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Former Halo developer criticizes 343 Industries and warns other professionals to avoid the studio 'They are cancer now'

Draugoth

Gold Member
601214
Will Waltz, a former developer who worked as an animator on the Halo franchise for 13 years, published a rather controversial comment a few days ago involving 343 Industries, or better known now as Halo Studios.

Through LinkedIn, the former Halo developer criticized 343 Industries and warned other professionals to avoid the studio. He even claims that the studio's leadership is a “cancer”.

I worked for them as a top performing industry animator for 13 years. I do not recommend working for 343 industries (“Halo Studios”) it’s like comcast calling themselves Xfinity and hoping nobody notices. Steer clear and stay safe out there, they are not worth it. Feel free to pm.To be clear, employees have been some of the industry’s finest because we all have fond memories of Halo and the Microsoft pay is nice, but their leadership is cancer, Pierre especially and you’ll hate how creatively limiting they are.

I have no doubt that even though the execs finally gave in to switching to Unreal they will find a way to organizationally make it un-fun to work there.

Jason Schreier - you may be interested.

Source

Source 2
 
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ZehDon

Member
Mentioned this in the "343i is dead" thread. Dude comes across as pretty bitter, which is fair if he's been fired, but trying to paint 343i's devs as the best in the industry really makes me question their perspective. There's a reason Microsoft had to gut the studio, re-brand the team, and basically say "mulligan" on 343i's era - and it's not because 343i's devs were too talented...
 

SHA

Member
Social media amplifies disgruntled fired employees in a way fuckedcompany/glassdoor never could.
The community expect Rockstar tier game every 6 years from Halo Studios, of course either ways, the environment can't be nice, Rockstar getaway with their shit, other studios are not unfortunately.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Very enjoyable seeing video game people complain on social media. Doesn't matter if it's while they are there or after the leave. Always itching for a last lecture from the podium. lol
 

intbal

Gold Member
I have no doubt that even though the execs finally gave in to switching to Unreal they will find a way to organizationally make it un-fun to work there.

This makes it sound like the team hated working with Slipspace.
Interesting.
 

Z O N E

Member
but their leadership is cancer, Pierre especially

Yet, it was Pierre's leadership that LITERALLY FIXED Halo: MCC.

To me, it sounds like Pierre is a "get shit done" kind of guy, which is probably why he got promoted and is now the new guy basically leading Halo Infinite and the new Halo projects and this animator doesn't like the "get shit done" kind of atmosphere.

343i NEEDED to be gutted and restarted. The leadership was all over the place and it looks like this new "reboot" of the studio is what they need, because lets be honest, shit wasn't getting done properly before.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I swear it's never actual coders doing this social media drama stuff, but everyone else in "Game development," usually having to do with art.

We all know 343i sucks either way, but it seems like they've changed about half their leaders in the last year so it's not just "Comcast renamed to xFinity."
 

Darsxx82

Member
There are few things that disgust me more than seeing someone use the word "cancer" so lightly to disqualify other people or describe situations that are ultimately everyday.... They are usually people who do not know or have not suffered from such a hard, painful and difficult disease to face.

From there, he has spent 13 years in a Studio that has not met expectations and has not stood out in the part where he was responsible (animations). Whether he is right and the Studio leaders are inept will be seen in the future. Now his attitude is that of a disgruntled ex-employee and a bad colleague. Apart from the fact that he has closed many doors for himself in the future when he looks for a job.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
This makes it sound like the team hated working with Slipspace.
Interesting.
Possibly.

Like any program a company uses, sometimes it' worth changing. If it makes sense financially, usability is expected to be good, and helps streamline business do it. Problem is it takes time to do, people might hate it, and there's always a chance the new system stinks.

If Halo is going Unreal 5, it'll be interesting how well received it ends up from the programmers and how all the Halo stuff transfers over.

It's like a big company implementing SAP. It works for some, it doesnt for others. Sometimes, it's rushed through, sometimes it just plain sucks. here's an example of bad SAP transitions. But my company did it too way back and it was fine.

 

DanielG165

Member
Disgruntled employee has negative thoughts about their former employer. More news at 11. Isn’t the new head the guy that literally saved the MCC? Dude knows his Halo.
 

