Techland Studios (Dying Light 2 devs) apparently not a good place to work...

[thebobmaster]

Report: Techland Is Bleeding Talent Due To Autocratic Management, Bad Feedback, And Lack Of Direction

Behind the scenes of the studio making Dying Light 2.

www.thegamer.com

Came across this article through the Escapist front page, and wow. For a bit of a Cliff Notes version:

-An artist turned in work that management disliked, with management referring to it as "pedalski", which apparently translates to "******-like". (word for homosexuals that begins with f)

-While the CEO claims that incidents like this and other similar incidents are unacceptable, and says that reports to HR will lead to investigation, it is unclear if any action was taken.

-The head of HR? The CEO's wife.

-One of the CEO's ideas to promote the game (which as far as I'm aware, didn't make it out of the office until this article), was sending out medical test kits that people could use to test themselves for susceptibility to the game's pathogen. These were also real medical test kits that could reveal real diseases. This was also at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

-The head of marketing joined from a company called Kinguin, which is apparently a G2A like key reseller, and has failed to impress with his marketing, including a post that promoted the company's "Cristmas Cooking".

-The company has had a 5% turnover in the last couple of months, losing 20 people out of their 400 person staff. The CEO claims this is normal for a AAA developer.

-The CEO apparently listens to outside sources more than internal staff, to the point of that staff feeling like they are dismissed.

-According to a source inside the company, the CEO has a rule that "an idea cannot be implemented if it doesn't have an existing reference from another game".

-After a creative copyrighter quit Techland after 5 years, the CEO went over his work on the Dying Light Steam page and reworked it to remove that work.

-People working on Dying Light 2 claim they have no idea what the final game will be, or what the story will be, because it keeps changing as people leave, come in, or the CEO has a new idea.

-If the team's ideas aren't considered cost-effective enough, they are told to think outside the box and be more creative.

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There's a lot more to this than what I typed up, including the name of the CEO, which is Pawel Marchewka. These are just what I felt were the highlights that show...well, why it might be taking so long for Dying Light 2.

 

[happyninja42]

.....that's.....not something I was hoping to hear.

Dying Light 1 is one of my favorite games of all time. And DL 2 was probably the single game I was genuinely excited about coming out soon, and actually looking forward to.

Now, well that bubble is burst that's for sure. Le sigh.

 

[Catfood220]

I actually wonder if there are any good game companies to work for.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I actually wonder if there are any good game companies to work for.

How's Insomniac's reputation these days? They were deemed the best place to work in America a couple of years back. Has that still held up?

 

[happyninja42]

How's Insomniac's reputation these days? They were deemed the best place to work in America a couple of years back. Has that still held up?

Maybe Sucker Punch? I'd really like to hear they aren't dicks to their staff, given how many of their games are in my top games of all time list.

 

[Chimpzy]

I actually wonder if there are any good game companies to work for.

Microsoft is apparently a very nice place to work, at least within the IT sector. Iirc, they've been getting "best employer" awards from various job sites for like 5 years straight. From what I can gather, they're an employer of the "demand the best, but also give the best" variety. Tho that's about Microsoft as a whole, which is of course vast, and not specifically their gaming devisions.

Also pretty recent, since Nadella took over. Shit was supposedly cutthroat under Balmer.

 

[bluegate]

-An artist turned in work that management disliked, with management referring to it as "pedalski", which apparently translates to "******-like".

Asterisk like, huh? Sounds like a compliment.

 

[Trunkage]

Asterisk like, huh? Sounds like a compliment.

Id hate to be called star-like

 

[laggyteabag]

I actually wonder if there are any good game companies to work for.

Supergiant got a lot of great press for their working conditions during the production of Hades, especially during a time where seemingly every other big developer is getting massive criticism for their crunch culture.

Staff aren't even allowed to send emails to each other over the weekend, because they aren't supposed to be working.

Still weirds me out that they got passed up for the "Best Game Direction" award at The Game Awards, in favour of TLoU2/Naughty Dog, of all things. As far as I am concerned, that is just legitimising crunch.

 

[bluegate]

Supergiant got a lot of great press for their working conditions during the production of Hades, especially during a time where seemingly every other big developer is getting massive criticism for their crunch culture.

Staff aren't even allowed to send emails to each other over the weekend, because they aren't supposed to be working.

Still weirds me out that they got passed up for the "Best Game Direction" award at The Game Awards, in favour of TLoU2/Naughty Dog, of all things. As far as I am concerned, that is just legitimising crunch.

That is because a Best Game Direction award isn't about how well the developers were treated during development.

Same word, different context, different meaning

 

[Hades]

Nintendo doesn't seem to get a lot of criticism like this. However I kinda suspect this has more to do with crunch just being considered ''another Wednesday'' in Japan instead of the company not doing it. I've read an interview that the creator of the original Kid Icarus had a very limited time in which to make the game and was required to sleep on boxes inside his office to get it done.

