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[Bernardougf]

Sony should probably Brexit the UK

Every single UK studio is a dumpster fire including third parties

Well their US studios are not pumping out too many great things either ... 17 months without one single game in the 4th year of the console... assuming they are not going to launch anything big***

It seems something is very wrong and correction is needed asap... maybe thats why they have gone back to a Japanese ceo.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

The great gaming reset is upon us.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

So like Creative Assembly ? Whats with the UK having absolutely shitty middle management in businesses … so weird

It's the competence crisis.

It's not just the UK, and it's not just happening in gaming.

Middle management across public businesses globally are increasingly utterly shit and incompetent. Whether it's from woke hiring policies, DEI, the death of meritocracy, nepotism or the increasing push to hire in managers from outside the business instead of promoting upwards, the jury is still out on the reasoning. But even I can attest that at virtually every company I've worked at in the past 10 yrs, middle managers have been increasingly clueless at their jobs and not fit for the roles.

 

[Phase]

I'd really like to see what this "toxic" work environment was. Holding people to reasonable deadlines, like one day instead of multiple weeks for a simple task? Putting names and their associated projects on whiteboards?

 

[gothmog]

Consolidation sucks across all of the players. It's funny that we worried so much about what it would mean as far as monopolies when in reality it means widespread mediocrity.

 

[semiconscious]

has there been a more overused word in the english language over the last 10 years than the word 'toxic'? like any other overused word, it has simply become devoid of any meaning at this point...

 

[Sushi_Combo]

has there been a more overused word in the english language over the last 10 years than the word 'toxic'? like any other overused word, it has simply become devoid of any meaning at this point...

I find this comment to be rather toxic

 

[Ribi]

They should have stuck with CIG instead of sony

 

[peish]

But some people on this forum told me that having higher crunch, less benefits, and less pay will make sure these lazy devs work and give us better games? What do you mean they can just look for other work? Sounds vaguely commie to me.

Commieeetments in your work is a virtue, kids these days job hop and yolo thinking they are center of the world

That’s a reason perhaps western studios are laying off right and left while eastern studios are giving us good games with good eye candies

 

[Katatonic]

How can this be? I was under the impression from the knowledgeable folk in this forum that Sony is a safe haven of sorts for game developers where creativity and passion are fostered without any issues. A beacon of light that all other game companies strive to emulate. I guess it was just more GAF

I think it's just you trying to create a straw man.

 

[geary]

Gaming industry is basically Frostpunk in real life

 

[Clintizzle]

O r g a n i c | G r o w t h

 

[Ozriel]

Commieeetments in your work is a virtue, kids these days job hop and yolo thinking they are center of the world

That’s a reason perhaps western studios are laying off right and left while eastern studios are giving us good games with good eye candies

Studio’s made up of a lot of veteran talent, many from the defunct Studio Liverpool.
Blabbing about ‘kids’ because you’re overprotective of management is quite the thing indeed.

Eastern studios didn’t expand as much during COVID, and crazy crunch with long working hours is normalized in many ways

I'd really like to see what this "toxic" work environment was. Holding people to reasonable deadlines, like one day instead of multiple weeks for a simple task? Putting names and their associated projects on whiteboards?

I’m not sure anyone who’s ever worked in a decent sized organization on any critical project would make this kind of comment.

You people are weird.

 

[Blood Borne]

The word “toxic” means nothing these days.
Come back to the office = toxic
Don’t want to implement DEI initiatives = toxic
Dress smart and have a code of conduct = toxic
Don’t want your girl sleep with another guy = toxic

Simply put, having standards is now seen as toxic. I genuinely don’t care about all these recent layoffs, in fact I see them as a positive. People who are genuinely bringing value will most likely not be laid off. Streamlining is a good thing. Fuck them.

 

[Ozriel]

The word “toxic” means nothing these days.
Come back to the office = toxic
Don’t want to implement DEI initiatives = toxic
Dress smart and have a code of conduct = toxic
Don’t want your girl sleep with another guy = toxic

Simply put, having standards is now seen as toxic. I genuinely don’t care about all these recent layoffs, in fact I see them as a positive. People who are genuinely bringing value will most likely not be laid off. Streamlining is a good thing. Fuck them.

 

[Allandor]

The word “toxic” means nothing these days.
Come back to the office = toxic
Don’t want to implement DEI initiatives = toxic
Dress smart and have a code of conduct = toxic
Don’t want your girl sleep with another guy = toxic

Simply put, having standards is now seen as toxic. I genuinely don’t care about all these recent layoffs, in fact I see them as a positive. People who are genuinely bringing value will most likely not be laid off. Streamlining is a good thing. Fuck them.

Forgot the irony tag?

