Glassdoor Reviews

[Mustawd]

No fuck that Dexter . don't hide behind a rating. Cmon dude. Let's talk. I'm prolly the most open minded person on the codex. Argue ur case goddammit.

 

[Dexter]

No I don't. As the mechanics basically mirror every review mechanic on any website. Yelp, Steam, amazon. It has the exact type of mechanics.

Yelp, Steam, Amazon aren't about reviewing a company from the point of view of a former employee, but reviewing a business/game/product from the point of view as a consumer (which is a very different thing and relationship entirely), and even those provide a better way to check the accuracy of said reviews. For instance on Steam you can't review a game you haven't actually bought and played and it displays the playtime alongside your review. On Amazon it is also indicated whether the customer that wrote the review actually bought the product from the store via a "Verified Amazon Purchase" sign alongside it. I'm not intimately knowledgeable regarding the inner workings of Yelp, but I would guess the sheer amount of restaurants/clubs/etc. listed and the lack of interest of anyone that didn't actually physically visit the location in person to shit on them (aside from activist actions about Christian bakeries or whatever, which usually happen in a specific time period of a few days or a week and can be singled out and culled if politically convenient) would prevent too much abuse. And in each case they usually remove obviously fake reviews a lot more quickly and reliably than "Glassdoor".

 

[Mustawd]

Yelp, Steam, Amazon aren't about reviewing a company from the point of view of a former employee, but reviewing a business/game/product from the point of view as a consumer, and even those provide a better way to check the accuracy of said reviews. For instance on Steam you can't review a game you haven't actually played and it displays the playtime along with your review. On Amazon it is also indicated whether the customer that wrote the review actually bought the product from the store via a "Verified Amazon Purchase" sign.

That is fair. Although I'll say that no job review website I know of verified the employment of said person. Also, I have already said that my old company, PWC, has thousands of reviews. When I was an intern trying to figure out if I wanted to work there, the reviews were invaluable to me in providing needed perspective. In addition, after going through 3 years of working there, I can also say that 100% of the reviews I read sounded accurate.

Again, the bigger the sample the size the better the accuracy. But just based on my experience, these interviews follow a very familiar pattern. And that is honestly hard to discount.

 

[sser]

Like virtually any review platform on the internet whether it's an Amazon product or some IMDB page, there is an unending war on Glassdoor between fake astroturfers and people who act seriously bereaved at the most minor of sleights. I got most utility out of it from preening salary numbers and years employed.

Of course, the best part of Glassdoor is the Craigslist-esque missed connections type of romanticism some people have - whether negative or positive you can feel a genuine love or hate in their writeups. It bleeds through and you feel as though you spent the years elbow to elbow with them. Craigslist connoisseur mustawd know what I'm talking about.

 

[Mustawd]

Craigslist connoisseur mustawd know what I'm talking about.

I do.

 

[unfairlight]

Zero career progression/promotions

hmmmmmmmm... I'm pretty sure Sawyer didn't start out as "Design Director" for the studio 15 years ago.

- All gender issues in reviews below, lot of women have resigned, although lack of promotion and training happens to everyone

- No senior women, and women are not promoted to senior positions. For a company that touts itself as caring about diversity, and that makes games with female characters in important roles, this is both ironic and as serious lack.

- Not a good environment for women. Sexism and missing stairs among some male employees. Also, there are few to no women in lead/management/senior positions.

wtf i fucking love obsidian now.

Fuck you buddy. I wanted to post that exact same thing. You stole my ratings and I'm gonna make you pay.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

CD PROJEKT RED

"Wonderful time spent there"
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

Recommends
Positive Outlook
Approves of CEO

I worked at CD PROJEKT RED full-time (Less than a year)

Pros

Everything was wonderful oh and vegetarian cantina

Cons

All pretty great in general other than in-fighting among upper management

"Growing pains, but good heart and amazing talent"
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

I worked at CD PROJEKT RED full-time

Pros

excellent ambition, talent, and grit.

