Unfortunately, cases of mismanagement, harassment and discrimination are not lacking in the world of video games. After Activision, it’s the turn of Microsoft to be at the heart of controversy, with one of its Microsoft Studios, Undead Labswhich is currently working on State of Decay 3, announced for quite some time now. And if we have no news of the game, it is because the situation would be very complicated within the studio, as revealed by a new investigation by Kotaku.
A third episode that struggles to find its way
According to this article, which collected the testimonies of former and current employees of the studio, everything would have started to go wrong as soon as Undead Labs was integrated into Microsoft studios, because the workforce doubled in size, and the objectives were no longer the same. And if the initial fear of the employees was to see Microsoft acting within the business of the studio, it is in fact the too great autonomy granted by the manufacturer which let the problem spread.
The concern, it came from within. And it especially concerned the management team, with tendencies towards racism, sexism, and harassment, as one testimony states:
” The corporate culture the studio had until recently wasn’t the most hospitable to anyone who wasn’t a white cishet man.. It has improved over the last six months or so. But the studio has hired a lot of diverse talent that it hasn’t supported enough in the past. »
All of this would therefore have started after the takeover of the studio, when part of the teams learned about it at the same time as the rest of the world, when the founder of Undead Labs, Jeff Strain, who was highly regarded by his employees, had long been against being bought out (although he claims otherwise). This sale would have been motivated by the need for a budget to create State of Decay 3a much more ambitious episode than the first two. Strain would then have left the studio in 2019, then replaced by a former ArenaNet, Philip Holt.
And there was also a need to recruit, because given the service nature of State of Decay 2, work on the latter continued years after its release, splitting the studio in two. However, at the start of the project, nobody in the studio had a clear definition of what should be State of Decay 3and this was the starting point for many internal concerns.
Several teams were formed in order to provide prototypes, but the link between them was almost nonexistent, with even friction between the teams. Every two months, the employees were redispatched within the teams. Causing a lot of confusion. On the one hand, we were talking about parkour, on the other about the appearance of animals according to the dynamic weather, without really being able to determine what the heart of the gameplay would be. Internal testing to fix bugs was scuttled by management, who wanted to see progress on the project moving forward quickly, even artificially.
Sexism, a problem present even in management
The origin of certain misunderstandings within the teams actually came from several discriminatory behaviors and words towards women, non-binary people and other marginalized employees.
A testimony tells that the management was doing everything to appear well in the eyes of Microsoft, while behind the scenes, the women ” were constantly ignored, rejected, interrupted, cut off, and blamed. »
And that included even high-ranking women, where their opinions were never heard, their gaming knowledge always downplayed, and always left out of the way when it came to worries.
One of the testimonies then recalls an exchange where a man would have asked a woman to take notes during the meeting, ignoring her level of expertise, while daring to declare ” You’re not as pretty as usual today ” or ” I’m surprised that a girl like you is in this position “.
Philip Holt is also singled out, accused of ” nepotism »putting his good before that of the team, and seeking to employ many friends he had in the industry to establish his power, which Microsoft denies, recalling that the recruitment process was very controlled.
Still, Holt is accused by some employees of pushing two high-ranking women out of the job, not giving them the necessary backing and support, while employing men in their place.
Anne Schlosser had been recruited before Strain’s departure to ensure good relations within the teams, but the latter would in fact have supported the plaintiffs very little, almost systematically siding with the accused. And even when someone publicly pointed the finger at Holt, Holt and Schlosser reportedly promised an investigation, which of course never happened.
One of the employees still present at the studio then declares:
” It got to the point where almost every week someone was sobbing on a video call with me, because I was the only one listening to them. »
A more serene future?
This is in August 2021 things would have started to move, following a series of meetings allowing employees to understand that they were not the only ones to have these opinions towards management. As Kotaku points out, it’s unclear what happened next, but it’s possible that Microsoft and Xbox got wind of the business, until talks were arranged. Following this, Schlosser left the studio in September.
Instead of promising a fresh start, Holt then reportedly praised Schlosser’s qualities to everyone’s surprise, stating that she ” left Undead Labs in better condition than when it arrived “. The studio then witnessed chain departures, despite measures being taken.
matt bootydirector of Xbox Games Studio nevertheless responded to Kotaku stating that there have been big changes in the leadership of Undead Labs in 2021, with a more diverse recruitment with 42 more employees or non-binary people, and 29% people recruited from racial minorities.
It should be noted that the testimonials are not all negative, and although the studio must make efforts, it remained a pleasant place to work, for some, and especially recently (an internal survey carried out in March praised the fact of working within the studio). But others mention that this post-acquisition period was a period of crisis, with managers “ who would not have learned the right lessons ».
After all, if the game was announced too early, it would be the fault of Holt according to the testimonies collected, who wanted to present the game at the same time as the other Xbox studios. In the summer of 2021, Holt would then have wanted to show gameplay internally for the end of the year, which put a lot of pressure on the teams, all in order to show that he was a real leader in front of Xbox:
“ He used this as leverage to advance his own career and image, to the detriment of developers “.
If a demo took place in September, which was shorter than expected, the team would have been entitled to a lot of pressure, while the game is still in preproduction. And if the spirit begins to change within the studio, it will still be necessary not to repeat the mistakes of the past, especially since Holt, and even Microsoft, are not entitled to absolute confidence on the part of the team.