FromSoftware employees have reported poor wages and working conditions with issues stemming back to over a decade ago.
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First spotted by TheGamer, the reports were posted on popular job board, Career Connection.
The developer currently has a rating of 2.6 out of 5.0 stars on the site. Employees rated the company 2.2 for job satisfaction, 1.9 for compensation, and 2.6 for stress management. Alongside that, the company was also rated 4.2 for workplace intensity.
Reports also state that the average annual income is just 3.4million Japanese Yen which comes to about £22,000. Given the company is based in Tokyo which has a very high cost of living, that is a particularly low annual income.
In one comment, a programmer also explained that “the amount of compensation is very low in terms of the workload”. Employees have also reported working 40 hours of overtime per month on average.
In particular, working conditions for women seem to be worse. “There are no special treatments for pregnancy and childcare,” explained one designer. “Most female employees who are about to give birth are expected to leave the company,” she notes. Another post suggested that “it seems there was sexual harassment in the past” but added that “since there are extremely few women, I think that male employees are quite careful”.
While other posts suggested that there is a “lot of enthusiasm for games” within the company, the more negative comments are a concern. In the past, companies such as Activision Blizzard have had serious issues with their working environment. Also, Ubisoft Singapore was under investigation after sexual harassment allegations.
FromSoftware is currently riding high on the success of Elden Ring which was the fastest selling Souls game ever.
In other gaming news, the creator of Kirby, Masahiro Sakurai has won Most Valuable Creator at the Famitsu Dengeki awards.