Astral Dog

Member
I don't know if they are 'cancer' but it does seem they need an overhaul in managment, my impression is that Halo 5 and Infinite took too long to come out and had mixed reception by fans.

but im not a Halo fan and just played Halo 4 back on xbox 360, it seems the series has the potential to make a bigger impact but its held back ,hopefully the rebranding and engine switch helps them to deliver higher quality games for the fans,they clearly have talent on 343 since Halo 4 was pretty good
 
If they had to hard-line the shit performing 343 studio with Hintze in control to get MCC back from the grave then good by me. Well done Hintze and team.

343 by committee is what made Halo shit. Give me the single vision devs to deliver greatness e.g. OG bungie small dev team. IMO Hintze deserves the big shot at the helm, just give resources and creative control to a few key staff, fuck design by committee.
 
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coffinbirth

Member
"Will Waltz, a former developer who worked as an animator on the Halo franchise for 13 years. 13 years of pure trash"
animation_salt_360.gif


Hopefully Pierre can use all this salt to help cook up something worthy of the Halo name.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
If you’re a top performing industry animator why did you stay at a company for 13 years when you hated it?
Leadership changes from top to bottom. May be coming from department instead of the whole company overall.
Imagine your good reporting manager resigned and comes the awful one
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Man... the western industry is in living hell right now.
Totally. But hialrious.

At least other companies in industries that have issues or failing products can typically associate that with lackluster quality or a bad price. Also, often the big corporations dominate store shelves with tons of products making it hard for small companies to dig in. Forgotten. Try again. Nothing to fuss about.

Gaming is different. Giant budgets and timelines, big flops, politics, crazy corporate environments, GAAS nickel and diming, studio employees battling gamers on social media, then gaming site "journalists" battling companies on social media, and of course employees badmouthing their own boss, company or leaking confidential memos on Twitter at 9 am.... and probably lots of other hilarious stuff I forgot.

Truly an entertaining industry of immature people.

But give them credit. This industry sure knows how to wrangle up big budgets from big companies or investment companies when no bank would lend them a dime.
 
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Bernardougf

Member
Totally. But hialrious.

At least other companies in industries that have issues or failing products can typically associate that with lackluster quality or a bad price. Also, often the big corporations dominate store shelves with tons of products making it hard for small companies to dig in. Forgotten. Try again. Nothing to fuss about.

Gaming is different. Giant budgets and timelines, big flops, politics, crazy corporate environments, GAAS nickel and diming, studio employees battling gamers on social media, then gaming site "journalists" battling companies on social media, and of course employees badmouthing their own boss, company or leaking confidential memos on Twitter at 9 am.... and probably lots of other hilarious stuff I forgot.

Truly an entertaining industry of immature people.

But give them credit. This industry sure knows how to wrangle up big budgets from big companies or investment companies when no bank would lend them a dime.
The burning of money by the whole entertaiment industry in the last 10 years has been something to behold.. is really really impressive how they pass this things by shareholders... I would trully like to see how something like "lucasfilm" justify itself in shareholders meetings. I guess billionaires deal with loss different than I, but it shure wasn't like this in the past
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The burning of money by the whole entertaiment in the last 10 years has been something to behold.. is really really impressive how they pass this things by shareholders... I would trully like to see how something like "lucasfilm" justify itself in shareholders meetings. I guess billionaires deal with loss different than I, but it shure wasn't like this in the past
It's tech end of the day.

So similar to the dot.com craze 25 years ago, big corporations or venture capitalist funds have deep pockets. All it takes is a couple guys in a board room teasing the bankrollers they got a hit game, piece of tech or e-commerce site that can generate tons of users and revenue - skies the limit - and you'll get eyeballs itching to sign a deal.

Most fail. But the temptation is there. Just got to get lucky as a guy pitching a product the other guys in the room with the money are big time gamblers. You need a room of rich guys who dont want safe and conservative 6% returns. You want tech bros with deep money who are willing to go balls deep either losing it all or hitting the jackpot tripling their return in 5 years when the game finally releases.
 
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Bernardougf

Member
It's tech end of the day.

So similar to the dot.com craze 25 years ago, big corporations or venture capitalist funds have deep pockets. All it takes is a couple guys in a board room teasing the bankrollers they got a hit game, piece of tech or e-commerce site that can generate tons of users and revenue - skies the limit - and you'll get eyeballs itching to sign a deal.

Most fail. But the temptation is there. Just got to get lucky as a guy pitching a product the guys in the room with the money are big time gamblers.

Failing ideas and products always existed.. but what we see now is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on failed ideas... without any real repercutions... its bizarre to describe modern loosing tactics to some CEO of the 90/00

We got this 4 billion dollar franchise with a huge fanbase... ok our idea is to completely change the product, focus on new consumers and antagonize as much as we can old legacy costumers.

