Studios like CD Projekt Red
Hi,
So what i heard about CD Projekt Red was only good things a lot of people say its one of the best AAA game studios ever (good work times, good payment, good life quality and a lot more) so my Question is are there any other studios which are so nice to their artist like CD Projekt Red ( Iv'e heard a lot of bad things from Ubisoft Montreal, Naughty Dog, EA, Blizzard. But are these all true?
So what i heard about CD Projekt Red was only good things a lot of people say its one of the best AAA game studios ever (good work times, good payment, good life quality and a lot more) so my Question is are there any other studios which are so nice to their artist like CD Projekt Red ( Iv'e heard a lot of bad things from Ubisoft Montreal, Naughty Dog, EA, Blizzard. But are these all true?
Replies
It'll never be perfect, anywhere you look, but good rewarding work can indeed be had elsewhere.
Game development attracts a large pool of eager young inexperienced talent, which unfortunately enables rampant exploitation. Why change your crappy management practices if there's yet more cannon fodder eager to jump into the war?
I don't know first-hand about conditions within CD Projekt Red. But it is an endemic problem across much of game development.
Just be cautious what you read in Glassdoor reviews. Those with a grudge to bear are always the most frequent to post, while those who like a place are much less likely to post any reviews at all.
And for what it's worth, while I was working in e-commerce visualization, crunch was pretty common. They insisted on "maintaining a startup atmosphere", which is code for long hours despite becoming part of a multi-billion dollar company during the time I was there.
One special problem in our industry is that many workers are wilfully ignorant of the exploitation they endure on account of inadequate life experience. That and there is a support structure within and outside the company (in communities) that enables this.
You almost feel obligated to act like you are top tier, like you've made it when in reality what you are getting not even close to what you ought to get.
But if you have limited standards, it is easy to feel satisfied.
Western lifestyle in a professional environment can also be problematic. Like the dependency on social drinking at company events makes little sense when there is no cap on the drinks served.
If you read through all the sexual harassment stories coming out, you can see that in almost 90% of cases, alcohol was involved in some form and both perpetrators and victims suffered from some manner of psychological abuse growing up. (many come from broken families)
It leaves them incapable of dealing with these situations and there needs to be adequate redressal or atleast some way to reduce liability
Also one very rarely sees a company being held accountable at all.
Its always the sing song of becoming top tier, jumping jobs, hustling that may be good for a young worker with no family obligations but has very poor long term prospects. And its so far from the reality.
Feeling like hopping around is a necessity to get better offers shouldn't have to be the norm, if the barrier to entry is so high (apparently) the compensation absolutely needs to match it.
The work actually done in the studios is also glorified and very few people admit how routine it can be most of the time.
Projects are large with the scope going beyond what is feasible, and the hiring is usually very restrictive to art and techinicalities.
For instance imagine if a lot of the people hired came from alternative backgrounds with more life experience, they would never let this slide.
And in many places the government enables exploitation by giving grants to companies to hire from local communities and schools, so the demographic stays very young and mostly ignorant.
A lot of artists move into outsourcing as a result after they have some experience, and its always good to start something on your own since this is one of the better industries to do that.