Funcom is breaking norwegian law
polycounter lvl 18
article in norwegian:
http://www.dagbladet.no/2008/12/11/kultur/funcom/spill/conan/arbeidsmiljo/4003653/
the company is breaking norwegian law like nothing else.
the LO-concern EL and IT slaughters the work condition of the game company funcom.
people who quit the company claims to have had very long workdays, work during weekends and "red" days, harsh treatment, unpaid overtime, and illegal hiring conditions. the EL and IT concern has got a lot to do.
when i came in here, i saw it was about bad exploitation of young boys and girls. many has gotten sick, and i doubt if we'll ever be able to get them back on their legs again, to say it a little harshly.
they've worked so much, their health has pretty much been destroyed.
and they're only around 30 years old, says Erik Br
http://www.dagbladet.no/2008/12/11/kultur/funcom/spill/conan/arbeidsmiljo/4003653/
the company is breaking norwegian law like nothing else.
the LO-concern EL and IT slaughters the work condition of the game company funcom.
people who quit the company claims to have had very long workdays, work during weekends and "red" days, harsh treatment, unpaid overtime, and illegal hiring conditions. the EL and IT concern has got a lot to do.
when i came in here, i saw it was about bad exploitation of young boys and girls. many has gotten sick, and i doubt if we'll ever be able to get them back on their legs again, to say it a little harshly.
they've worked so much, their health has pretty much been destroyed.
and they're only around 30 years old, says Erik Br
Replies
working on games is fun, but no excuse for bad working conditions
overtime work is a sign for bad management (not always though) and thats not the employees fault
my opinion....
If so, then terrible project management and/or bad development practices are going on.
didn't i just read yesterday about their upcoming hiring campaign. well timed. O.o
come work at funcom, we have all the hours you want, and we guarantee you'll just about make rent
That should teach them.
Come work at funcom! here we'll pay you a low salery, with long enough hours you won't have time to pack away those burgers, we'll be paying you to lose weight!
I worked with Funcom as QA for over two years. I worked in the US office. I was "terminated" 5 months ago, before I had the chance to leave on my own. Since then, many of my friends and co-workers have joined me. I'm glad it's done. The game is a failure.
There's a lot I can say about how the company was directed during Age of Conan's development. How communication was poor. But there is no point.
I hope they can reorganize the company for the better. There are some great talent in that company, and I hope the disaster that was AoC doesn't hinder their efforts on future projects.
I was given the opportunity to meet many of the devs in the Funcom office in Norway, and has many beers. Some I know were affected by this. I hope the best for them in the future. I hope to never work for a company creating an MMO ever again.
Nobody was paid any redundancy packages. We were literally locked out of the office the next day so the liquidators could take our computers and sell them off to pay the debts Funcom owed. Many of the staff had recently taken out large loans to buy share options in Funcom after having been told of the impending success of Anarchy Online. They were left with no job, no compensation, a large debt, and a bunch of worthless share options.
I still have share options in Funcom that I can't sell.
The company is very badly managed and seems to run entirely on venture capital, unpaid overtime and staff share options - yes the staff actually pay the company not the other way around!
Eh, just give it some time and then you'll see. You sound just like how I did the first year, before I vitnessed too much bullshit. And yeah, there was a crunch before Conan launched, it lasted for about 3 years.
You've probably been lucky and gotten one of the few good strike team leaders. Just wait untill you do something they don't like... for instance you can go and ask the QA guys how they've been treated, maybe that will enlighten you a tad.
Open your eyes.
You... are one hell of a character.
Far from it.
sad if it was or is like that, guess i should be happy to not have experienced the bad parts yet then.
I just quit Funcom, and that was due to all of this, i've had so many negative experiences, with proken promises, lies and general bad treatment.
I'm happy that you didn't experience any of this Jonas, but chances is that you will in the near future.
I was at funcom for 4 years and at the beginning it seemed fine, seemed very proffessional but after half a year or whatever the truth started to come out...
