There are 3-4 former FunCom employees that worked on AO and AoC who are MMORPG.com members.

While they didn't go into specifics, they had all quit because of management and ethics issues.

You could try and chalk it up to sour grapes if they had been fired, but they all chose to leave and FunCom wasn't the first dev house they had worked for, and not their last.

Sounds to me like these allegations probably hold water.

I don't even want to think about  what it must be like to work at their programming house in China. (I have done work in China's special economic zones, the way a lot of  workers are treated would blow your mind)

Good points Ruslans

The way I see it is Norway has a term for "overtime excempt" employees which is strict enough to mostly apply to sales, middle and upper management and the like. Funcom (and quite a few other IT companies) try to apply the term to ordinary employees in order to dodge the overtime laws, both regarding extra pay and the limited number of hours. Whether this is right or wrong we will find out next year, but one thing is that it isn't just confined to FC, it's an issue with the system in Norway. That's the Union's case in a nutshell, anyway.

It's very commonplace for overtime compensation to be written out of developer employment contracts in the UK. I don't know if overtime compensation is a government mandate in the UK though. I somehow doubt it.

You know the game had a deadline. Well in short it means a predefined amount of work has to be done by a specified timelimit, and if you have not done your work you better make sure you get it done OR your boss will get mad. Sorry that's reality. Most likely your in a contract which means the work has that deadline. 1. You are efficient, structured, talented and get your stuff done.
2. You are not that efficient, structured or talented, you rather like to mess around drinking coffeee and talk  during working hours and then sit down late hours to get shit done and moan about it. OR number 3 you a bit of both 1 & 2 in a workplace which is stressfull as hell and your first ever job..

Originally posted by ruslans

It's quite outstanding that most of the time people speak about the "company" as an intelligent almost-human being, which is "lying", "doing", "pressuring", "threatening" etc.

And it's not only in this paticular case. Be it EA or Funcom, Flagship or Sigil - this kind of atomic treatment is very common.

And it's quite convenient (and for the speculations in particular). You can not blame 1/3rd of the person, for example. When you build your judgment - it's either bad, good or inbetween. But it always relates to this abstract alive being as a whole.

Real life is much more complex, however.

A company, and especially a big one, which produces goods with an extremely high creative and intellectual involvement, is a very complex system.

It is not a person, not a human being, it is a system. Which, ironically enough, genuinely depends on the concrete human beings, this time real ones, alive.

 

If you read all these articles carefully again, there is a common pattern: all of the correponding ex-employees  seem to have had a bad experience with the certain elements of the forementioned system (that is, certain management people), but not with the company itself.

Also they say, that "things have certainly changed" since then.

And it's also not surprising, because it happens quite often that in some ill-formed complex system it's just enough to gently pull and break several bad dependencies, remove some poisoned elements, and then eventually observe that system shapes itself into something new and healthy.

 

We'll see.

Well, it's not a single person, but companies (or it's management) do tend to have a certain culture. And even though some people would be pretty decent by themselves, they can be part of this culture when they are part of the bigger team. 

And I'm sure you know how much behind-each-others-back talking, and lying there is going on between management and other employees, and probably also between different people in management.

And even if you are a decent person, this isn't something you can break free from easily.

 ^^

And Ruslan, just for your information, I am not someone who calls someone else "evil" easily, let alone a whole group of people, I always try to understand what's going on underneath it, and how different people may have thought, so even though I know some of the people at Funcom aren't "evil", I do think that as part of management, they do contribute to this poisonous culture.

I think I've counted 20 or so ex-employees now that has had nothing positive to say about the Funcom management.. If that is not an indication of something then I don't know.

I hope they switch the management and rename the company, their employees deserve better.

Originally posted by Lieven

 ^^

And Ruslan, just for your information, I am not someone who calls someone else "evil" easily, let alone a whole group of people, I always try to understand what's going on underneath it, and how different people may have thought, so even though I know some of the people at Funcom aren't "evil", I do think that as part of management, they do contribute to this poisonous culture.

