Glassdoor Review

@pastaclown I came away from reading that with a couple of things but here's some that stood out.

1. They don't know what they're doing with Apex.

2.  They accept remote working applications so you not moving to the US isn't an excuse @DoYaSeeMe . 😃

3. They're complaining about working 12hrs which is pretty standard (a teacher will do that with x amount of hrs to do at home after) and while i understand it can be stressful with burnout being an issue, it's hardly the most taxing job with clear avenues to address mental health and such, unlike other work environments.

4. Would reddit be the best platform to discuss this kind of thing because it looks like an orchestrated PR stunt. Woe be me - here's some sympathy from colleagues and others in the industry  -  a rally of support to forget about previous problems that arose and not be so hard on them in the future.

5. They don't know what they're doing.

Sucks to be burned out like that though.

I have no problem leaving this up, as long as folks stay civil.

I'll add the mentioned Reddit link as it has some fairly lengthy responses from the Respawn devs: https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/hwmszj/just_came_across_this_on_glassdoor_and_have_to/

There's also a fair amount of decent discussion on the challenges of the WFH transition in this and other industries. 

@apostolateofDOOM on point 4, I'd suspect you see trickery where none exists. I've personally experienced a lot of the good stuff mentioned around supporting the WFH transition.

Or maybe i'm in on it too.... 🤔

@pastaclown

@EA_Davidthanks for sharing

In these situations, I would normally take something like this for face value.. but it's always nice to be informed I guess. 10-12 hours is pretty standard with the work shortages.. some won't be up for it.

I am not a fan of throwing out the baby out with the bathwater. Of course it will be hard at times.

It looks like he had some clear criticisms to share- with the overriding one being organization in a very difficult time.

He mentions there's confusing messages being told to 'take care of his health' and 'work long hours' to compensate the deadlines, due to too many breaks. Something is simply out of sync, and it could be simply this period of time, or its a management dilemma to keep people accountable at home.. could be anything. It's tough to remain motivated during these times, but necessary.

If they're giving out breaks and telling people to take care of themselves from home, I don't think he's about to fall over from exhaustion but I could be wrong. Though I see the .. confusion.

I haven't been a manager in a couple years and I could use the work.

EA you have my inbox ;], i love fifa ayoo

@pastaclown This a complex topic all around for numerous reasons. It leaves most of us with a lot of speculative opinions that we base off of what we experience in game, without direct communication with the Devs. It would be easy for us to say certain statements the disgruntled employee has made at 100% spot on. When they might not be.

It's also important to take this all with a grain of salt mostly because none of us truly know what the work environment at Respawn is like. We also don't know this particular person. I won't judge Respawn or the disgruntled employee off of it. We simply don't know both sides of the story.

I also know that working in Game Development in general is a difficult field. Take any game you want, you can find endless threads and topics completely bashing the game developers. The anonymity of the internet leads to some really brutal responses and threads. Just look at some of the more critical threads out there, they involve cursing, insults and much more. Even if they have thick skin, reading that kind of feedback about projects you've worked very hard on can be difficult to say the least. I personally have learned how to deal with it over the years because I manage a family business. When customers complain, they always want to talk to the manager but they rarely ask for the manager when they offer compliments or have a positive experience. 

The very difficult part in all of that is learning how take the criticism without taking it personally and asking yourself whether or not they make any valid points. If there is any room for growth and improvement. It's a difficult thing to do, especially when you put a ton of time and energy into your work and do the best you can given the circumstances you have to deal with. It took me a few years to learn how to weed through the feedback. 

The "we're right you're wrong" attitude suggestion might not be 100% accurate. There have been quite a few discussions on here that have directly impacted the direction of the game. It's also difficult for Respawn to give everyone what they want. Just look at the maps, WE compared to KC. You have some people who love We and you have some who love KC. If they stick with WE type maps, the KC fans will use that as verification of the devs pulling a "we're right you're wrong" moment. The same can be said for SBMM, some people like it, while others loath it. There are arguments to be made for and against SBMM. 

Stopping a game and relaunching it is a difficult proposition. You will definitely lose customers. I have had to shut my business down for short periods of time to do major remodels or equipment upgrades. Even just a 1-2 week shut down can mean losing 10-15% of my volume. It can take years to get those customers back and some will never return.

EA and Respawn are definitely in a difficult position right now, just like every other business is with the entire COVID lock down. 

@apostolateofDOOM I highly doubt Reddit would be an appropriate place to talk about that, but it seems like the Redditer who posted the screenshot of the review just happened to come across it. However it's really not hard to make a personal Reddit account and separate it from identifying tags, so you could be right about it being a PR stunt. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk ATM have utilized that very well. 

@hayhor That's a fair answer. However, I have to wonder if it's just a struggle to acclimate to the workload during the pandemic, or if the workload itself has been hard to adjust to in the first place. Like the review says, poor planning and lack of work sizing makes them unable to accomplish much in a given month. It makes me wonder if that's been an issue only whilst we're all stuck sheltering in place, or if that's been an overarching problem that the developers have suffered from since the start. 

@EA_David thank you for the link! I wasn't sure if Reddit was considered a fraudulent website, I thought somewhere on the rules it says, "Don't create links to shady websites" or something like that, so I just left the PC Gamer one on. 

@7cyanide you can give people breaks and tell them to take care of themselves, but overall I think it's just about the environment they work in. Like the developer says, no one wants to be responsible for pushing a project back, no one wants to raise their hand and say they can't do it, etc. etc. I think the work culture surrounding that is the problem, not necessarily the developers. 

@DarthValtrex I have to disagree with you on the second half of your post. It isn't difficult for Respawn to deliver what the community wants, they just choose not to. It wouldn't be hard for them to implement a map selector, it wouldn't have been hard for them to implement solos (which would then quell most if not all of the calls for punishing leavers and SBMM), it wouldn't have been hard to follow professional player advice in regards to balancing, and it shouldn't have been hard to do something so simple as toning down the muzzle flash. I'm also hesitant to really praise them for anything, simply because of how long it's taken for them to do anything. I mention this in the OP, but a current developer's response to what is objectively an insane comment, is to be passive aggressive. Did they not learn anything from their own blunder during the Iron Crown event? It's how @apostolateofDOOM says, they don't know what they're doing, and it shows. It shows in all the bandaids they slap on to try and keep player retention numbers up, it shows when it comes to Legend and weapon balancing, and it shows when you sit on the forums long enough, and day by day you see more and more ideas regarding how to improve the quality of match for everyone, and then next season hits, nothing has been implemented, no major bugs have been fixed, and they're still trying to balance Wraith. 

Honestly, I've basically been strong armed against my will into working 12+ hours days and it isn't fun. Especially in my industry as I'm self employed and working an extra 3-4 hours a day doesn't offer any further pay. I always work to tight deadlines on the regular and it really can be exhausting, especially when you run into issue after issue. So if this is the case I can completely sympathise the opinion shared by the dev.

I can't however condemn respawn based on the opinion of one staff member, if there was a speight of employee's speaking out on these issues that would be a different matter.

@EA_David Maybe but if there's a conspiracy i would expect you to be.. 🤔

@pastaclownWould not surprise me if they have no clue how to make a live service game. They had never made one before and I'm sure EA wanted thier Fortnite cash and when they acquired Respawn and saw a build for the new Titanfall game they saw dollar signs. Also Respawn seems quite toxic since being acquired by EA. Remember the freeloaders comment? EA ruins everything it touches.