View on progress from a disgruntled employee?

[NPC99]

I was confident following press rumours from Gamescom that 2019 would see Bannerlord's early access and release. However, this review of Taleworlds posted on Glassdoor on 10/12/18 is worrying. It may be the work of a troll unconnected with Taleworlds, but, in that case, I would expect more vitriol and less insight. Any company can have a disgruntled employee with a distorted view of their employers, but such mud-slinging often depends upon grains of truth.

https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Overview/Working-at-TaleWorlds-EI_IE443487.11,21.htm

Taleworlds practice of recruiting unpaid interns to find self-motivated and talented individuals who they can employ longer-term on a paid basis, coupled with limited or ineffective supervision, might result in a number of interns who lack self-motivation doing little or nothing productive. If so, the numbers employed at Taleworlds may overstate their productive capacity and the output we might reasonably expect in any given timescale. Equally, any unfocused group might corrode the work ethic of other employees - hopefully this has only infected a few disgruntled employees.

The evidence of progress from Gamescom and other shows/videos confirm that Taleworlds have a dedicated and talented inner team, but they all seem hands on, which may limit their ability to manage the wider team.

 

[Phalnax811]

Interesting...I wonder if this post will get removed (from the Forums).

 

[ermine]

OMG 

Glassdoor , one of the cheapest business models to make money with, at one, the talkativeness of unhappy people and , at two, the pretending of the bootlickers.

However , I see hardcore staff on the pro and I see micromanagement on the cons (doers rarely have the gift of talking , teaching , coaching etc ) ; the rest is probably the outcome of the subsidiaries from the state.

 

[Orion]

Interesting...I wonder if this post will get removed (from the Forums).

This is not the first time it's been posted, and AFAIK it hasn't been removed once. I don't get this paranoia.

 

[FBohler]

Sounds like utter BS.

 

[Rungsted93]

To Taleworlds defence when you have what 60-80 people working there, obviously not everyone will always have the time of their life.
Only thing that concerns me is if there's infighting between some of the managers, that's never good for anyone.

 

[Balexander]

1. somehow i cant believe these Reviews  2. similar posts with this link where already made i think 2 years ago

 

[vicwiz007]

A lot of shady points here. I think it's more likely a disgruntled fan than employee.

For starters they called this a AAA game... The rest of the stuff is already known about the company and/or can be made up based on that general info.

P.s- I've heard people say they can make an account on this site and post no questions asked but I don't know if those posts actually go through and whatnot.

 

[Kretti]

Fake or not, I wouldn't be surprised or worried even if this is real. It doesn't really matter. It obviously hurts to see negative things written about you after an employee leaves, especially if they've seemed to be otherwise content while they've worked for you, but there's not much you can do about it. Some people become bitter when they happen to see someone else slacking off, or when they see internal hardships among management. It's normal. It's a fault in management for sure, but not a single company has resources for everything.

 

[DtheHun]

A possible situation. The coding style of Warband is chaotic. Its indie style couldn't work for a big team. We will see if the boss was able to develop to the task or not.

 

[NPC99]

If real, what concerned me the most was its date - 10/12/18. Given the Gamescon rumours of a 2019 release, I had assumed that even the lowest or most disgruntled employee should be able to see light at the end of the tunnel by December 2018.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

If real, what concerned me the most was its date - 10/12/18. Given the Gamescon rumours of a 2019 release, I had assumed that even the lowest or most disgruntled employee should be able to see light at the end of the tunnel by December 2018.

Spoiler: Bonus

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

There are things they've mentioned which only a developer or someone who knows a bit about a dev studio would know. When random fans post grandiose takedowns or leaks of companies on websites like this, it's really obvious unless they're extremely vague. It certainly lines up with stuff we know about the team already, and it's very similar to a previous post on glassdoor.

Taleworlds practice of recruiting unpaid interns

Wow, I didn't know about this. I thought they were paid interns and graduates at the very least. Got a sourcne?