Cons

inexperienced management, below industry wages, poland is still a difficult country

Advice to Management

bring in and pay for higher experience levels as the knowledge will spread among the other talented employees making them more productive and increasing quality.

"Terrible upper management."
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Warsaw (Poland)

Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
Disapproves of CEO

I worked at CD PROJEKT RED full-time (Less than a year)

Pros

good guys to work with
free gym

Cons

even for polish salaries they are paying pennies.
upper management is fighting constantly, you dare to point anything to Adam Badowski he will bully you or fire in the soonest possible occasion. Adam thinks he is infallible.
Not a world class experience, chaos!
Goals keep changing
poor pay even if you compare polish IT sector!
If you can work as robot it's for you ;-)

Advice to Management

Get rid of Adam Badowski!

"Terrible mess"
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
Disapproves of CEO

I worked at CD PROJEKT RED full-time (Less than a year)

Pros

Great ambitious project;
Great, super talented and mostly kind people;
Vegan cantine;
Very good social events.

Cons

Management and production lying to people in terms of deadlines and methods of production;
Pointless crunch as a result of production team, which has no clue what they actually shoud do;
Terrible mess in every department;
Terrible communication between departments;
Very low salaries;
It's a great place for people good in corporation games and tricks.

Advice to Management

Please start to think about changing your production process, cause right now there is none.

CD Projekt Red responds to scathing Glassdoor reviews

 

[Roguey]

"CD Projekt can deliver all this content with these high quality graphics for a fraction of the cost it takes Bioware. "
"CD Projekt underpays and overworks its staff. "

Choose your path.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

 

[2house2fly]

The slavs will save us.

 

[J1M]

• Josh Sawyer - Game Director and Lead Narrative Designer

• Carrie Patel - Narrative Designer
• Paul Kirsch - Narrative Designer
• Megan Starks - Narrative Designer
• Kate Dollarhyde - Junior Narrative Designer
• Eric Fenstermaker - Narrative Design / Contract Writer
• Tony Evans - Writer

You don't need glassdoor to figure out what happened. As a general rule, I would never hire more writers than programmers for a game.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

You don't need glassdoor to figure out what happened. As a general rule, I would never hire more writers than programmers for a game

Maybe I'm being naive, but I suspect Obsidian attracts developers that are passionate about cRPGs and they all want to implement their ideas.

 

[Roguey]

Fallout New Vegas had more designers than programmers because they were focused on making content and didn't have time to do anything crazy with regard to programming.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Fallout New Vegas had more designers than programmers because they were focused on making content and didn't have time to do anything crazy with regard to programming.

I got the impression that most of these designers are just cRPG writers, and not really designers. They are idea people that want to learn in the process how to be a designer. It's even worse.

 

[Roguey]

I got the impression that most of these designers are just cRPG writers, and not really designers. They are idea people that want to learn in the process how to be a designer. It's even worse.

With regard to the Deadfire team, Sawyer, Patel, Kirsch, Starks, Fenstermaker, and Evans are experienced designers (that experience being Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny for many of them). Regardless,

This will probably sound really bad, but I don't think most RPG designers actually think about gameplay -- especially not core gameplay. I think this is due to a few problems: first, some gamers (and even some game devs) view gameplay as a chore. They are quite vocal about wanting to pursue the story and characters more as a choose-your-own adventure novel than as an integral part of a role-playing game. Because of this, designers often focus on the creative aspects of RPGs to a fault -- essentially letting the core gameplay elements fall by the wayside. The result is, unsurprisingly, worse gameplay that even more players are loathe to engage.

has been applicable to Black Isle/Obsidian since the begnning.

 

[Cross]

I got the impression that most of these designers are just cRPG writers, and not really designers. They are idea people that want to learn in the process how to be a designer. It's even worse.