 

Well, my point indeed was that what we here call a "culture" is nothing else as a system on itself. So, if you are an employee, then you are destined to contribute to this culture in some way. Be you "decent" or not - it does not matter, you're still a part of the system.

So, we basically agree here.

But let's go further. Putting it differently - culture is a system of people's relationships, personal or  job related.

When it's poisoned, it is not  necessarily because of certain people being evil. You see, I believe every person has own good and bad sides. What makes for a bad culture, is a wrong combination of people, and also certain circumstances, which supress those good sides, but let bad sides to flourish instead.

Some people are not experienced, but are inventive.

Some people are smart but arrogant.

Some people are overly emotional, but less egoistic.

Some people are communicative, but scared.

Some people are knowledgeable, but rigid-thinking.

Some people are creative, but too quiet.

Now, mix and match these people, let them do a wrong job in a wrong teams with a wrong subordination, and eventually you get a "poisonous culture".

Chaos, depression, pressure and personal grievances lead to lost productivity, which in turn leads to chaos, depression, pressure... ad infinitum.

I am by no means saying that it's the way it should be.

Or saying that it is not this way (or, it did not use to be this way).

I am saying that while, of course, it's easy to blame certain people and the whole abstract notion of the company, it will not do any good to understanding of the real reasons of why things are wrong, and most importantly, what could and should be done to break these deadly loops.

Oh, and I did not refer to your post in particular, let alone thinking that you call someone "evil". Peace :)

and, I'm sorry Norwegians, but I think this janteloven thing is a big reason why lots of people in management are just too affraid to stand up against the stuff that was happening, and instead just go with the flow.

Originally posted by ruslans

Originally posted by Lieven

 ^^

And Ruslan, just for your information, I am not someone who calls someone else "evil" easily, let alone a whole group of people, I always try to understand what's going on underneath it, and how different people may have thought, so even though I know some of the people at Funcom aren't "evil", I do think that as part of management, they do contribute to this poisonous culture.

 

 

Well, my point indeed was that what we here call a "culture" is nothing else as a system on itself. So, if you are an employee, then you are destined to contribute to this culture in some way. Be you "decent" or not - it does not matter, you're still a part of the system.

So, we basically agree here.

But let's go further. Putting it differently - culture is a system of people's relationships, personal or  job related.

When it's poisoned, it is not  necessarily because of certain people being evil. You see, I believe every person has own good and bad sides. What makes for a bad culture, is a wrong combination of people, and also certain circumstances, which supress those good sides, but let bad sides to flourish instead.

 

Some people are not experienced, but are inventive.

Some people are smart but arrogant.

Some people are overly emotional, but less egoistic.

Some people are communicative, but scared.

Some people are knowledgeable, but rigid-thinking.

Some people are creative, but too quiet.

 

Now, mix and match these people, let them do a wrong job in a wrong teams with a wrong subordination, and eventually you get a "poisonous culture".

Chaos, depression, pressure and personal grievances lead to lost productivity, which in turn leads to chaos, depression, pressure... ad infinitum.

 

I am by no means saying that it's the way it should be.

Or saying that it is not this way (or, it did not use to be this way).

I am saying that while, of course, it's easy to blame certain people and the whole abstract notion of the company, it will not do any good to understanding of the real reasons of why things are wrong, and most importantly, what could and should be done to break these deadly loops.

Oh, and I did not refer to your post in particular, let alone thinking that you call someone "evil". Peace :)

 

Don't worry, my post wasn't intended to sound pissed off or so, and I perfectly get your point, that things just aren't as black and white, but that doesn't mean that I think there are certain things done by Funcom management, even by people I really respect, that I'm having a really hard time with to forgive them.

But if you want, I can definitely send the thing I'm writing now to you (if you're interested of course).

FunCom's attitude toward their employess can be summed up pretty well by the fact they laid off a bunch of staff just prior to Christmas (right after their quarterly report claiming they were doing so well financialy).

