F1 Manager developer Frontier has been accused of mismanagement in a new report in the wake of layoffs at the company.
The process for these layoffs began in October last year, with the poor sales performance of the F1 Manager games believed to be a major contributing factor. In a business update following the layoff announcement, the company said it would be refocusing on simulation games – what it's best known for.
The new report, from GLHF, cites several current and former Frontier employees who collectively paint a picture of poor leadership and bad financial decisions. One source said they had “observed nothing but total and continuing failures of leadership since [joining the company]”.
Sales of the F1 Manager series were said to be “very underwhelming compared to management's expectations”. The latest, F1 Manager 2023, was described as “a clone of last year's perforce repository with a few extras added, sold at full price” and “an insult to the very small player base”.
A major issue with the series is the cost of the F1 license, with Frontier signing an expensive multi-year deal. “That's actually been the biggest issue seen across multiple titles: uncontrollable spending, poor decisions (such as what licenses we pay for, games we make, and what we fund), and then trying to offset it with unrealistic sales expectations, which anyone internally could tell you even early on that we'd never be able to hit,” said one source.
Another admitted that while F1 Manager 2022 sold well for a niche title, “the spend on making the game and securing the licenses was so high that we never stood a chance at actually making the money back.”
Frontier management allegedly blamed employees for missing sales targets, although the company denied this in a statement to GLHF while admitting sales were “lower than we had expected.” “We have not blamed employees for the under-performance in sales – we value the contributions of our colleagues immensely and stand by their terrific work,” reads Frontier's statement. “Our teams have developed and published two great games that each performed well critically (F1 Manager 2022 and 2023).”
Other poor decisions from management include the acquisition of Complex Games, with which Frontier worked through its Frontier Foundry label on publishing Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters. Said one source: “This business has been a leech on the availability and capacity of Frontier's business operations teams, while serving no discernible benefit to revenue.”
“Integration activities and growth plans for Complex are on-track, and the acquisition delivered modest accretive financial benefits in FY23, as expected,” reads a statement from Frontier in response.
Other sources claimed the Frontier Foundry label itself was a financial misadventure, with Frontier dropping the label in June 2023 after four years due to “disappointing financial performance and increased competition among third-party publishers.”
A statement to GLHF reads: “The executive directors have acknowledged that some of the decisions made over the last five years, particularly in terms of business diversification, have not delivered the anticipated levels of financial performance.”
These decisions ultimately led to recent layoffs, which former senior community manager Francesca Falcini described as “humiliating, dehumanizing, and cruel.”
The majority of cuts occurred in publishing and community management, although ironically Frontier is currently hiring for two positions in this area to refill after layoffs.
Falcini told GLHF the atmosphere at Frontier was “horrendous” after the layoffs, describing the drawn out process as “very corporate” and with “little concern for those leaving or staying.” “In multiple cases, people who either took voluntary redundancy or were laid off didn't even get a chance to say goodbye or handover their work appropriately,” she said.
She continued: “I would also say that most of the people who were kept on – or, in some cases, promoted – during the process were those who were very pro-Frontier, and did not want anyone speaking negatively about them.”
Frontier has announced F1 Manager 2024, due out this summer and based on the current season. Beyond that, it's unknown what Frontier is working on next, besides a refocus on sim games.
The Sony-acquired studio Firesprite was accused of a toxic workplace culture and suffered a number of high profile exits as part of an investigation by Eurogamer that began before mass layoffs across Sony studios in February.
Life is Strange studio Deck Nine was also accused of a toxic workplace culture in another recent report.
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