You can't have a lead artist that used to be a fireman with no art experience at all, i know that this has changed like a year ago, but come on... they don't choose the skilled people for lead possitions, they choose the ones that are not so good since they belive that putting a skilled productive individual as a lead is a bad thing as they loose his workload and on the paper the companies productivity goes down, this is of course completely wrong. I've been in the industry for almost 10 years now, worked at many different studios, but i have never seen anything like this.
So Jonas i wish you luck, and i hope funcom changes for yours sake, but chances is that you will experience some of this soon, if not to you someone close to you.
Jonas: On what team are you?
=guess this is one of the times you wish you didnt choose your name as your username :P.
and thats it for me, good luck to all of us, and thanks for all the information.
"edit" Crash: conviniently enough i use my real name here at polycount :P so i guess you could easily find out. aw me and morning tired typing hands ^^; im gonna get bullied aint i.
Don't get totally spooked by everything you hear from ex-employees though, keep your enthusiasm, because Funcom needs all the enthusiasm it can get to turn it into something good, just don't let them burn you out and make you loose interest for games like so many of us have..
Good luck and I wish you all the best!
I still like you though
I do respect what you've been through. But, it's not fair for you going around like this, it's been a long time since you've actively worked at FC -- Stuff is changing and they have listened to the criticism that was raised by the people in the article and the EL & IT, just as they say they have.
With that said -- I do not want to take sides or justify bad behaviour, just want to point out status quo.
I'm sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. (It did sound a bit like he was laughing of other peoples problems, but I know now that I just misunderstood.) My intention was not to bash Jonas, I am sorry if that was what it looked like. I just wanted to make sure he will not be as blue eyed as I were in the beginning, because that really hurt me a lot.
Allthough things are changing you still have some of the "bad" people in the management, and the bad things will most likely not go away before they do. It's not that long since I quit though, rather recent actually and it takes time and effort to really change stuff. There are still many people that come to EL & IT for help (several yesterday) which is proof that big problems are still there, maybe not as much as before, but it is there even if you like it or not. I know it's impossible to get rid of all the problems in such a big company, but this is not what this is about, we do not only speak of a couple of small problems here. I will not stop going around warning people untill they treat their workers like equal humans. I will try better not to sound rude though! Thanks for straightening me up a bit.
*EDIT: If you want you can come with me to El & IT, and you can take a look at the actual proof. The pile is huuuge..
You should. You're the talent I'm referring to
Through friends I've kept, I know that FC has been making some big changes. I hope it's enough to prevent this sort of situation from happening again. So, good luck to you guys.
PERCOM BREAKS MEXICAN LAW
Oh the irony.
If i feel the crunch/company start to rape me like the article says, Then i´d probably leave the ship. Right now though. I´m ok
PS: I´m not pushing down the ones who got abused and things like that. I´m just saying I haven´t been. I wasn´t a part of it the same way they were. Two different teams/worlds.
BTW: Here you have several other ex-devs and devs talking: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/215762/page/1
EDIT: Read that link. Yikes.
Anyways. There HAVE been changes at Funcom as of late which is good.
That said, I personally have no idea what's going on in the case of Funcom, but hopefully for people working there things aren't as bad as these rumours.
2/3 of the earlier Beijing AoC and TSW team quit in protest prior to this because of how some of their collegues had been treated by their Project Manager and Country Manager.
In a Chineese forum thread that was kind of similar to this one they talked about a person named Sunny and how she has been terrorizing the Chineese departement and how ignorant the guys in the Oslo office are. Sunny contacted the guys that run this forum site to make them remove the thread, and they deleted it! She bribed the forum owners and said that for each employee they convince to join Funcom they would be rewarded with 1000 rmb.
Sounds pretty similar to how the US guys were treated.. They care even less about their foreign workers, no suprise though.
Meh. Anyways. To avoid flying shit, i'm going to shut up.
As a side note. I wasn't here when most of these things went down, but I do know several people who were involved, so I have heard stuff from said people. Face to face. Yarr.
You just got sacked, you just don't know it yet!
Fact stands. I have heard the story's from both party's involved but I'm NOT picking sides. Simply stating the facts.
As far as all the speculations and accusations or whatever going on in various forums. Meh.