Good people, but poorly managed - Recensione dipendente - Programmer presso Behaviour Interactive

This company is a classic case of poor management ruining the culture. Over the past few years, there have been numerous flopped games, layoffs, and closed studios. The whole studio is basically carried by one successful game: DbD. What is so baffling is that despite repeated failures, senior management appears to have learned absolutely nothing and continues to make the same mistakes time and time again with zero consequences. In 2024, we acquired a new studio and then shut down another one within the same week.... like hello? Meanwhile, the average employee pays the price with layoffs, health benefits getting worse (and more expensive) every year, and below-industry compensation. Everything is subject to change. Decisions are made on a whim. The fact is, you can never trust management with anything they say because they will always go back on their word later on. Take the RTO policy for example. It started as "we will never do a RTO mandate" to "we will only do 2 flexible days which you can choose, and I don't think we need to do more" to (within 1 year!) "it is now 3 fixed days". There is zero reason to trust management even if they did say 3 days is the max, because next year they will arbitrarily decide it will now be 5 days. Promotions are completely arbitrary and based on favoritism and not merit. You can meet every requirement in the performance evaluation chart, get exceeds expectations, and still be denied for vague reasons. Overall, it's clear that this used to be a great company with a fantastic culture, and you can still see the remnants of this with the average colleague you interact with daily. But each year things keep getting worse, and management will never be held accountable.