It's shows the management's level of class and how much they value employee loyalty.

All those hours of overtime and Age of Conan is all they have to show for it???

Wow, what a waste of time and effort.  Funcom is inept, horribly inept.

What Funcom have done here is not any different then what most industries are doing. You have a few companies in Norway that is a perfect example of how Overtime should be sorted, but majprity will try to pay you as an employee as little as possible to save as much cash they can.I heard these rumours before they hit the press and I ain't surprised they had had something like this happening. Most companies that have deadlines will have something similar going on so this isn't unique by Funcom alone.

If it affects Aoc I have my doubts, the department that will investigate this will most likely issue a warning to Funcom and tell them to change their routines and to follow Norwegian laws. Most likely they will also suggest that employee's join the workers union "EL & IT". In worst case it will mean that expansion pack and patches can take sliglthly longer to produce due to less overtime worked. but other then that I don't think we will see any difference at all.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

Everything I read in that article pertains back to AO development some years ago. If the were issues before doesn't seem to be now - at least lets hope not.  I've never stood for poor work place conditions, everyone I met there seems to be happy a year ago (official and unofficial capacity) If I am working a late shift I wouldn't mind working for a company that picks up the dinner bill like FC.

Avery you have been to Funcom once as far as i know. I met you then. You, the guys from TTH and other fans/press have seen exactly what Gaute and the others wanted you to see. Including the trip to the irish pub.

The work conditions described by the norwegian news site were present during AoC. There were people who did upwards of 12 weeks overtime (that is 12x 37 hours) in a 6 month period before launch. AoC entered "crunch" in December 2007, when the release date was still set for February 2008. When the release date was changed to May, crunch continued on. Prior to that there was crunch period in February/March 2007 and in August/September 2007 - before the other published release dates.

There have been MANY people who left Funcom because of working conditions (i know of 5 who left for that particular reason and a few others who were influenced by the working conditions). There was several emails and discussions on internal newsgroups about working conditions, overtime pay, the law and ways of getting help - i am glad someone actually had the balls and do something about it now.

Picking up the dinner bill? Funcom employees could order from 5 different take away places. When you order from the same places for more than a year it gets old really fast. And when people work 4 to 6 hours overtime a day, and get NOTHING for it, a meal is the least they can expect. What you saw was us all munching away happily at pizza in a time when we were still in early crunch time. If you had come and visited Funcom in May for example, you probably would have gotten a different picture.

Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom.  But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make.

I personaly do not regret working for Funcom. Overall i had a good time there because of the people i worked with and the atmosphere the employees created. But at the same time i am glad i left and i would not work for them again, because management was utter rubbish, working conditions were the worst i have experienced in the industry (and i have been around a while) and game direction was a lost cause.

There will always be people who worked/work at Funcom who will defend the company and who are happy. Those will generally be people who have not been in any other games company, who have a job that require little to no overtime or people like you, who are blindly faithfull and don't see the bad things. The mere fact that there ARE people who go public and that Funcom is actually being investigated, should show you that there is something wrong.

Originally posted by ZeGerman1942

Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom.  But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make.

Since Craig took over it does seem like things have changed in Funcom, it was since launch and during Gaute's time as GD almost a visible sign that a lot of developers more or less had "given" up. The quality of the patches just oozed of stress and "bad" work. It ws surprising to see how the patches when Craig took over just seeme dto improve that much. Almost like they found the joy in coding and adding stuff to the game.

I think it's great some light is shed on this. I'm from Norway as well, and while not in game development I do work as a software developer. Like it's been mentioned, the clause in the contract about "special independent position", is something many companies in software development and consulting is using over here.

Most of the "old" industries, like manufacturing, oil, retail and finance, got strong unions with the majority of the workforce in a union. For software developers though, most is not in a union so it's a lot easier for the companies to pull shit like this. Since so many do it, people think that's the way it should be too. It is not however. It is possible to produce software just as fast and with better quality without overtime.