Something like this often happens if someone takes the lead who does not know how the company internally works. Often it is tried to force a process people aren't familiar with. Or something is forced because it worked in another company but that doesn't say it must work there.

Crunch time is such a thing that should never have existed. You pay people for their work time. If there is to much work things need to be cut or the release plans needs to be rescheduled.
Problem is, everything got more and more complicated in gaming development but no one wants to pay for that. Meanwhile the marketing budget tends to get higher than the development budget. Everything is outsourced (which is expensive), ...
There are so many problems and big companies often think that they know how to handle this... which they don't.

 

[Clear]

Gotta stress btw that in terms of numbers, the people actually causing all the mess are remarkably few. Its just that due to the way the process works, one or two arrogant, ignorant, useless producers or managers can completely trash projects.

What's worse is that these cockroaches tend to outlast the actual talent, because a big part of what makes them so toxic is their ability to shield themselves by shifting blame onto the people tasked with doing the actual work.

 

[STARSBarry]

Studio’s made up of a lot of veteran talent, many from the defunct Studio Liverpool.
Blabbing about ‘kids’ because you’re overprotective of management is quite the thing indeed.

Eastern studios didn’t expand as much during COVID, and crazy crunch with long working hours is normalized in many ways




I’m not sure anyone who’s ever worked in a decent sized organization on any critical project would make this kind of comment.

You people are weird.

Pretty much my experience whenever GAF talks about large projects within the IT space. You can tell they have never worked in a related field. Honestly many of these jobs have extremely transferable skills, they just have to move into something far more boring that is more stable and pays more. It's what I did, I admire people who stay in the industry, but I also think their insane, I lasted less than a year, and then I noped out.

All the people here crying for them to have worse conditions and less pay and be grateful about the opportunity to serve us, can fuck off.

They just don't have standards and think not having standards should apply to everyone else. A job is a Job, not a privilege bestowed upon you by your masters, if you don't like it you move, GAF being upset about people flexing that right and doing it has been a recent constant, like the right to quit a job is one of the core freedoms anyone should have, and last time I checked I didn't work in a country run by Mao.

 

[Ronin_7]

Sony: you guys have to work.

Staff: toxic workplace

 

[Roni]

Long history of crony culture going back 20+ years. You go to the right weekend poker games and you're in like Flynn, if not...

Good to know where my country imported this custom from...

 

[Team Andromeda]

I thought SONY were the best at running studios?

 

[Team Andromeda]

Every single UK studio is a dumpster fire including third parties

Some of the best games around come from UK studios, but I doubt you played any of them.

 

[Ronin_7]

I thought SONY were the best at running studios?

They are hands off which is terrible and the reason studios like Media molecule & London Studio are pure trash.

 

[Ozriel]

Pretty much my experience whenever GAF talks about large projects within the IT space. You can tell they have never worked in a related field. Honestly many of these jobs have extremely transferable skills, they just have to move into something far more boring that is more stable and pays more. It's what I did, I admire people who stay in the industry, but I also think their insane, I lasted less than a year, and then I noped out.

All the people here crying for them to have worse conditions and less pay and be grateful about the opportunity to serve us, can fuck off.

They just don't have standards and think not having standards should apply to everyone else. A job is a Job, not a privilege bestowed upon you by your masters, if you don't like it you move, GAF being upset about people flexing that right and doing it has been a recent constant, like the right to quit a job is one of the core freedoms anyone should have , and last time I checked I didn't work in a country run by Mao.

Yeah, it’s completely stupid. Over my career I’ve seen people burn out from crazy work hours from bullies as line managers, seen people hospitalized from extreme stress etc.

Sony: you guys have to work.

Staff: toxic workplace

I guess that explains why a ton of Glassdoor reviews keep talking about terrible and borderline incompetent management post acquisition.

When hero worship of multi-billion dollar corporations is taken too far, you start cheerleading crap like this.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Maybe we should fuck it and find another hobby. Everything is closing down or getting fired.

You act like other industries aren't also affected or making cutbacks. I think many are just going through the correction of too many people and governments borrowing far too much money and thinking cheap credit was here to stay forever.

 

[Team Andromeda]

They are hands off which is terrible and the reason studios like Media molecule & London Studio are pure trash.

It sadly seems to me that SONY's focus as been with the US studios while the UK and Japan side have been left to rot. I liked Studio London's output but the way London is run I can see why SONY closed it down

 

[Ozriel]

Some of the best games around come from UK studios, but I doubt you played any of them.

Oh, he’s on the record lamenting the shutdown of Evolution Studios and admitting he enjoyed their Motorstorm games tremendously.

