Kotaku has spoken with current and former employees of Undead Labs to discover their direction after the purchase of Microsoft.
Undead Labs has carved a niche for itself in the video game world thanks to its proposal with State of Decay, which has raised the expectations of players for the third installment. Recently, we have known news related to the game such as the support of a developer studio or the new signing of the team. In addition, and after the purchase by Microsoft, it seemed that the studio had enough resources to develop the game without many complicationsbut new information suggests that they face something more than the lack of material.
Sources mention a ‘non-consistent’ development systemKotaku has been able to speak with 12 employees and former employees of Undead Labs to discover that, after the aforementioned acquisition of Microsoft, the study has entered a kind of collapse. In this sense, the media sources mention a development system “not consistent” which led to confusion and unpolished work: “The test team worked very hard, pointing out all our bugs and trying to fix them,” explains a former employee, “But the managers ignored these concerns and said things like ‘Don’t log the bugs of multiplayer’ in an attempt to teach an artificial progress [en State of Decay 3]”.
Development milestones consisted of a stack of features that were more than checking items off a listFormer Employee of Undead Labs“Development milestones were a bunch of disjointed features that weren’t about making a fun game and were more than cross out items from a list“If this problem already slows down the progress of the team, employees also point out many negative behaviors and friction towards some colleagues. According to Kotaku sources, “this friction was compounded by discrimination towards female employees, non-binary and other marginalized groups”.
“When I did the interview at the Lab [Undead Labs]I was introduced to the idea of being a studio in transition that was making diversity, equity and inclusion a priority,” explains a former employee. “The studio was really about leaders who they painted a DEI face (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) for Microsoft, while women were being ignored, dismissed, silenced and blamed constantly”.
Women were constantly being ignored, dismissed, silenced and blamedFormer Employee of Undead LabsThis is followed by various statements in which experiences are recounted that minimize the role of women in the study to that of a simple meeting secretary or that their opinions were rejected in terms of things as basic as knowledge of video games. To all this, Kotaku has contacted various managers of Undead Labs to hear a response about your most recent achievements in this area, with the hiring of high percentages of women, non-binary people and other groups.
This environment favored the arrival of Anne Schlosser, the first head of people and culture, who presented herself as a person who came to update the company’s practices. However, Kotaku sources remember her as a woman who didn’t do much by peers: “There was a guy on the SoD3 team who was being incredibly sexist, and Anne did nothing with it“explains a former employee. “There was a guy on the Technical Art team who was horrible and Anne took his side“.
It was complete chaos. People left and were replaced by juniorsFormer Employee of Undead LabsFor her part, Anne defends herself against these accusations by highlighting her achievements in the studio: “Before leaving Undead Labs in a routine reorganization, I implemented new hiring practices that increased staff diversity to over 30%. Female, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC colleagues thrived in both leadership and individual contribution roles while at Undead Labs.”
Schlosser’s departure did not improve the work environment, which continued to drag development problems both with the progress of the project and with the constant change of personnel: “They continued to stacking more features for more demos“says a former developer, “It was complete chaos. People were leaving and being replaced by juniors. […] Even when code experts explained to a producer that ‘No, this doesn’t work at all’, they ignored the comment and added more features to the deadline“.
On the other hand, several of the sources would have appreciated some collaboration from Microsoft, which until now has claimed to have full confidence in the Undead Labs project: “There was no no visible support intervention [de Microsoft]recalls a former employee. “Nothing ever got better from my perspective, things only got worse“.
Kotaku has contacted Microsoft directly to publicize the work environment in the developer. From here, the medium has received the answer that all Microsoft studies follow some practices that support inclusivity and respectand that “Over the last few years, Undead Labs has seen a number of positive changes And we’re confident in the direction the team is taking on State of Decay 3, one of our most ambitious open world games in development.”
Apparently, Kotaku has unveiled a new controversy in the video game development sector, something that adds to what we already know with Irrational Games or the well-known problems of Activision Blizzard. For now, we will have to wait to find out how this problem develops, which, as is evident, can affect both the mental health of the team as to the progress of State of Decay 3.
More about: State of Decay 3, Undead Labs, Discrimination and Microsoft.
#authors #State #Decay #face #accusations #discrimination #development #crisis