It's been a poorly hidden secret that things were worse in Funcom than elsewhere too. We've seen the result of the crunch twice now with MMO releases well below expectations. I really,  really hope the management will see that it is bad business as well as just inhumane to treat employers like they've done.

One thing I think everyone can be glad about...................... Erling Elingson wasn't the HR guy and was only the PR guy lol.

I can almost see him with a taser and a bull horn walking around the room

*Tasers someone* You enjoy working here..........

*Tasers someone else* You like eating pizza 365 days a year

*Tasers someone else* Your family doesn't miss you, there glad that you work 20 hours a day......

*Tasers someone else* Bob is not having a stroke............

Before someone gets all out of whack the above is a joke and does not represent my opinion on how things were oO.

I actually think Erling would do a much better job at being an HR director than Kjetil. Erling does atleast not seem mean. ;)

Originally posted by ZeGerman1942

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

Everything I read in that article pertains back to AO development some years ago. If the were issues before doesn't seem to be now - at least lets hope not.  I've never stood for poor work place conditions, everyone I met there seems to be happy a year ago (official and unofficial capacity) If I am working a late shift I wouldn't mind working for a company that picks up the dinner bill like FC.

 

Avery you have been to Funcom once as far as i know. I met you then. You, the guys from TTH and other fans/press have seen exactly what Gaute and the others wanted you to see. Including the trip to the irish pub.

The work conditions described by the norwegian news site were present during AoC. There were people who did upwards of 12 weeks overtime (that is 12x 37 hours) in a 6 month period before launch. AoC entered "crunch" in December 2007, when the release date was still set for February 2008. When the release date was changed to May, crunch continued on. Prior to that there was crunch period in February/March 2007 and in August/September 2007 - before the other published release dates.

There have been MANY people who left Funcom because of working conditions (i know of 5 who left for that particular reason and a few others who were influenced by the working conditions). There was several emails and discussions on internal newsgroups about working conditions, overtime pay, the law and ways of getting help - i am glad someone actually had the balls and do something about it now.

Picking up the dinner bill? Funcom employees could order from 5 different take away places. When you order from the same places for more than a year it gets old really fast. And when people work 4 to 6 hours overtime a day, and get NOTHING for it, a meal is the least they can expect. What you saw was us all munching away happily at pizza in a time when we were still in early crunch time. If you had come and visited Funcom in May for example, you probably would have gotten a different picture.

Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom.  But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make.

I personaly do not regret working for Funcom. Overall i had a good time there because of the people i worked with and the atmosphere the employees created. But at the same time i am glad i left and i would not work for them again, because management was utter rubbish, working conditions were the worst i have experienced in the industry (and i have been around a while) and game direction was a lost cause.

There will always be people who worked/work at Funcom who will defend the company and who are happy. Those will generally be people who have not been in any other games company, who have a job that require little to no overtime or people like you, who are blindly faithfull and don't see the bad things. The mere fact that there ARE people who go public and that Funcom is actually being investigated, should show you that there is something wrong.

Perhaps Avery will wake up now and take the rose tinted glasses off. Hopefully, anyway. And trust me, NOONE with half a brain cell believes Gaute "stepped down". His ass was canned.
 

Originally posted by Yucko55

I actually think Erling would do a much better job at being an HR director than Kjetil. Erling does atleast not seem mean. ;)

Well I never implied he would not wear a smile while he used his taser oO lol. But yes I agree lol with him being better than Kjetil from what ive heard lol.

Originally posted by ZeGerman1942

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 

Everything I read in that article pertains back to AO development some years ago. If the were issues before doesn't seem to be now - at least lets hope not.  I've never stood for poor work place conditions, everyone I met there seems to be happy a year ago (official and unofficial capacity) If I am working a late shift I wouldn't mind working for a company that picks up the dinner bill like FC.

 

Avery you have been to Funcom once as far as i know. I met you then. You, the guys from TTH and other fans/press have seen exactly what Gaute and the others wanted you to see. Including the trip to the irish pub.