But for the narrative he’s pushing to fit, every UK studio has to be garbage. Including Playground and their award winning Horizon series, Ninja Theory, RockSteady, Hello Games, Media Molecule and many others.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Oh, he’s on the record lamenting the shutdown of Evolution Studios and admitting he enjoyed their Motorstorm games tremendously.

But for the narrative he’s pushing to fit, every UK studio has to be garbage. Including Playground and their award winning Horizon series, Ninja Theory, RockSteady, Hello Games, Media Molecule and many others.

I doubt he's played many of the games he looks to rubbish.

 

[Clear]

Good to know where my country imported this custom from...

I think it started back in the 90's when the business in the UK was starting to become more organized and corporate, after the days of bedroom coding and/or tiny self-run startups faded away due to needing access to proprietary tools and/or expensive hardware.

Basically people got into production roles with zero experience or creative instinct. For instance I remember being introduced to a guy who'd come in directly from being a local radio producer! Unsurprisingly he was totally clueless, but afaik he stuck around for years.

They survive because initially they do nothing, or usually nothing too damaging and so the project gets out the door based solely on what the line is capable of. This gets them more standing (basically the credit) and so they given "project ownership" of the next thing. At which point they usually start interjecting their own fuck-witted ideas which the team needs to work around. Survive that -by luck or by crook- and they continue to ascend the corporate ladder.

Bigger teams, bigger budgets, and they start playing the game of networking, people-pleasing their superiors, shifting blame onto underlings for the problems their lazyness/cluelessness/arrogance creates... Anyone who's worked in the biz for anytime knows the drill.

I'm not saying that all producers are this bad, but in my experience there always seemed to be an overwhelming majority who are, especially in the bigger organizations. I think this is down to them being enabled by unearned power and influence gotten from association with global brands, allowing them to dictate to contracting devs/studios without fear of push-back or censure.

Its probably why Sony UK's always been particularly bad. Back in the day their success was largely built on the contributions of external teams, with the in-house stuff being mostly shit that coasted by on the strength of the (bought) IP or marketing budget.

 

[Blood Borne]

Forgot the irony tag?

Something like this often happens if someone takes the lead who does not know how the company internally works. Often it is tried to force a process people aren't familiar with. Or something is forced because it worked in another company but that doesn't say it must work there.

Crunch time is such a thing that should never have existed. You pay people for their work time. If there is to much work things need to be cut or the release plans needs to be rescheduled.
Problem is, everything got more and more complicated in gaming development but no one wants to pay for that. Meanwhile the marketing budget tends to get higher than the development budget. Everything is outsourced (which is expensive), ...
There are so many problems and big companies often think that they know how to handle this... which they don't.

Nope. Good example is X/Twitter, 80% of staff laid off, yet still running and new features being released.

No company lets go off people who are actually vital and critical to their business, people who deliver real value, and not some intangible crap.

 

[Chronicle]

So are work environments really toxic these days or is more like purple hairs complaining about police state while living in the freest society on Earth?

 

[Buggy Loop]

O r g a n i c | G r o w t h

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

What's with Sony and their UK-based studios? Outside Media Molecule (who I believe is living a charmed life) and Xdev they have always had issues over there.

• Firesprite
• Guerilla Cambridge(closed)
• evolution(closed)
• manchester studio(closed)
• studio Liverpool(closed)
• Big big studios(closed)

They seem to have closed more studios in the UK than any other region. This can't be a coincidence.

Shutting down Evolution was their biggest mistake... Finally there was another quality first party racer beside GT and they killed it.

I'll never understand why.

 

[CGNoire]

Nothing makes me roll my eyes faster than hearing the claim "Toxic Work Environment".

 

[Roni]

I think it started back in the 90's when the business in the UK was starting to become more organized and corporate, after the days of bedroom coding and/or tiny self-run startups faded away due to needing access to proprietary tools and/or expensive hardware.

Basically people got into production roles with zero experience or creative instinct. For instance I remember being introduced to a guy who'd come in directly from being a local radio producer! Unsurprisingly he was totally clueless, but afaik he stuck around for years.

They survive because initially they do nothing, or usually nothing too damaging and so the project gets out the door based solely on what the line is capable of. This gets them more standing (basically the credit) and so they given "project ownership" of the next thing. At which point they usually start interjecting their own fuck-witted ideas which the team needs to work around. Survive that -by luck or by crook- and they continue to ascend the corporate ladder.

Bigger teams, bigger budgets, and they start playing the game of networking, people-pleasing their superiors, shifting blame onto underlings for the problems their lazyness/cluelessness/arrogance creates... Anyone who's worked in the biz for anytime knows the drill.