 

[Elijin]

Pretty shitty, but a lot of those complaints could come from literally any office workplace and I wouldn't bat an eye. Corporate life is a bit shit, and CEOs and managers are a lot shit.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[XsjadoBlayde]

The head of HR being the CEO's significant other sounds like a blunt metaphor in an obvious satire for what HR's true purpose for any corporation actually is, instead of, you know, real life. It's the new 'billionare's gold toilet.'

 

[CriticalGaming]

You wonder why anyone makes video games these days. Because doing so is apparently such a miserable experience that the trama and stress is like working for Nazi's.

It has become so Nuovo-Riche for these stories to come out, I can't help but wonder if these reports aren't just exaggerated either from reports, or from the article writer themselves to make for a more exciting article to read. Because honestly, if the game's industry is such an oppressive abusive environment damn near everywhere you can possible work, why would anyone willingly work for a game's company.

Even if you went to school for programming or 3D art and you are determined to make such a job your career, there are loads of other job opportunities for that. System software for other businesses, programming for app companies, software development, Film companies, television companies. There are a shit load of other jobs for people to take with damn near the same skillset as required from games development.

If the passion to create games is worth the "abuse", then I don't know if I can feel sorry for people that much. (Outright rape, physical violence, and extreme cases notwithstanding because obviously those are to be utterly condemned forever) The Techland stuff seems like a case of "your boss is a dick" but it's not like anything all that different than other jobs imo. Everyone has had dickhead bosses, but being a dickhead isn't a crime and in a lot of cases can be good for a business because you have one person with absolute creative control to keep a project from swaying.

That stuff is based off more than just this article but rather the whole meta of these articles all over the place.

As for Techland,

Things like having your art called whatever "*****-like* means is not entirely unreasonable when your being paid for art. Without context it's hard to judge whether this is valid or not because if you are paid to create a bad-ass zombie and you create a pile of mud or something that goes against the instructed request....then yeah it's ****-like I guess. People in charge of an art project have a right to dislike the employee's art if it isn't matching the vision. That leadership should provide better instructions so the artist can be in a better mindset for what the picture is supposed to be.

It's like when you order a burger from a restaurant with the request that you have a Medium-Rare pattty, but the patty you get is WAY overdone. It's a shit burger and isn't what you asked for even if that burger is perfect in the eye of the chef. It's not the chef's job to deem what's perfect, it's the chef's job to cook what the customer asked for exactly HOW they asked for it.

The other complaints in the article seem like a frustrating lack of steady leadership, which I'll admit seems to be a rather large problem in the games industry as a whole. Hell yesterday we were talking about the same problem with Vampire the Masquarade 2.

And I think it comes from the fundamental problem in which companies seem to hire "leadership" based on business prowess instead of games development. I can't but wonder if these "leaders" are just not gaming people and don't have any fucking clue what making a game actually is. And thus when it comes to keeping a game under control it proves out of there hand.

On the other hand maybe it's people who are quite good as general developers, but can't handle leadership themselves. The leadership behind Anthem is a good example of this. The people that moved in and out of leadership and all those people where game developers themselves, so why couldn't they control the game? Perhaps they simply weren't capable to lead or not fitted to do so.

There are shockingly few "leaders" in games that seem to really understand WTF they're doing. Corey Balrog, Hideo Kojima, Tetsuya Normura, and yes even *sigh* Druckman (i might hate his work but I can't deny he was able to bring together a solidly put together game)

If you look at a lot of these studios, especially those with disasterous reports coming from them, it's always "company name" and never really and individual (except when it's Randy Pitchford).

I dunno, maybe I just don't get it. I can't imagine working in such a shitty conditions for any length of time for any reason. Yet developers continue to keep chugging away at gaming. So I dunno.

 

[thebobmaster]

Asterisk like, huh? Sounds like a compliment.

Didn't realize it got censored. I'll edit the post, but the word is a derogatory word for homosexuals that begins with f.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Bob_McMillan]

Didn't realize it got censored. I'll edit the post, but the word is a derogatory word for homosexuals that begins with f.

What a bizarre way to insult a piece of artwork. Especially considering it was probably for a zombie apocalypse game.

I dunno, maybe I just don't get it. I can't imagine working in such a shitty conditions for any length of time for any reason. Yet developers continue to keep chugging away at gaming. So I dunno.

Why does anyone stay in a shitty job?People need money, and jobs aren't raining down on us. And game developers do constantly leave their jobs (or get laid off most likely). I'd assume that for most devs, game development is niche enough that switching industries is hard.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Honestly, at this point I'd be more surprised about an article stating that any company was unanimously agreed to be a very nice place to work.

It has become so Nuovo-Riche

Nouveau riche means 'new rich' or 'new money,' I don't think that was the word you intended to use there. Maybe 'de rigueur' or 'haute couture' at a stretch were what you meant.

whatever "*****-like* means

Asterisk like, huh? Sounds like a compliment.

I'm pretty sure this is a case of the Escapist's swear filter interfering with the post. There's only about 3 words it censors, it's very odd. Looking at the article, they called it "f**got-like."

Edit: looks like I got ninja'd on that.

 

[Worgen]

Weren't these guys already kinda known as assholes?