With regard to the Deadfire team, Sawyer, Patel, Kirsch, Starks, Fenstermaker, and Evans are experienced designers (that experience being Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny for many of them). Regardless,

This will probably sound really bad, but I don't think most RPG designers actually think about gameplay -- especially not core gameplay. I think this is due to a few problems: first, some gamers (and even some game devs) view gameplay as a chore. They are quite vocal about wanting to pursue the story and characters more as a choose-your-own adventure novel than as an integral part of a role-playing game. Because of this, designers often focus on the creative aspects of RPGs to a fault -- essentially letting the core gameplay elements fall by the wayside. The result is, unsurprisingly, worse gameplay that even more players are loathe to engage.

has been applicable to Black Isle/Obsidian since the begnning.

So much for all your boasting that Sawyer would put an end to that habit and prioritize gameplay. He turned out to be the exact type of RPG designer he was so critical of.

 

[Roguey]

So much for all your boasting that Sawyer would put an end to that habit and prioritize gameplay.

That came to an end during the development of Pillars of Eternity, yes. Clearly the ideal Sawyer game would be one of incredibly small scope where it's just him and maybe Bobby Null designing content.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The eternal struggle between gameplay and narrative/C&C, combatfags/explorationfags and storyfags, metagaming and immersion, abstraction and larping.

Obsidian never made good combat and now can't write for shit.

 

[agris]

"CD Projekt can deliver all this content with these high quality graphics for a fraction of the cost it takes Bioware. "
"CD Projekt underpays and overworks its staff. "

Choose your path.

As the the sign hung in my mechanic's shop reads:

Pick Any 2:

Done Cheap
Done Well
Done Quickly

 

[2house2fly]

Sadly in Poland they can only afford one

 

[Mikeal]

When I was younger I thought that working in game making company would be cool. After drama of last days and these reviews I'm thinking about becoming a lumberjack.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[J1M]

You don't need glassdoor to figure out what happened. As a general rule, I would never hire more writers than programmers for a game.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I suspect Obsidian attracts developers that are passionate about cRPGs and they all want to implement their ideas.

Your hypothesis is that they are drowning in passionate talent that wants to make RPGs, but choose to hire said passionate devs that are writers instead of programmers? It sounds like you are agreeing with my point.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Your hypothesis is that they are drowning in passionate talent that wants to make RPGs, but choose to hire said passionate devs that are writers instead of programmers? It sounds like you are agreeing with my point.

I was just trying to clarify the reason why this happens.

 

[J1M]

Your hypothesis is that they are drowning in passionate talent that wants to make RPGs, but choose to hire said passionate devs that are writers instead of programmers? It sounds like you are agreeing with my point.

I was just trying to clarify the reason why this happens.

But you have no idea what you are talking about. In addition to those writers, there were also a bunch of actual game designers. Unless Carrie, Megan, Paul, and Kate received a credit for very minor contributions (which is another kind of problem), this is a lopsided development team.

• Josh Sawyer - Game Director and Lead Narrative Designer
• Carrie Patel - Narrative Designer
• Paul Kirsch - Narrative Designer
• Megan Starks - Narrative Designer
• Kate Dollarhyde - Junior Narrative Designer
• Eric Fenstermaker - Narrative Design / Contract Writer
• Tony Evans - Writer

• Bobby Null - Lead Designer
• Dave Williams - Lead System Designer
• Jorge Salgado - Area Designer
• Jeff Husges - Area designer
• Nick Carver - Junior Designer
• Matthew Perez - Designer
• Olivia Veras - Designer (Area Design and Writer)
• John Cotto - Designer ( Area? Intern?)
• Brian Heins - Senior Designer
  
  
• Adam Brennecke - Executive Producer & Lead Programmer
• Roby Atadero - Programming
• Brian Macintosh - Programming
• Kyle Swaim - Senior Tools Programmer
• Tim Truesdale - Senior Graphics Programmer