I'm not saying that all producers are this bad, but in my experience there always seemed to be an overwhelming majority who are, especially in the bigger organizations. I think this is down to them being enabled by unearned power and influence gotten from association with global brands, allowing them to dictate to contracting devs/studios without fear of push-back or censure.

Its probably why Sony UK's always been particularly bad. Back in the day their success was largely built on the contributions of external teams, with the in-house stuff being mostly shit that coasted by on the strength of the (bought) IP or marketing budget.

Yeah, the 'people-focused' management types. It's true, whoever has worked in any technical field at a large company knows they're littered with them and they often get in the way more than they actually help. Specially in IT...

 

[DavidGzz]

More mismanagement from Phil. MS is truly evil. Oh shit, it's a Sony studio, nevermind. Fuck those purplish blue haired lazy cunts. Cutting the fat, the great gaming reset to right the ship. We are winning brethren.

 

[WitchHunter]

Bungie in turmoil. Firesprite in shambles. Sonys recent studio acquisitions hasn't exactly turned out well.

Let the rats leave the ship. Better that way than letting them meddle and gnaw at whatever they reach.

 

[FeralEcho]

"Crunch" and "toxic workplace",the two most overused words in the dictionary of a 17-25 "modern audience" wanker that hasnt realised yet that in life you actually have to put in an effort when you're at the workplace!

"What do you mean I have to come in at the office 5 days a week?"

 

[skyfinch]

Phil hacked into Sony's infrastructure.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

But for the narrative he’s pushing to fit, every UK studio has to be garbage. Including Playground and their award winning Horizon series, Ninja Theory, RockSteady, Hello Games, Media Molecule and many others.

Nah, you just can’t read. I never said all these studios made bad games. Only that they are horribly mismanaged. Mismanagement was evolutions downfall

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Maybe all these UK closures has to simply with costs and the UK is a costly place to make games?

Isnt the UK one of those places with big game subsidies? Maybe the government offers dried up. Who knows.

 

[Phase]

I’m not sure anyone who’s ever worked in a decent sized organization on any critical project would make this kind of comment.

You people are weird.

I was making a joke that references a youtube video some lead developer put out (can't remember his name) where he was lamenting how development has changed for the worse with those specific things I mentioned part of it.

 

[Allandor]

Nope. Good example is X/Twitter, 80% of staff laid off, yet still running and new features being released.

No company lets go off people who are actually vital and critical to their business, people who deliver real value, and not some intangible crap.

Ok, now I know you're joking. Twitter is full of bullshit and hate speech since Elon bought it. Almost all controls are gone.
So, yes it runs after many users left and not everyone can read there all the time. Good job Elon. ... Not

 

[Shut0wen]

Most of UK studios done everything wrong to themselves. Driveclub devs never released a competent hit after they were sold off to (now dead too) Codemasters.

Except there not dead they literally moved to another studio, they also released a wrc game lmao

 

[Shut0wen]

What's with Sony and their UK-based studios? Outside Media Molecule (who I believe is living a charmed life) and Xdev they have always had issues over there.

• Firesprite
• Guerilla Cambridge(closed)
• evolution(closed)
• manchester studio(closed)
• studio Liverpool(closed)
• Big big studios(closed)

They seem to have closed more studios in the UK than any other region. This can't be a coincidence.

Because sony offer shit pay and dont seem to greenlight that many projects, literally use them for support, there studios would of been closed along time ago if they didnt have VR, i know there london studio is absolutely dire to work for and has been ever since the getaway

 

[Shut0wen]

Sony should probably Brexit the UK

Every single UK studio is a dumpster fire including third parties

Yet gta has made the most money in gaming made in the uk, brexit means brexit fam reason why there studios are closing is because gaming companys dont get tax breaks anymore

 

[NickFire]

The article details studio mismanagement, not stuff as trivial as RTO mandates or limited overtime.

The article was published by a gaming news outlet that has recently seemed more interested with ideology than reporting actual news (or making money) in my humble opinion. If I missed a statement apologizing for how they handled covering / not covering what became one of the biggest games of all time please let me know. But until they prove to me they are serious people again, then with all due respect any reports from them about toxic this or toxic that will be taken with a huge grain of salt by me. Specifically, I will assume they ran a hit piece based on complaints from people who seem to believe anyone that disagrees with them is some sort of monster, and that going to work and being held accountable for results is abusive.

 

[nial]

>eurogamer
ew

 

[K' Dash]

 

[Blood Borne]

Ok, now I know you're joking. Twitter is full of bullshit and hate speech since Elon bought it. Almost all controls are gone.
So, yes it runs after many users left and not everyone can read there all the time. Good job Elon. ... Not

What the hell are you talking about?
Now I know you’re not a serious person. No point in continuing this conversation.