Kotaku has published an extensive article about difficult workplace conditions at Undead Labs, a Microsoft-owned game studio known for the State of Decay series, that you should go read. The article details allegations of sexism at the company and a lack of direction that hurt morale, and it arrives amidst several other recent reports and allegations of challenging workplace conditions at game development studios.
The YouTube channel People Make Games reported on challenges at three well-known indie studios in a video earlier this month. VentureBeat recently published a long article containing allegations that Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios is an “oppressive” place to work. And as Microsoft is set to acquire mega-studio Activision Blizzard, which is currently under scrutiny for its own workplace culture, Kotaku’s story illustrates how Microsoft’s largely hands-off approach with its studio acquisitions can mean that problems may not get the attention they need.
One former developer at Undead Labs, for example, described sexism at the company as “the lower-key death by a thousand papercuts version of sexism,” according to the article. Another former developer recalled that “we had to have meeting etiquette rolled out because men kept talking over women so badly in all the meetings and belittling them. But the guidelines didn’t help.”
You can read Kotaku’s article about Undead Labs right here.
