During the initial acquisition spree on behalf of Microsoft, many looked towards the worst outcomes from the Xbox company purchasing teams left and right. From developers like Ninja Theory to Obsidian Entertainment, the question is how would the tech giant bully these developers to work on IPs against its creative integrity? Well, that was not the case. From one report on behalf of Double Fine Productions, Microsoft was very hands-off.
For the Psychonauts 2 team, Microsoft’s arrangement instead offered a complete 180° for the project it was later revealed. Founder Tim Schafer revealed most if not all boss fights would be absent if not for the new home it was welcomed into. However, the infinite freedom has not proven to be beneficial for all teams.
In a new report from Kotaku, a dozen former and current employees at Undead Labs complain about the actions of upper management at the team. Although the workplace is said to be enjoyable for the most part, leadership on the other hand could be worked on if not Microsoft’s distant approach was taken literally.
The overall complaint comes to be the sexist remarks and complete dismissal of women in the company. Although there has been a record improvement of opposite sex employees hired and drastic addition of diverse people of color, management at Undead Labs remained to keep its female workers in a chokehold when represented. In contrast, issues ensued following the departure of industry veteran Jeff Strain.
Formerly working on StarCraft and Guild Wars, him and some colleagues at the time formed Undead Labs when pitching a zombie MMO project. From one former employee, they shared experiences working with Strain to be unmatched with anyone else. “I’ve never yet in my career experienced anyone who can top Jeff’s ‘rally the troops’ speeches.
“That kind of light attracted a wonderful blend of people to Undead Labs, and that kind of culture created a studio where people were excited to build cool things and felt empowered and trusted to do so.” However, the problem grew with production tightening around the sides for additional content for State of Decay 2 post-launch and State of Decay 3. Groups would be put into specific teams to work on mechanics and showcase progress, but also did cut off sight of improving the overall gameplay loop.
Every couple of months, after a milestone, teams would be completely broken up and shuffled around into new teams. So there was no consistency with who worked on what system.
Another former employee added, “QA would work extremely hard, catch all our bugs, and try to take care of them. But the leadership would ignore their concerns and say things like ‘don’t log multiplayer bugs’ in an attempt to show artificial progress on [State of Decay 3]. […] Milestones consisted of a pile of disjointed features that were less about making a fun video game and more about checking off a list.”
But, problems discerning women only swelled overtime as the issue grew out of proportion, sources alleged. “Women’s opinions would be outright rejected, even for extremely basic code or games knowledge. No one would listen to them, even women in director-level positions were outright ignored, talked over, and blamed for problems.”
What comes to be more surprising is the addition of Anne Schlosser. Following the welcoming of Philip Holt, her enlistment followed being a human resources professional for other industries even including Microsoft did not leave an impact. “There was a guy on the State of Decay 3 team who was being blatantly sexist, and Anne didn’t do anything about him,” one statement onf Schlosser revealed.
Although Holt formed ArenaNet alongside Strain, his actions proved to be malicious towards women in the workspace. “One time, someone publicly called Philip out after he ignored her. This turned into a huge [diversity and inclusion] meeting, where people cried and Philip told us that he was treated unfairly because the issue was public.
There was a guy on the State of Decay 3 team who was being blatantly sexist, and Anne didn’t do anything about him. There was a manager of the Tech Art team who was awful that Anne sided with, and lo, nearly the entire tech art team quit.
Ultimately, sources told Kotaku that the issue buildup did eventually bring some positivity in summer 2021 where victims realized this became a widespread problem. With Schlosser’s inability to assist in the issue, Microsoft eventually intervened and interviewed different parties and resulted in an abrupt leaving by Schlosser. Microsoft nor Schlosser would comment on the matters when questioned.
But, the disorganized team was faced with another obstacle: Microsoft’s expectations. Came summer 2020, the Xbox company expected a trailer for the team’s next project. However, “We didn’t want to announce the game because we didn’t even know what it was at that point,” one unnamed employee told. In total, there were said to be two demos ready before the end of 2021, which we know now never came.
“They kept piling on more features for more demos. It was a complete mess. People left and were replaced by juniors. To quote a producer, ‘I’m not an expert at the code or anything, but our systems should be past the prototype stage.’ Even when the experts at code told him, ‘no it’s not even working at all yet,’ they ignored that comment and added more features to the deadline”
Amid these issues at Undead Labs, this is not the only team suffering from poorly managed leadership. At The Initiative, a similar culture formed with direction on Perfect Dark remake still in its design phase and most of the weight now with Crystal Dynamics which partnered with the team last year. You can read the full report by heading here.
Are you surprised by the continued complaints of Xbox Game Studios teams?
Source: Kotaku