 

[NPC99]

There are things they've mentioned which only a developer or someone who knows a bit about a dev studio would know. When random fans post grandiose takedowns or leaks of companies on websites like this, it's really obvious unless they're extremely vague. It certainly lines up with stuff we know about the team already, and it's very similar to a previous post on glassdoor.

Taleworlds practice of recruiting unpaid interns

Wow, I didn't know about this. I thought they were paid interns and graduates at the very least. Got a sourcne?

Another glassdoor source 18/1/17:

Spoiler

so many unpaid interns

How many? (sources?)
Sorry, but I must call bull**** on that one.

Regarding budget, they've already afforded to postpone the release of the game by 2 years (and who knows how many more) with a full team working on it, if that's lack of budget, I wonder what's a loose budget in your opinion.

If they had money issues, they would just cut some features away and release the game before it's "perfect".

Yay new team photo! Also yay, I am in it!

Spotted you! Took me like 5 minutes, holy crap I'm blind ;_; whatchoo up to at the tw office?

Moppin' the floors! jokes aside i am in my last week on my internship.

2017 No paid internship:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-TaleWorlds-RVW13374265.htm

Bilgen Dilbaz 2015 - We are located in Ankara and we are having internship programmes:
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ncsug2l/hwTUSXDTBC0

Old, 2011, quote from a Turkish TV interview of Ali Erkin:

How many people working under the Tale Worlds Entertaintment?    

+20 people and occasionally an army of interns(including an Irish intern!) we have increased our numbers since Warband released, it's been amazing watching the studio grow and grow!

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,201355.0.html

Taleworlds offices have this address:
Galyum Blok, ODTÜ Teknokent
Ankara, Turkey 06531

Which is either on or next to the ODTÜ Teknokent university (where Armagan gave his lecture on 1/12/17) campus - it may even be part of the university. They also appear to be heavily involved in a TED university Game Development course also in Ankara: https://game.tedu.edu.tr/en/game/people
And recruit interns from both sources: https://game.tedu.edu.tr/en/game/agenda/news/taleworlds-internship-hakan-soyozen

 

[Abelardo]

There are things they've mentioned which only a developer or someone who knows a bit about a dev studio would know. When random fans post grandiose takedowns or leaks of companies on websites like this, it's really obvious unless they're extremely vague. It certainly lines up with stuff we know about the team already, and it's very similar to a previous post on glassdoor.

Taleworlds practice of recruiting unpaid interns

Wow, I didn't know about this. I thought they were paid interns and graduates at the very least. Got a sourcne?

.... I see absolutely nothing that would require any particular knowledge about game development being said there, at all.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

Tw is in the campus of ODTÜ.

 

[Electre]

Those things on the cons list happen on plenty of studios, I don't expect TW to be way better than any good eu game studio.

 

[DtheHun]

Excercise in the campus? Comfy.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

.... I see absolutely nothing that would require any particular knowledge about game development being said there, at all.

They're relatively common things that tend to happen in games studios. If a random person really did want to smear taleworlds, most of this info would be wrong. Fake "leaks" like this are usually pretty easy to spot.

 

[Imanis]

A lot of this stuff are things that (at least the semi-intelligent and experienced) people that have been following the development of this game know: the Project Management is ineffective and the Organizational Culture is less than desirable.

A lot of the "cons" on this list are common in any workplace that gets things done.

It definitely could be legitimate (as noted by other posters, it definitely lacks the "markers" of being something invented) and, given Taleworlds inexperience and lack of professional competence, is accurate (but a lot of people believe in palm reading and tarot card generalizations...and those are absolutely bogus).

It would be nice to get a follow-up from this person.

Interesting...I wonder if this post will get removed (from the Forums).

I don't get this paranoia.

Is there a "scoff" emoji?

Remember how you've been warned for double and triple posting before several times? time to actually think about it.