Glassdoor Reviews

[J_C]

New Obsidian reviews:

"Bad Art Directors and Toxic Work Environment"
1/5
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Irvine, CA
Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
Disapproves of CEO
I worked at Obsidian Entertainment full-time for more than 3 years

Pros

- Good artists, designers and programmers in the trenches - The understand good story - The have a good understanding of RPGs, just not how to make a great AAA RPG (The Stick of Truth was 5+ years ago).

Cons

- Entrenched studio art director who doesn't want to further the look/tech at the studio, develop true pipelines for each of the art departments, or understands modern AAA studio art direction. - Highly political environment. - Art directors who don't listen. - A studio art director who is toxic. - Project art directors who cannot give clear direction. - Project art directors who only want to work with their friends. - No concept support of the actual levels for the artists to work from. - Complete chaos when it comes to when things need to be done or any coherent structure. - Entire parts of development left to the last minute - Tools constantly broken and ineffective - Development focusing on non-important functions and leaving important tasks to the last minute. -Bad Leadership from the top down. - Leads not understanding who work within standard workflows and blaming other departments when these problems creep up later. - Weak development and unrealistic budgets leave the end results falling short. - Lead who don't even want to be lead their teams. - Nepotism is real

Advice to Management

- Learn how to build a basic pipeline. - Art should be important. Keeps your games from coming up completely short. - Don't use the excuse that design is king when even the design is mediocre. - Get rid of the toxic studio art director. He is literally keeping things from moving forward in the art department. He only jumps on new tech when a studio manager comes in as says, "Houdini is important to Microsoft games future." Otherwise he has said no to Houdini for years! - Find art directors who understand the art and technology from the ground up. Your art directors are a joke and really have no idea what makes a AAA look like a AAA.

"I had an unpleasant experience"
1/5
Former Employee - Technical Artist
Doesn't Recommend
Neutral Outlook
Approves of CEO
I worked at Obsidian Entertainment full-time for less than a year

Pros

Bagel Wednesday.... that’s about it

Cons

Management hardly understands the artist mindset. Lead artist are set in their ways and to good to listen. Zero attention to reviews of performance. I had one 1on1 the entire year I worked there. No path to growth based on performance. Feels like developing a game with no plan..

Advice to Management

Hire new leads and management or get left behind

I can't people take seriously if they use the term "toxic".

 

[Roguey]

Lead who don't even want to be lead their teams

Very Josh.

Don't use the excuse that design is king when even the design is mediocre

Ha!

While I'm sure the art pipelines are very inefficient (they said as much in PoE) critizing Obsidain for having low quality art is just absurd. inXile until Wasteland 3 had very bad art. The graphics in PoE, Tyranny, and Deadfire look fine and TOW would look fine if not for the garish color palette (can be fixed with a mod) and ugly uncanny valley attempt-at-photorealistic-skin (current industry trend unfortunately). It comes across to me that Nesler was the best possible employee they could poach from inXile.

 

[LizardWizard]

I can't people take seriously if they use the term "toxic".

The way that review reads, it's 50/50 a codex poster defending MCA's honor

 

[Roguey]

Saw someone mention a recent review about Bioware, so I'm posting it here for posterity.

Everyone paddling in different directions on a leaky boat
Nov 13, 2021 - Team Lead in Edmonton, AB

Pros

There are a lot of amazing talented people there and EA offers great support to help in wfh and work / life balance.

Cons

It really felt like a sinking ship as more and more experienced developers were departing to other studios. A lot of pressure then falls on remaining staff many of them inexperienced, uninterested, or immature. Bioware seems like it is one final misstep away from closure and that everyone that can leave is leaving.

There is not enough individual accountability with many developers who are simply not good enough for a studio of this legacy seeming to spend all their day creating distractions.

Advice to Management

Be honest about project health. Streamline the teams and focus on the capable staff. Reduce the noise and focus on being the best again.

Could the nightmare be finally coming to an end?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Saw someone mention a recent review about Bioware, so I'm posting it here for posterity.

Everyone paddling in different directions on a leaky boat
Nov 13, 2021 - Team Lead in Edmonton, AB

Pros

There are a lot of amazing talented people there and EA offers great support to help in wfh and work / life balance.

Cons

It really felt like a sinking ship as more and more experienced developers were departing to other studios. A lot of pressure then falls on remaining staff many of them inexperienced, uninterested, or immature. Bioware seems like it is one final misstep away from closure and that everyone that can leave is leaving.

There is not enough individual accountability with many developers who are simply not good enough for a studio of this legacy seeming to spend all their day creating distractions.

Advice to Management

Be honest about project health. Streamline the teams and focus on the capable staff. Reduce the noise and focus on being the best again.

Could the nightmare be finally coming to an end?

The future of Bioware is SWTOR Studios. It's the only thing they have that isn't a consistent disappointment, and it's also the only thing they have that EA seems to approve of.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Saw someone mention a recent review about Bioware, so I'm posting it here for posterity.

Everyone paddling in different directions on a leaky boat
Nov 13, 2021 - Team Lead in Edmonton, AB

Pros

There are a lot of amazing talented people there and EA offers great support to help in wfh and work / life balance.

Cons

It really felt like a sinking ship as more and more experienced developers were departing to other studios. A lot of pressure then falls on remaining staff many of them inexperienced, uninterested, or immature. Bioware seems like it is one final misstep away from closure and that everyone that can leave is leaving.

There is not enough individual accountability with many developers who are simply not good enough for a studio of this legacy seeming to spend all their day creating distractions.

Advice to Management

Be honest about project health. Streamline the teams and focus on the capable staff. Reduce the noise and focus on being the best again.

Could the nightmare be finally coming to an end?

The future of Bioware is SWTOR Studios. It's the only thing they have that isn't a consistent disappointment, and it's also the only thing they have that EA seems to approve of.

Wasn't Mass Effect Trilogy a success?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Saw someone mention a recent review about Bioware, so I'm posting it here for posterity.

Everyone paddling in different directions on a leaky boat
Nov 13, 2021 - Team Lead in Edmonton, AB

Pros

There are a lot of amazing talented people there and EA offers great support to help in wfh and work / life balance.

Cons

It really felt like a sinking ship as more and more experienced developers were departing to other studios. A lot of pressure then falls on remaining staff many of them inexperienced, uninterested, or immature. Bioware seems like it is one final misstep away from closure and that everyone that can leave is leaving.

There is not enough individual accountability with many developers who are simply not good enough for a studio of this legacy seeming to spend all their day creating distractions.

Advice to Management

Be honest about project health. Streamline the teams and focus on the capable staff. Reduce the noise and focus on being the best again.

Could the nightmare be finally coming to an end?

The future of Bioware is SWTOR Studios. It's the only thing they have that isn't a consistent disappointment, and it's also the only thing they have that EA seems to approve of.

Wasn't Mass Effect Trilogy a success?

Bioware can only re-release their old games so many times.
And nobody even wants a DA2 remaster, so all that really leaves at this point is DAO and Jade Empire.