The work conditions described by the norwegian news site were present during AoC. There were people who did upwards of 12 weeks overtime (that is 12x 37 hours) in a 6 month period before launch. AoC entered "crunch" in December 2007, when the release date was still set for February 2008. When the release date was changed to May, crunch continued on. Prior to that there was crunch period in February/March 2007 and in August/September 2007 - before the other published release dates.

There have been MANY people who left Funcom because of working conditions (i know of 5 who left for that particular reason and a few others who were influenced by the working conditions). There was several emails and discussions on internal newsgroups about working conditions, overtime pay, the law and ways of getting help - i am glad someone actually had the balls and do something about it now.

Picking up the dinner bill? Funcom employees could order from 5 different take away places. When you order from the same places for more than a year it gets old really fast. And when people work 4 to 6 hours overtime a day, and get NOTHING for it, a meal is the least they can expect. What you saw was us all munching away happily at pizza in a time when we were still in early crunch time. If you had come and visited Funcom in May for example, you probably would have gotten a different picture.

Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom.  But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make.

I personaly do not regret working for Funcom. Overall i had a good time there because of the people i worked with and the atmosphere the employees created. But at the same time i am glad i left and i would not work for them again, because management was utter rubbish, working conditions were the worst i have experienced in the industry (and i have been around a while) and game direction was a lost cause.

There will always be people who worked/work at Funcom who will defend the company and who are happy. Those will generally be people who have not been in any other games company, who have a job that require little to no overtime or people like you, who are blindly faithfull and don't see the bad things. The mere fact that there ARE people who go public and that Funcom is actually being investigated, should show you that there is something wrong.

*crickets* Avery, where you at?

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

You know the game had a deadline. Well in short it means a predefined amount of work has to be done by a specified timelimit, and if you have not done your work you better make sure you get it done OR your boss will get mad. Sorry that's reality. Most likely your in a contract which means the work has that deadline. 1. You are efficient, structured, talented and get your stuff done.
2. You are not that efficient, structured or talented, you rather like to mess around drinking coffeee and talk  during working hours and then sit down late hours to get shit done and moan about it. OR number 3 you a bit of both 1 & 2 in a workplace which is stressfull as hell and your first ever job..

Sorry to post again, but i just saw this post. Avery, i hope you don't feel like i am picking on you in particular, but i really think your love for AoC has caused you to talk about things you really know very little about.

Again, as mentioned in my last post, i think it's great the game has fans like you, but please don't comment on the development of AoC. You were/are a fan that has gotten a trip to Oslo but you did not spend any time working on it.

The game had a deadline? Which deadline was that? February 2007? September 2007? February 2008? May 2008? The deadline for Conan changed on a monthly basis almost. And the deliverables required for each deadline changed.

- Conan was supposed to be single player only up to level 20

- Players were not meant to pick ANY arch type until level 5

- Players were not meant to pick ANY class until level 20

These 3 things had changed around 4 times (until it settled to the final cookie cutter MMO class system it has now). Do you know what that meant in terms of content, quests, EPIC quests? The dialogue, the story, the gameplay the functionality it all had to be re-written. Why? because the head of the company and the Game Director decided that the game was not fun enough as a solo experience and we should bring the experience closer to World of Warcraft. That meant MONTHS of work was lost for the 1 to 20 team. That is WHY there were so many bugs in 1 to 20 all the way to launch (and after). Those guys worked their asses off - they literally did 20 hours a day shifts for weeks - and who's fault is that? (and this is just ONE example for the first 20 levels)

Your statement makes it sound as if it is the developers fault if the deliverables of a deadline are not met. But what if the deliverables and the deadline changes so often and arbitrarily that months of your work are lost? And as a result you are required to work hundreds of overtime hours. Should you not get compensated for that?

