opposite is generally not true - if you're feeling really great and happy about working at your company you don't go onto websites explaining why your so happy do you?
When's the last time you came to polycount or any art forum and created a thread about how much you love creating art and you love your job and explained why it is that you love it and the great things about the company your working for?
funny, I did that a few days ago. But yes, you're right. We're usually having too much of a good time to write about it, and who wants to read good news anyway? It's the sensationalist horror stories that sell.
Having said that, I'm on a leadership level and people seem to complain mostly about leadership, and it gets tricky there. Even if you encourage people to tell you their problems, there's always restraint when talking to your boss about bad stuff. There's all the psychology "will they think me a whiner?", "should I be rather the sheep that follows?", "is it wise to draw too much attention to myself?", "nobody likes whistleblowers", etc.
It can be difficult, especially with large teams, to really build a connection to employees so they speak out without fear of reprisals, so you can tackle those issues. But then again some companies don't care about a transparent work environment and rather prefer expendable sheeple than responsible employees.
A good example is that autodesk thread - people on the bottom have no clue what's up and we were lucky enough that "management" checks out polycount so they could disperse our fears. It's similar in a company. It's often not too easy for the "high ups" to read the real mood in the trenches (assuming management cares).
Some companies have an ombudsman who collects anonymous feedback in a professional manner (i.e. not just rumors) and sorts out the most ridiculous complaints from folks who always take offense at anything, and then mediates. But having an obudsman is rare in games.
The kotaku article is not that bad and it reflects a REALITY (it may be not yours, so stay quiet and be thankful to god), give or take. The fact is that if someone still has his job... they won't say anything. You know, ignorance make happiness, and being humans, we will not move ourserlves until the bad luck touch our back.
Since the beginning, i assumed we are just TOOLs, 3d monkeys... and the proof is in the huge amount of layoffs in this industry. Being cynical, i said once that there should be a section for the layoffs in polycount, due to the overflow of threads with layoffs. It's insane.
That said, be happy if you found a good place to work in, but remember, have in mind all the days, that you are working in a volatile industry, you may loss your job like the guys of Radical, 38 studios, etc... BTW, there are some horror stories coming from Vigil
All the companies have their shit, and it's always great to know where you can work well.
When i buy hardware i always look for reviews, and i'm after the most negative ones in order to buy something good. In Spain we say: "when the river sounds, it's because it has water".
Reporters? Who? Kotaku? The very same site and people that bitch when their wife becomes pregnant because they couldn't attend PAX, and several times had fights with members from Polycount when they tried and voice their opinion from a professional area of things?
Also, what exactly was achieved once the Foxconn and Apple drama came about? Nothing, it wasn't even Kotaku that got the news and reported on it, other 'bigger' sites got the news, and even then nothing happened. The ONLY reason the situation got slightly better was because the workers later on staged strikes and actually did something about it, however, in terms of 'external' help, they got nothing, just a bunch of Facebook likes.
I'm sorry to say this, but pity isn't going to help me solve issues nor help me get a decent job, actions are on the other hand, and considering Apple didn't even get slapped with a Settlement Case for the entire issue, I would 'caring' about someone else issue has long sailed the port.
Not really, since I'm going to bitch if they bitch, simple as that, they're not Kings or Gods, their right to bitch about the smallest of things doesn't make it OK, especially when they nerd-bait alot, but hey, I guess drama is what they like to generate to get hits, and I have to act superior and forget about all of that!
If I learned one thing, it's that complaining has achieved more then any superior thinking ever has.
Also, fun-fact, Io9 and Lifehacker have none of these issues, I have seen plenty (if not, ALL) female writes on Io9/LH as well the dudes be totally OK people, without generating any drama nor LINKING to other Gawker media sites and generate cross-breeding drama (EI: Kotaku linking to Jezebel or vice versa with blanket statements on how all guys above 20 playing games are not men because you see anatomy work on their 'folio site).
Between Joystiq, Destructoid, RPS and GiantBomb, why the fuck do people even go to this baiting site? Are 4 sites which actually do have the funny and clever in them not enough, and take an extra day or two in writing something so bad?
I'm assuming having no reviews is a good thing... Doesn't that mean there is no one angry enough to rant? Hahaha.
I completely agree, the article does reflect a reality in this industry, there may be people fortunate in this industry to have good stable jobs,with minimum overtime,decent pay and a management that looks out for their employees. But if you happen to be one of these people i think it is wrong just to dismiss people as disgruntled employees.
When you label someone as disgruntled its like completely shrugging off what they say because they are an ex employee. Sure sometimes there are ex workers who are just looking to get back at their old companies but there are also those who would like to warn other people from going to a nightmarish work situation.
I have my fair share of horror stories along with mates of mine who have somehow worked at worse places, just because your job is nice dont assume people who have grievances
are just tryingto get back at their old employers.