It’s also the only system that has the capacity and knowledge to not be, and yet it still is, and even worse.
A system is supposed to not allow those people to be in power or have exercising power. Capitalism is 100% a system that allows, and I’d confidently say empowers, shitty and exploitative people to exercise just that.
It sorta feels like a hit piece to put doubt over ABK, I wouldn’t be shocked if Kotaku went out of their way to get this story, wouldn’t be the first time they did weird crap. I don’t feel right saying that without acknowledging the issues that are or were at the studio though. I’m not worried about the whole ABK and MS fixing them because they know what’s going on as it’s clear as day in public light so they can easily target the bad spots imo but I could be very wrong.
I still have faith in MS, Xbox, Phil and the team to get these sorts of issues fixed. Look at how diverse that leadership team is at Xbox, now go compare that to all the other players in that market I doubt it’s the same, not to dismiss any issues at all that still can happen under that diverse team.
Yeah I think, from my conversations with people in the organization, that there is a balance that gets lost in the assumption of what “limited-integration” actually means and I’d be more than willing to bet that it’s because of Xbox’s handling that things have started turning around (the article also implies as much).
Not enough focus on the sexism allegations and the weird absentee-dad/step-dad framing in the article is terrible.
It is a strange article, because it says most of workers interviewed consider UL a good place to work and looks like things are improving. The fact that kotaku is at it raise me doubts on how much factual is this piece. Anyways, I hope the best for UL and its workers, and if the issues are still there MS needs to step up further to solve them.
This. Somebody is going to have to be on the receiving end on an offense to even know there’s a problem to fix. There’s no Alien motion tracker to let you know when someone is getting close to revealing themselves as a harasser or just a general asshole. The best you can do is put people in place in HR and Studio leadership roles who will actually push to remove the bad employees and not just sweep it under the rug. So far it seems Microsoft has made moves to begin that process.
It must be difficult to strike the right balance between making sure acquired studios conform to Microsoft’s standards, and not micromanage them to the extent that the studio’s own unique culture gets subsumed. They’re not going to immediately get it right every time.
When i read articles like this I start wondering what bubble world people live in. Its like these people have never experienced real world employment.
I work at a University, everything the university sets out to do is in the interest of diversity, inclusivity, and having a safe environment. Those are the overarching goals of the institution. That institution is comprised of thousands of individuals in hundreds of departments. There are bad eggs, people in positions interested in their own goals, bad actors etc. Even when issues are reported there is A LOT of red tape to go through and you generally can’t just be terminated. Interviews are conducted over weeks/months and even in situations where impropriety is evident, you may not be able to just outright terminate someone. Employment laws are tricky business.
A very specific example within my own department was a coworker explicitly threatened violence against a female coworker and it was witnessed first hand by multiple employees. It took months before the investigation was initiated and another couple months for anything to come from it. Even then the person was given the opportunity to admit wrong doing and agree to taking steps to redeem themselves. They refused. Even after that they didn’t fire them, they simply told them to cease coming to campus and begin looking for other opportunities. They were paid in full for the remaining three months of their contract.
These types of things happen everywhere and take extraordinary amounts of time to address. Everyone knows what the appropriate outcome is, but you cant just snap your fingers and get there overnight.
I think @Failwood has a point from the community thead @ XboxEra Community Hangout |OT7| Define "AAAA" - #1206 by Failwood
It seems like their sources are anonymous review posts from the Glassdoor website.
Wtf that’s a bit iffy, what are the requirements to post on there? Like can I go make an account now and do a review?
I’m not getting into a debate…but whether it be communistic, capitalistic or social democratic… people get in positions where they abuse their power.
You’re being extremely naive if you think otherwise.
Basically. You only need a login, and you can then make one review per year for a workplace anonymously.
Ugh… so it’s pretty much exploitable like crappy metacritic, well that makes me question a bit of this now if they truly just pulled quotes from a site like that.
It is something to keep in mind. Note: this is not me saying everything in the article is false. The game industry had and still has a ton of issues when it comes to race, gender and sexuality, and I would readily believe Undead Labs also suffered/is suffering from these issues, but potentially using Glassdoor as a source does make the credibility of the article suffer.
So basically when Microsoft HR became involved directly the problems started to resolve? Then it means Microsoft is doing a good job.
I do wonder then if Microsoft should have the unified HR department for all Xbox studios.
Possibly, but then you have to worry about feeling ‘too corporate’ if it’s strictly 1 huge department or having HR feel too withdrawn, you definitely need boots on the ground and at every location. Like everything in life, it’s a difficult thing to balance. It’s impossible to even please all of the people some of the time and you can forget about actually pleasing all the people all of the time.
Microsoft was casted as the best business to work just two days ago. Not saying they’re perfect, but to try to say it’s a nightmare is a reach.
Edit: nvm
I’m starting to think maybe this coincides with Phil becoming Head of Microsoft gaming, got access to all the company’s full resources.
Just ignore the cult. I didn’t visit this website since Xboxera was created.