This has NOTHING to do with how talented, organized and efficient the actual developers are. Conan did not turn out as bad as it did because the people working on it were bad. I would work with ANY of them again in a heartbeat. The reason for the years of delay, the massive amount of bugs, the broken content, the missing content, the not delivered functionality is purely down to the fact that the original game design was updated on a daily basis, nobody told anyone anything and overall project management was extremely bad.

In short: the people on the floor had to make up for high level mistakes time and time again.

want another example? climbing. climbing was re-worked more than 5 times. We did not know until 1 week before gold milestone (when the DVDs were created and all assets had to be locked down) HOW the final implementation of climbing would look like. which is WHY you have climbing that works and looks different in several areas of the world.

Avery, go play the game, enjoy it, love it. But please stop being ignorant and talk about things you know NOTHING about. You seriously are talking out of your behind on this one.

Your right I know nothing of the game development or making it, but I have worked with million pound budgets and deadlines before right from the floor up into management. I do not profess to understand the working conditions at Funcom, I can only comment on what I saw. I did also take that Sunday as an unscheduled trip up there, I did sit with a few people who all told me they could order food from where they wanted and after a certain time by law (or company policy) FC would pick up the bill for it. Whilst there on that day there were several employees from different area's all coming to collect food that was delivered (few more than 5 different places) - Anyway, I don't work there I can't profess for the in's and out's and workings. It does seem that things were bad a while back and have improved or focused in the right direction. I do not blame dev's either and I didn't think my posts read like that. My background has similarities that can mirror what sounds like the working conditions there and thats what I am relating off, experience. I used to be in HR in the past dealing with a couple of hundred employees too. I understand UK working of employement law and legislation in and out. Lets hope FC pull their finger out and make right any wrongs. I can appreciate some employee's issues, and I think we hope they get resolved properly and those that work there feel as comfortable as possible.

Originally posted by Lieven

I'm in the process of writing down my own story, which l'm gonna send to Erik Bråten. I'll probably post it here as well.

Can't wait to hear it! I heard you got in trouble with the former Technical Director, the very same Technical Director that I heard is the least technical guy at Funcom, is this correct? I was in a job interview with him once, but he acted like an asshole so I thought I'd better not work at Funcom. He made me feel like they did not really want to have any new employees there and that I was not good enough for them, so why the hell did they want me to take an interview in the first place? Cunts..

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Your right I know nothing of the game development or making it, but I have worked with million pound budgets and deadlines before right from the floor up into management. I do not profess to understand the working conditions at Funcom, I can only comment on what I saw. I did also take that Sunday as an unscheduled trip up there, I did sit with a few people who all told me they could order food from where they wanted and after a certain time by law (or company policy) FC would pick up the bill for it. Whilst there on that day there were several employees from different area's all coming to collect food that was delivered (few more than 5 different places) - Anyway, I don't work there I can't profess for the in's and out's and workings. It does seem that things were bad a while back and have improved or focused in the right direction. I do not blame dev's either and I didn't think my posts read like that. My background has similarities that can mirror what sounds like the working conditions there and thats what I am relating off, experience. I used to be in HR in the past dealing with a couple of hundred employees too. I understand UK working of employement law and legislation in and out. Lets hope FC pull their finger out and make right any wrongs. I can appreciate some employee's issues, and I think we hope they get resolved properly and those that work there feel as comfortable as possible.

You working and managing million pound budgets has nothing to do with game development at all. And you can not compare that kind of project and budget mangement at all - i wish you could (because that would mean games would be run better), but you can't.

What do you think Funcom employees will say when you sit next to them at work? I wish i could dig out the emails from marketing that were sent out prior to ever visit we had. "Please tidy your desk, please have stuff on screen that works, please answer questions this way or that" - come on, you did not honestly think you'd get the full picture on a visit?

The places we got food from: Dolly's Pizza, Spice, Ring 222222, Room Service and one other (which i forgot). Sometimes one would be dropped for another. Unless you spent some time in Norway and at Funcom, i doubt you managed to tell apart the different food containers.