After billions lost...

I have a new idea.. to keep using the same method but this time with even more antagonizing.

Shareholders: ok do it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Failing ideas and products always existed.. but what we see now is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on failed ideas... without any real repercutions... its bizarre to describe modern loosing tactics to some CEO of the 90/00

We got this 4 billion dollar franchise with a huge fanbase... ok our idea is to completely change the product, focus on new consumers and antagonize as much as we can old legacy costumers.

After billions lost...

I have a new idea.. to keep using the same method but this time with even more antagonizing.

Shareholders: ok do it.
Probably because most shareholders dont care. They sell for a loss and move on, instead of trying to oust management submitting proxy votes. And for a lot of companies upper management has lots of votes too if they got tons of shares so it might be impossible to vote them out unless everyone else coordinates an organized effort to do so.

It's oddly counterintuitive because many media companies like UBI, WB, Paramount, Disney and surely more have had stock prices tank so bad over the years, you'd think based on pure logic of shareholder value, sales, bonuses and hitting options strike prices, they'd do what it takes to make more sales and profits to pump up the stock. Not bomb it down with junky products.

But who knows. Maybe a lot of these people have such deep rooted views, they want to go all out with the messaging instead of business success. lol
 
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Edder1

Member
This is like someone complaining that they've been in abusive relationship for 13 years only to have chosen to be in that relationship all that time, smh. Dude, have some self awareness, you were part of that "cancer".
 
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Disgruntled ex employees are always fun, I'm sure his take on it is 100% accurate and perfect while 343 are the devil.

They've already proven 10x over that they are in fact, cancer. How much evidence do we need? They've done so much damage to the franchise with what has happened with Infinite. Microsoft upper leadership is awful too. We never should've been in this situation with Halo to begin with.

-Infinite campaign sucks with its barren world and story despite being in development for so long
-graphics debacle and 1 year delay hurt Series X launch- final game still looks like a last gen game after 1 year delqy
-"10 year plan" had the towel thrown in after what? 2 years? They could've at least stuck to adding a campaign expansion to make it a respectable game and gotten 5 years out of 10
-Multiplayer was an unmitigated disaster as we all know despite having some of the best mechanics and controls of any Halo. Making it Free to Play and forcing CrossPlay onto console players that have been the primary audience for over 20 years was incredibly disrespectful AND damaging to the trust people have.

Only reason why 343 escaped total disaster is because of MS paying off youtubers and reviewers (only explanation I can think of for why review scores were positive). I may catch flak for that "pay off" comment but come on the campaign was more of a long proof of concept than an actual Halo game. It had no variety, empty world with the same type of base skirmishes throughout, none of the set pieces that Halo games are known for, and was padded to hell in the last 5 hours of tedious corridors. We know now why the game was so unfinished as management issues, the new engine, and outsourcing of development is well established. They had no time to fill it with meaningful activitues, missions, biomes and cutscenes ...the things that made other Halos great games...
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
You know, LinkedIn is not the place for venting stuff. In fact as a professional you pretty much risk alienating future employers.

This.

Very unprofessional behaviour. Vent privately to your friends and family, but not publicly on LinkedIn.
 

Bernardougf

Member
Probably because most shareholders dont care. They sell for a loss and move on, instead of trying to oust management submitting proxy votes. And for a lot of companies upper management has lots of votes too if they got tons of shares so it might be impossible to vote them out unless everyone else coordinates an organized effort to do so.

It's oddly counterintuitive because many media companies like UBI, WB, Paramount, Disney and surely more have had stock prices tank so bad over the years, you'd think based on pure logic of shareholder value, sales, bonuses and hitting options strike prices, they'd do what it takes to make more sales and profits to pump up the stock. Not bomb it down with junky products.

But who knows. Maybe a lot of these people have such deep rooted views, they want to go all out with the messaging instead of business success. lol
I think thats the only logical conclusion... even the shareholders are supporting the DEI/WOKE craziness... maybe the backend dollars make everything worth it and the losses are not that great. Who knows
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
This.

Very unprofessional behaviour. Vent privately to your friends and family, but not publicly on LinkedIn.
Linkedin is typically a very clean and professional site. It'd very rare you get someone venting like this. His post mortem warning post is something suitable for a Twitter rant.

I guess he's trying to do god's work warning people on a career site. But it never looks good publicly badmouthing prior companies. Then again, video game employees seem to have a great time on social media telling the world about stuff. So it's surprising, but not that surprising.
 
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