Volition Employee Review

Former Employee – worked at Volition as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – - Extremely flexible work schedules. You can work whatever hours you want for the most part and a few core hours.
- Good potential for excellence here, but currently being wasted.
- Low cost of living in town.

Cons – - Game design decided by publisher and board of directors. Employees have little creative input and are more of production line workers trying to make a game that is dictated to us.
- Employees leaving to join other companies by the day. When I started in 2010, there was 240 employees. Before leaving in 2012 (2 years later) the company was down to 140 employees, working on the SAME amount of projects. Most people left of their own free will due to the bad workplace.
- Terrible hiring practices, and very poor training/preparation for new employees. ("Oh you start today? We don't have an office for you, nor a computer. Just watch them for now!")
- Most asset creation done by outsourcers.
- Lots of backwards company policies. Poor decision making by management.
- Projects being canceled after tons of investment.
- Management and Directors act like babysitters rather than leaders, while also receiving all the glory. (and the money) Very poor rewards for associate and mid level employees, as well as dreadfully slow (if any) promotion rates.
- Studio is severely understaffed, especially after losing 100 people in two years. Expect to crunch full-time.
- Have been personally lied to and used by management.
- Dull "homely" town. Not much to do.

Advice to Senior Management – Take the game making control back into your hands and away from THQ. Hire employees so you actually have respectable teams. For example, a three man audio team for two AAA titles is a joke. Stop spending extravagant amounts of money on food, parties, social events, and put that towards hiring the manpower you need to make AAA games. Reward your employees, and never ever lie to and mistreat the ones that you already have. Company is definitely on the way out the door. Not the place it used to be, and as the turnover numbers reveal, not a place anyone wants to work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company