I kind of expect you to come back and trying to spin/defend what you said, but honestly mate the answer is: when it comes to this you have no clue. When it comes to Age of Conan, you probably know more about the game how it is now than myself or many others (even though you might look at it through rose tinted glasses).

I love the fact how people compare working at Funcom or game development with any other job. Sure there are always similarities, but please (and that's not just for Avery), unless you worked in the industry or at Funcom, don't pretend you know anything.

I know f*** all about investment banking, insurance, running a 5 star hotel or how people work at EA - so you won't see me talking about it.

Originally posted by ZeGerman1942

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Your right I know nothing of the game development or making it, but I have worked with million pound budgets and deadlines before right from the floor up into management. I do not profess to understand the working conditions at Funcom, I can only comment on what I saw. I did also take that Sunday as an unscheduled trip up there, I did sit with a few people who all told me they could order food from where they wanted and after a certain time by law (or company policy) FC would pick up the bill for it. Whilst there on that day there were several employees from different area's all coming to collect food that was delivered (few more than 5 different places) - Anyway, I don't work there I can't profess for the in's and out's and workings. It does seem that things were bad a while back and have improved or focused in the right direction. I do not blame dev's either and I didn't think my posts read like that. My background has similarities that can mirror what sounds like the working conditions there and thats what I am relating off, experience. I used to be in HR in the past dealing with a couple of hundred employees too. I understand UK working of employement law and legislation in and out. Lets hope FC pull their finger out and make right any wrongs. I can appreciate some employee's issues, and I think we hope they get resolved properly and those that work there feel as comfortable as possible.

 

You working and managing million pound budgets has nothing to do with game development at all. And you can not compare that kind of project and budget mangement at all - i wish you could (because that would mean games would be run better), but you can't.

What do you think Funcom employees will say when you sit next to them at work? I wish i could dig out the emails from marketing that were sent out prior to ever visit we had. "Please tidy your desk, please have stuff on screen that works, please answer questions this way or that" - come on, you did not honestly think you'd get the full picture on a visit?

The places we got food from: Dolly's Pizza, Spice, Ring 222222, Room Service and one other (which i forgot). Sometimes one would be dropped for another. Unless you spent some time in Norway and at Funcom, i doubt you managed to tell apart the different food containers.

I kind of expect you to come back and trying to spin/defend what you said, but honestly mate the answer is: when it comes to this you have no clue. When it comes to Age of Conan, you probably know more about the game how it is now than myself or many others (even though you might look at it through rose tinted glasses).

I love the fact how people compare working at Funcom or game development with any other job. Sure there are always similarities, but please (and that's not just for Avery), unless you worked in the industry or at Funcom, don't pretend you know anything.

I know f*** all about investment banking, insurance, running a 5 star hotel or how people work at EA - so you won't see me talking about it.

But you sure as hell take a great confidence in the Mohawk guy that got fired from FunCom. You know, people can even get fired in Norway for incompetancy. Of course he's disapointed because they just fired his useless ass. End of story. I would not use a disgrunteled ex-worker's story as referance for your arguments.

Originally posted by CobraSolidus

 

But you sure as hell take a great confidence in the Mohawk guy that got fired from FunCom. You know, people can even get fired in Norway for incompetancy. Of course he's disapointed because they just fired his useless ass. End of story. I would not use a disgrunteled ex-worker's story as referance for your arguments.

LOL. He is not only using this story as reference for his arguments, he is mainly using his own experience in the company.

However, I happen to know a couple of Funcom guys that know the "Tomahawk guy" aswell as "Theodor" and from what I hear they are both talented people that give everything they've got to their workplace. Osman revamped the AO engine, made it look a lot more up to date, added some really nice features on his own initiative in his spare time and after that his bosses took the credit for all of it. Useless?

I've been following Funcom for a while now and I've counted 20 or so different devs and ex-devs that says mainly the same stuff. Coinsidense? How many more must there be that has experienced the same stuff, but just don't talk about it in public?